"I never imagined I would come this far," says Eren Ozmen. At age 22, with only a backpack on her back, limited money in her pocket, and halting English on her tongue, she went to America. Today, she owns a company that produces spacecraft for NASA. Her story is a true embodiment of the phrase "American dream."
Born in 1958, Ozmen was born in Izmir and raised in Diyarbakir. In an era when the rate of girls attending university in her hometown was below 1%, she grew up in a family that valued education. In 1981, she went to the United States for higher education and earned an MBA from the University of Nevada, Reno. After school, she began working as an accountant at a company. In 1988, she joined a small technology firm called Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC).
They sold their home to buy a 20-person company
In 1994, Eren and her husband Fatih Ozmen decided to buy the small company they were working for. The company had only 20 employees, and they sold the house they lived in to take this bold step. In the following years, SNC incorporated 19 different companies, reaching 34 separate locations and thousands of employees. Today, it is the largest "woman-owned" aerospace and defense contractor in the United States.
TURNING POINTS
• In 1981, at age 22, she went to America with a backpack.
• She earned an MBA from the University of Nevada, Reno and worked as an accountant.
• In 1994, she and her husband sold their home to buy SNC, which had 20 employees.
• She turned SNC into a global giant with thousands of employees.
• In 2021, she founded the space company Sierra Space (Dream Chaser spacecraft).
• She is in Forbes' top 10 "America's Richest Self-Made Women" list.
A dream reaching into space
In 2021, the Ozmen couple transformed SNC's space capabilities into a separate company, founding Sierra Space. The company's flagship, Dream Chaser, is being developed for NASA's International Space Station resupply missions as the world's only spaceplane that can land on a runway. Also in 2024, SNC received a $13.1 billion contract for the U.S. Air Force's next-generation "Doomsday" aircraft. On Forbes' 2025 list, Eren Ozmen, with a fortune of $4.4 billion and ranked 8th, is one of America's richest self-made women.
"We came to this country with nothing and built something extraordinary. This is the American dream."
Eren Ozmen, who started with a backpack, took a risk by selling her home, and carried her dream beyond the sky, is an inspiration not only for women entrepreneurs but for everyone who thinks something is "impossible."
