What I do

Currently, I try to put out various fires: anything from requests for information, to exercises on different projects, and responding to urgent requests: upper management requests and program requests. I was recently part of a planning team working on advanced planning for the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) Thermal Protection System (TPS). I am now leading the LEO return heatshield and backshell TPS portions of the CEV TPS Advanced Development Team, which is led by Ames.

My career path

I have a B.S. and a M.S. in Materials Engineering, both from San Jose State University. I started working in the Branch when I was a student with my Bachelor's degree. The first area of work was on blankets with two colleagues, initially on high-temperature versions of AFRSI (Advanced Flexible Reusable Surface Insulation), CFBI (Composite Flexible Blanket Insulation) and TABI (Tailorable Advanced Blanket Insulation). After receiving my Master's degree, I performed some failure analysis and litigation support work for a private East Bay consulting company.

I returned to Ames in 1994 and continued work on blankets, this time co-developing a refractory metal-faced blanket called DurAFRSI (Durable Advanced Flexible Reusable Surface Insulation). Shortly after, I started working on the Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) Program that morphed into the X-33 Program. I was also asked to participate on a review board where we were looking at the repair of some fan blades in the Wind Tunnel within the National Full-scale Aerodynamics Complex (NFAC) Ð the 40 x80 and the 80 x 120 tunnels. After that I became the TPS lead for the agency on the Gen2 and Gen3 RLV Programs, later the Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLT) and the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) Programs.

I concluded these program lead responsibilities in early 2004 when there was an opportunity for Ames to offer its TPS expertise to Marshall on the X-37 program, and I agreed to go there to fulfill that role from March 2004 to March 2005. I have recently returned to Ames.

A typical day at Marshall

I was working in a Project Office, where the staff is focused on getting things done for a particular project; slightly different than my work here at Ames where we work on a wide range of projects, in combination with research work.

A typical day would start out with a staff meeting for the X-37 Project office. I would have a couple of teleconferences a day. This would be interspersed with many phone calls, emails and side meetings. MSFC is fortunate in having a wireless network in most conference rooms, so the down time in meetings could be made much more productive by catching up on emails. My role was to provide expertise and guidance to the Projects office, Boeing and Ames, frequently acting as a TPS-ese to Management-ese translator. It was rather difficult to work in such a no-slack, schedule-driven atmosphere, making decisions that I knew would affect my colleagues at Ames.

What I like about my job

I enjoy the continual challenges in my job. I also appreciate the opportunity to contribute to something that may one day make a difference in people's lives.

Advice for a student

I would strongly encourage a student to find a mentor. It is something that I did not do successfully, and it would have been very helpful to benefit from someone else's experiences, particularly in the area of workload management Ð what to worry about and what to let go. In college, every homework problem is important; at work, you need to be able to differentiate between the urgent and the merely important; sometimes this is done by asking a couple of questions. It would have been helpful to have had some more guidance in this area when I was beginning my career.