However, a few years later Lockheed's legal department discovered that we had appropriated their intellectual property. They worried (at length) that someone might inadvertently think that a group of management consultants in Seattle was actually part of an aerospace engineering firm in Southern California. They asked us to not use the name Skunkworx, and we said "OK". In return for giving up this great name, we asked them for a baseball hat with their Skunkworks logo on it, but to date they have not resonded to our request.

The bespectacled skunk sitting atop the computer monitor deep in thought was inspired by a combination of Rodin's "The Thinker" and the Skunkworx name. After we came up with the name, we needed a logo. So I had an artist friend draw a "thinking skunk" sitting on a computer, he added glasses to the concept, and the rest is history. (It is not a coincidence that "think" rhymes with "stink".) Lockheed doesn't mind the logo, as long as we don't use their name.

Finally, to be very clear: Pickard & Murphy has nothing to do with Lockheed, and we do not want anyone to think that it does. Our skunk is NOT an aerospace engineer.