Profile: Allyson D. Yarbrough, Associate Principal Director, EHF Systems
Mission Assurance for AEHF
by Donna J. Born
Allyson Yarbrough brings personal and professional qualities to the table that contribute to a rewarding Aerospace career.
Yarbrough leads the mission assurance team for AEHF. |
The Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) next-generation military protected communications system is scheduled for launch in 2008. AEHF is the successor to the current Milstar system, replenishing Milstar satellites in the EHF band. The new system will have up to twice as many tactical networks, provide 10 times greater total capacity, and offer channel data rates 6 times higher than that of Milstar II. The higher data rates will permit transmission of tactical military communications such as real-time video, battlefield maps, and targeting data. Interoperability and coalition operations will benefit from international partners in the development and operation of the system.
Helping prepare for the launch of this mission is one of Allyson Yarbrough's principal responsibilities. For the past two years, she has led the development and implementation of the AEHF Mission Assurance Framework, which seeks to deliver mission success through the disciplined application of thorough, documented processes and the capture of technical evidences for launch and operations readiness. She is quick to credit others whose work she has built upon, who initiated the framework for AEHF, having adapted it from the formal mission assurance process that had been in place for some years for launch vehicle programs. But it is her tenacity and leadership of the Mission Assurance Framework that will see the new system to the launch and beyond.
Each portion of the Mission Assurance Framework, Yarbrough explained, is assigned to separate teams that monitor systems engineering, the mission control system, launch vehicle integration, systems effectiveness, the space segment (payload and spacecraft bus), information assurance, international partners, and operations. The teams meet regularly to discuss progress of the respective mission assurance tasks and the milestones, documentation, and evidence that support decisions, rationale, task completions, and any deviations or exceptions. A computer-based assessment tool tracks the progress, and supporting documentation is captured in an electronic archive.
"It's the totality of those assessments concatenated together that we are working to complete in a way that, come launch, we'll be ready to give a thumbs up or not. What we're trying to do is identify, document, track, and assess all the activities that need to be performed in order for us to stand up before our program manager, Air Force Col. William Harding, and Aerospace management and say: 'All requirements have been met. Yes, this satellite is ready to go.'"
Although Yarbrough thought she was not an expert in mission assurance when she was assigned that task for the AEHF system, she soon realized how central it had been to so much of her engineering work at Aerospace. Her previous assignments were in the Engineering and Technology Group, which provided her with specific technical expertise in disciplines relevant to space and launch programs. These experiences directly prepared her for the AEHF assignment. "I can wind a thread from every task to having some relevance to mission assurance, whether it was developing prototypes in the labs, looking at current and alternative solutions to microwave circuit hardware, participating in anomaly investigations, assessing feasibility of new technologies, or technology forecasting. All of that certainly plays a role in overall mission assurance."
In her position as associate principal director of the EHF Systems Program Office, Yarbrough shares management of the Aerospace AEHF organization and interacts with Aerospace customers and government contractors. Nearly single-handedly she secured $1.3Êmillion in DOD funds for a major field programmable gate array risk-mitigation test program. "The multiprogram activity is focused on characterizing the reliability of this exciting new technology being deployed on AEHF and planned for use on numerous other national security space programs," she said. It's just one of many mission assurance enhancing initiatives she has led or supported.
Before joining the EHF Systems Program Office, Yarbrough was principal director of the Electronics Engineering Subdivision that provided expertise in space system electronics engineering. Prior to that, she was the director of the Electromagnetic Techniques Department, providing program support and leading technology studies and prototype development efforts for military, civil, and commercial satellite customers. Her main background is microwave circuits and analysis, semiconductor processing, and microelectromechanical systems. For ten years after joining Aerospace in 1989 in what was then the Electronics Research Laboratory, she worked in the Communication Systems Subdivision in the Microwave and Millimeter-wave Electronics Section, first as a member of the technical staff and then as manager.
Career Highlights
In her career at Aerospace, Yarbrough has been successful at both research and management and can't decide which she likes best. Her research has led to five patents that have generated revenue for the company. "There has been nothing quite like learning something new in the lab and working in teams with some of the senior colleagues. Not much compares to those five patents," she said. "It was really a thrill to realize that somebody else actually thought something I created was useful enough to license."
On the other hand, she has derived great satisfaction from her management experiences. "Management has helped me grow personally. I've gotten as much excitement out of some management successes as I have derived from being in the lab or satisfying a customer need. Some of the most rewarding occasions for me have been when employees come in to talk to me, and their level of confidence seems to be enhanced, just by our talking. Those occasions have really made me very proud to be a part of the management team. Seeing people grow. Helping employees pursue opportunities. Giving people honest feedback."
Woodworking has often inspired Yarbrough's Aerospace research. |
So it seems it comes down to simply working at Aerospace that has offered her opportunity, growth, and fulfillment: "What has been most invigorating is being part of a pool of engineers and scientists who represent virtually every discipline relevant to space. It is no exaggeration that regardless of the space-related expertise one needs, there is an expert in that area somewhere in the company. What I admire and treasure most about the Aerospace environment is the diversity of talent, skill, and knowledge represented among our staff and management. The environment fosters initiative and creativity and has forced me to open my technical aperture to engage in activities that take me outside of my technical expertise and comfort zone."
She is enthusiastic about soon-to-be Aerospace president, Wanda Austin, who was once her division manager and has continued to be a friend and mentor. She is convinced that Austin will be an extraordinary CEO and believes Aerospace is fortunate to be led by a person of her technical talents, her initiative, her leadership skills, and her stamina. "Dr. Austin's poise and her ability to just stay focused and her recognition of how important it is to get the customer the most rigorous—and programmatically viable—solutions combine to put her in that position. She has been a role model to many junior and experienced engineers, both men and women—just being technically outstanding, responsive to customers, and following through. And what's so wonderful about her is that she's remained the same warm person as she's risen through the ranks. I just admire her on so many levels."
Many at Aerospace say the same things about Yarbrough, who is widely admired and liked. In addition to her five patents, she has published papers, won professional awards, and belongs to several professional societies and associations. Adding value to the Aerospace product for customers, serving as a role model, and assuming greater responsibility are among her ambitions. "I enjoy it here. This is my career home now. The quality of the staff, the interactions with colleagues, the opportunities for growth, the various laboratories and simulation centers, being appreciated—all of these combine to make Aerospace a very intellectually stimulating and personally fulfilling place to work."
For now, Yarbrough exercises her imagination and fills her spare time with woodworking, which she approaches with the same passion she gives to her work. She has made utilitarian pieces, beautiful furniture for her home and gifts for others. But not even that fulfilling avocation carries her too far from Aerospace: "Sometimes I have a challenge that I'm walking around with in my head for days or weeks, and when I'm in the middle of doing something like sanding in my woodshop, my mind just goes off and starts working on that problem. I remember an etching idea I had for one of the patents, and I got a little breakthrough while I was in my woodshop. Frankly, two of my patents I figured out while I was in my woodshop. I really got a kick out of that because woodworking is totally unrelated to what I do here in the office." She is also an avid seamstress and makes many of her own garments.
She likes the fact that her husband, John Scarpulla, also works at Aerospace as a scientist in the labs and now on a rotation assignment in a program office. They have worked together on teams and projects—they collaborated on a 2003 Crosslink article on the effects of ionizing radiation on space electronics: "What Could Go Wrong?" He has helped set up her woodshop and buys her power tools and pieces of exotic wood as birthday and anniversary gifts. "He knows what I enjoy, and he'll buy those things that will actually make my woodworking easier."
They met in graduate school at Cornell University, where Yarbrough earned her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering. She is close to her family and extremely proud of her father, who finished his degree in mechanical engineering after retiring from the Air Force, and of her mother, who returned to college to continue her own education. In fact, at the same time she was working on her undergraduate degree in electrical engineering, her father, her sister, and her mother were also studying at New Mexico State University. "If I have a major decision to make, I talk to my husband, my parents, and my graduate thesis advisor, who remains one of my heroes and mentors after all these years that I have been away from Cornell. I feel very fortunate to have such a strong support network."
To Fall 2007 Table of Contents
