Work Studies
Aerospace personnel at all stages of their careers share a commitment to professional development.
Rebecca Cortesi
Like many people at Aerospace, Rebecca Cortesi thrives on a dynamic and challenging work environment. "One of the things that I enjoy most about my job is that there is no such thing as a 'typical day,'" she said. "The work that I do is constantly changing."
Since joining the Sensor Engineering and Exploitation Department in Chantilly, Cortesi said, "I have written data analysis algorithms, designed optical systems, flown across the country multiple times to provide support to customer meetings, participated in the planning and executing of outdoor field tests, characterized light sources and sensors, provided advice to contractors, developed schedules for future project work, etc., etc.—and I've only been here for five months."
Cortesi began her career at Aerospace as a summer intern, after her junior year at the University of Rochester, where she was studying optics engineering. On the advice of her career center, she contacted Aerospace, and found an attractive opportunity in the Electro-Optical Systems Department in El Segundo. Admittedly, she was partly lured by location. "I was quite happy to be heading out to sunny southern California, as a break from snowy upstate New York." She continued on at Rochester to complete her B.S. and M.S. in optics engineering in May of 2005 and 2006, respectively, and then subsequently came back to Aerospace—though this time, she settled in Chantilly, rather than El Segundo, so that she could stay reasonably close to her family in Albany, New York.
The most significant difference between her work as an intern and her work in her current department (part of the Electronics and Sensors Division) is that most of her work now is classified. "The classified work is extremely interesting—both technically and programmatically—but it obviously brings with it new sets of challenges," she said. "I now have four monitors, two desktop computers, one laptop, and two phone lines on my desk, instead of just the one computer and phone line I had as an intern." Working full time has also allowed her to become more involved in projects over a longer period of time, she said, noting that "as an intern, I felt like I had to leave to return to school right when I had finally gotten acclimated."
Cortesi notes that senior staff members—even the notoriously busy ones—do their best to provide the support she might need as a relative newcomer to the company. Still, it's not always obvious whom to contact about a particular issue. "I would imagine that individuals who have worked with the company for a long time probably have a good idea where to turn for help," she said, "but I, as a new person, sometimes find it difficult to know where to go." Institute classes such as "Learning the Business of Aerospace" help provide that depth of corporate knowledge, while classes in the technical curriculum provide a more meaningful scientific context. "The most useful Institute class I've attended was the 'Space Systems Overview' class," Cortesi said. "This was particularly helpful for me, as a technical person new to space science."
The aerospace industry overall is facing a shortage of qualified engineers and scientists. Cortesi believes that more can be done to make space science exciting and relevant for younger kids. "One of the things that I most enjoyed doing while I was a student at Rochester was giving optics demonstrations for elementary school children," she said, suggesting perhaps that Aerospace could do something similar. New hires like herself, fresh out of school, are closest in age to the students who would benefit most, and may be able to provide valuable insight and support for programs like these. "But," she cautioned, "extra effort may be required to ensure that the new hires are aware of what is going on in the company."
In all, Cortesi appreciates the combination of focused technical work and broad national security concerns. "One of the things I find most interesting about my job is the unique opportunities that I am offered through frequent interactions with individuals at the program office," she said. "These interactions have encouraged me to quickly develop a 'big picture' view, while still allowing me to pay attention to the nitty-gritty technical details."
Paul Burridge
"Doing great work with great people"—that's how Paul Burridge describes his time at Aerospace. Burridge is the Aerospace lead for the SBIRS High–GEO intersegment test program, designed to lead to the successful on-orbit operation and certification of this important space system. "My typical day involves the coordination and working of various hardware and software issues with the contractor and customer to ensure the successful conduct of the intersegment test program," he said. This role is a relatively new one for Burridge, who came to the project through the Aerospace Rotation Program, a corporate initiative designed to broaden the expertise of technical specialists and strengthen relationships among diverse corporate divisions. Members of the technical staff can apply for temporary assignments up to a year long with another organization, after which they have the option to return to their original department and position level or continue in their new role.
"I wanted to broaden my expertise, experience, and contributions to the corporation by fulfilling an expressed need on a program of importance to our national security space customers," Burridge said. Before moving to the SBIRS High program office, Burridge was a senior project leader in the Vehicle Systems Division, where he primarily focused on NASA independent assessment and space shuttle return-to-flight support. He brings to his new position broad technical knowledge, an attention to detail, and experience working in diverse group settings. Burridge has enjoyed this newest phase in his career, and has found it particularly satisfying to "participate in a successful intersegment test with all stakeholders working well together as a team."
Being a team player is important for success at Aerospace, Burridge said, along with other traits such as integrity, consideration of others, and commitment to doing the right thing. Most of these qualities are innate, he said, but "Aerospace certainly provides the right environment to support and strengthen them."
Like many people at Aerospace, Burridge has a high regard for continuing education. He came to the corporation with a Ph.D. in civil engineering and geophysics from Caltech, and has since made good use of the corporation's in-house educational programs. He has completed all the coursework for the Aerospace Systems Architecting/Engineering Certificate Program, and expects to fulfill the professional development requirement in the near future. Thus, he's set to join a select group of staff members awarded the Aerospace Systems Engineer/Systems Architect certificate.
Pete Thomas
Pete Thomas, senior project engineer in Aerospace's Albuquerque office, specializes in developing small experimental satellites. Like many engineers at Aerospace, he finds it hard to describe a typical day. "I work as a systems engineer for small satellite development at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)." AFRL does space-vehicle integration and testing (I&T) as well as operations in Albuquerque after contracting with vendors for development of the satellite bus and payload, he explained. His role in the process entails "lots of travel and insight, technical management of vendor development efforts, CONOPS (concept of operations) and requirements development, operations planning, procedure development for test and satellite operations, I&T execution…." In short, he said, "There is no such thing as a typical day."
That's partly what he finds most interesting about his work. "I enjoy the opportunity to never see the same thing twice, and the relatively short time scale of the small satellite developments." Certainly, his assignments tend to be quite varied, and usually place him on the cutting edge of space system technology. Past projects have involved developing instruments for measuring the effects of optical turbulence on electro-optical systems and analyzing flight trials of a CO2 Doppler Lidar system flown over Ascension Island in the South Atlantic. His work in closed-cycle cryogenic systems for infrared (IR) sensors led to designs for components of both SBIRS Low and the Hubble Space Telescope's NICMOS camera. He also helped prepare AFRL's Cryogenic On-Orbit Long-Life Active Refrigerator (COOLLAR) and Cryogenic Flexible Diode Heat Pipe experiments for the space shuttle. His involvement with the MightySat II.1 minisatellite helped put the first Fourier-transform hyperspectral imager in space. His background in thermal management and jitter control also proved valuable for the Space Based Laser Integrated Flight Experiment. He served as lead engineer for AFRL's track sensor on the Near-Field Experiment (NFIRE) satellite, designed to measure optical and IR signatures of target plumes during close fly-by.
"I enjoy a very large sense of autonomy that both my customer and Aerospace allow in working on small spacecraft demonstrations for AFRL," Thomas said. "This is always backed, however, with the strength and capabilities of Aerospace's Engineering and Technology Group and a large corporate body of knowledge. It's easy to do the job with an army of brilliant people just a phone call away."
Thomas is among the growing group of technical specialists who have chosen to extend their breadth of knowledge though the Aerospace Systems Architecting and Engineering Certificate program. In fact, his work with MightySat II.1 began as a directed internship—one of two he had to complete before receiving his Aerospace Systems Engineer certificate. "I wanted to combine the 'book smarts' and formal instruction from experienced teachers with my day-to-day learning of the job." Thomas said. "I realized that systems engineers were made, rather than born, and that the Institute could hand down a lot of information, from decades of corporate experience, to get me further and faster up the learning curve." His experience in the program instilled several valuable lessons. Two of the most important: "You can understand the details only as well as you can understand the whole," and "It's not the hardware that makes it work, it's the people."
The program, he said, gave him exposure to experienced colleagues, familiarity with the tools of the corporation, and a broad vision of how Aerospace does its job. These tools and insights will certainly help him in his newest role as AFRL's lead systems engineer for the TacSat-3/ARTEMIS hyperspectral satellite program.
David Glackin
Remote sensing scientist and solar astronomer David Glackin is author of Civil, Commercial, and International Remote Sensing Systems and Geoprocessing, published by The Aerospace Press. He wrote the book "to fill a need to provide this information to the community in a clear, concise format in which it has never been presented before. It was intended partly for seasoned practitioners in need of an accurate and comprehensive summary of the field." Copublished with AIAA, the book has been well received by the remote sensing community.
Glackin, senior engineering specialist in the Sensing and Exploitation Department, came to Aerospace in 1986 to work on the next-generation Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, now subsumed into the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). Today, he works primarily with the science and technology of Earth environmental remote sensing and solar astronomy. "A typical day might involve thinking, writing, managing a small team of Aerospace specialists, perhaps a meeting or telecon, and interacting with various customers and members of the external community from government, industry and academia," he said.
He values Aerospace for the work he does and the colleagues he does it with. "I find that the greatest reward is the ability to work on a wide range of interesting problems in my chosen fields, and to keep learning new things. Equally rewarding is the ability to work with the outstanding, stimulating people at Aerospace, in an atmosphere of community and collegiality." He said his greatest challenge has been "juggling too many interesting projects while satisfying all of my customers and meeting deadlines with very high quality," he said. In the future, when times are very busy he fears he will find it difficult "to hand off to others some of the interesting work that comes across my desk."
The variety of his responsibilities include supporting the NPOESS program in strategic planning, requirements, instrument development, and science algorithms as well as solar physics instruments for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R) program. He also maintains cognizance of the environmental remote sensing plans of every nation for the corporation. He has done substantial work in strategic planning for NASA HQ and JPL.
Glackin regularly presents papers at professional meetings and conferences. "Papers have been invaluable insofar as corporate recognition, making professionally useful contacts, staying on the cutting edge of my fields, and fostering relationships that have led to new business for the corporation. I have found that many conference attendees really don't know what Aerospace is all about, and generally express a lot of interest when I tell them. I've recruited people at conferences who are now valuable members of the Aerospace staff. As for the industry overall, it is important to share ideas. It's amazing what results can accrue serendipitously."
He has taught several classes in the Institute programs. "I enjoy teaching immensely, and value the opportunity that the Institute has presented. It's nice to be in a room full of people who really want to be there and who ask penetrating questions. My teaching experience has made me better at mentoring younger staff members," he said.
Suellen Eslinger
Suellen Eslinger is a software engineer specializing in software process and software metrics primarily with ground systems. As an Aerospace distinguished engineer, she serves as a consultant and leader for many major corporate efforts, which include research projects, task forces, and development teams. She especially enjoys research, and has been the principal investigator on several projects since coming to Aerospace in 1985.
Early in her career at Aerospace, Eslinger led several teams of young engineers working on parts of the Consolidated Space Operations Center (CSOC), the huge ground system the Air Force was developing at the time in Colorado Springs. "I had several teams of these youngsters working, and it was kind of like teaching again because some of them were very young and growing their careers. I watched them blossom in their first jobs," she said, referring to her teaching career before she came to Aerospace. When CSOC was well on its way, she moved to the Air Force Satellite Control Network program office as section manager for data-systems modernization, which became the command and control segment.
When The Aerospace Institute was in the planning stage, Eslinger was asked to be part of a team that developed the systems engineering curriculum. She incorporated software modules into the core program and the four systems engineering courses. "I started teaching in that curriculum the first time it was given. Some courses have more than one module—I'm the lead in putting those modules together and in maintaining and updating them and having other people co-teach with me." Eslinger also helped develop the Institute software acquisition and engineering course and the risk management course and was on the team that put the space system test management course together. She continues to teach in the programs and is the Institute's software specialist and consultant.
These projects interest and challenge Eslinger, but they are important to her for another reason: They provide additional funding to support efforts within her department, the Software Engineering Subdivision, that could not have happened otherwise. "There are not many of us in my organization—the people who are software acquisition, software process experts. The funding from research, the Institute, and other staff-support projects enables us to develop new material, new information, new guidance, and to disseminate that guidance as widely as possible. I call it force multiplier—this funding helps us to support more programs than we ever could have supported based on the number of people we have."
Eslinger especially likes teaching and guiding young people, many of whom she has mentored at Aerospace. "Aerospace is a marvelous place to work. You must be willing to take your love of engineering in your hand and go out with that. If you want to achieve at Aerospace—whether you want to achieve technically or managerially—you need to do that. I think many people in engineering are natural introverts—they like to study, they like to do things in depth, they are detail oriented. You have to overcome what I consider our natural inclinations and become more outgoing, become more willing to express your technical opinions and results orally and in writing. And you have to be willing to accept assignments where you will have to brief people way above your level and not be afraid to stand up and say: 'This is what it is.' "
Karolyn Young
"We do the right thing for the right reasons—every time," said Karolyn Young, senior project engineer in the Imagery Programs Division (IPD) in Chantilly, Virginia. That's one reason why she enjoys working at Aerospace. A 26-year veteran of the corporation, Young joined Aerospace as a summer intern after her freshman year at the University of Michigan. "I spent several summers in the Software Architecture Department," she recalled. "Prior to my senior year, I dropped by the office of the director of the Astrodynamics Department, introduced myself, shared my goals, and asked for a summer job. Two summers in Astrodynamics led to a full-time job after graduate school." (Young went on to receive a master's in aerospace engineering from Michigan.) Since then, Young has assumed a variety of challenging roles—in the Titan system program office, NRO program offices, and the IPD, where she now works.
"As a senior project engineer for the IPD baseline system, I am responsible for addressing propulsion, thermal, structures, and mechanism issues related to the spacecraft," she explained. A typical day might begin by reviewing design specifications and coordinating expertise from the engineering group to address technical challenges. "The customer is often consulted to obtain buy-in to the corporate recommended solution," she said. Technical exchanges with her contractor counterparts continue all day to ensure that all data are available to analyze. "The goal is to have a strategy for closure of issues and action items," she said. Eventually, these efforts lead to a properly built spacecraft that is ready and compatible with the launch system.
In the course of her career, Young took advantage of the educational and career-development opportunities available through The Aerospace Institute. In fact, she's among the graduates of TIER (Teamwork, Innovation, Excellence, and Resources), part of the Aerospace corporate development programs. "Through TIER, my network at Aerospace was broadened," Young said. "That has enabled wider exposure with Aerospace management and my peers, whose talents are brought to bear in working issues for my system program office. It has also been a catalyst to branching out into the space vehicle system program office job that I now hold."
Participation in TIER has helped shape her management philosophy. "Leadership skills can be taught," she said, but "using them effectively takes genuine concern for people and vision by the individual." Such concern and vision are honed by experience, she said, and by adapting to a variety of situations and environments—which may be positive, negative, or challenging. "Excellent leaders don't manipulate others through techniques. They employ techniques to bring out the best in others for a common goal." Two hallmarks of effective leadership—respect and humility—"come from the character that a person develops in life," she said.
Young's respect for education has brought her not just to the student's desk, but to the teacher's podium as well. Young teaches the "Launch Systems Overview" course and is involved in the "Learning the Culture of Aerospace" class. "An individual learns by teaching," she said. "As lead instructor for the 'Launch Systems Overview' course, I've had the opportunity to learn from—and coordinate the efforts of—technical experts in all fields related to launch system design, development, and operation. That was an awesome experience." Imparting knowledge, trying to challenge the students, and being challenged by them in return is particularly rewarding, Young said: "It has made me appreciate my job and the significance of the Aerospace contribution to national security space even more."
Gary Stupian
Gary Stupian, a distinguished scientist in the Microelectronics Technology Department, has been with Laboratory Operations since he came to Aerospace in 1969. During that time, he has worked on many aspects of surface science, concentrating for the past 20 years on root cause analysis, the systematic investigation into a problem or an anomaly to find the underlying physical cause in order to fix it and to prevent its recurrence. His work in the area of reliability and root cause of reliability problems earned him the Aerospace President's Distinguished Achievement Award in 1994.
"Root cause analysis covers all programs," Stupian said of its importance in space systems development. "Space programs do have problems with failures. The whole spacecraft is the sum of its component parts, and components do break. There is a difficulty in space in that nothing is really reparable. So you have to ensure that the reliability of everything that goes into the spacecraft is very high. That's what we do—myself and other people in the labs."
Considered by his colleagues to be a leading authority in this discipline, Stupian unassumingly attributes his lengthy tenure and experience with the company: "I've been here a long time, and I've been involved in a good many of the critical investigations. Sometimes failures are very routine, but not always. The ones that are not totally routine are somewhat more interesting, as a rule, but you have to look at everything. So I've looked at a lot of different things, and I've had a lot of experience." His three academic degrees are in physics (with a specialization in condensed-matter physics): B.S. from Caltech and M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign.
Stupian also credits the work of his coworkers—"the colleagues in the labs with whom I have worked so closely over the years. The work is technically challenging. Root cause analyses eventually involve the application of essentially every scientific discipline that one has studied. It's hard to know everything, and there are a lot of experts at Aerospace, and the key is to consult with them when you have a problem. That's part of what you learn when you're here—who to go to when you need help."
He regularly publishes in scientific journals and spends much of his little free time reading scientific literature to keep up with developments in physics outside his area of concentration. Opportunities to do research is why he chose a career at Aerospace. "Aerospace has always stressed research even in very lean times. It is one of the few places where you actually have the possibility to do research."
Root cause analysis occupies most of his time, but he is also interested in forensic science. "I was the first to look at the isotopic composition of bullet lead. I've been involved in a couple of murder cases. I've worked with coroners' investigators on a 'cold case' murder using x-ray computed tomography to examine the vertebra of a murder victim. I've x-rayed some tires for the highway patrol." He helps young scientists and recruits them to Aerospace through his work with the corporation's university affiliates program. As the technical liaison between Aerospace and Caltech, he identifies sponsors from across Aerospace who work with six undergraduate research fellows and their faculty advisors each summer.
John Hurrell
"One of my greatest job satisfactions has been to interact as a scientist with so many gifted engineers and colleagues," said John Hurrell, who retired from Aerospace as a distinguished scientist in 2004. By all measures, he has enjoyed a long and illustrious career, and his work helped fuel some important developments in space system technology.
"I joined Aerospace in 1973 and remained in Laboratory Operations until my retirement," he said. His work for much of that time focused on the development of solid-state microwave technology for space applications. "Here at Aerospace, I managed a number of sections and performed research in superconducting cryoelectronics, gallium-arsenide and silicon microelectronics, and more recently in microwave photonics." Those activities kept Hurrell current in technology developments and sustained a practical background that allowed him to contribute to a number of national security space programs—for example: acquiring the first atomic clocks for GPS; developing the technology for low-noise amplifiers to replace mixer front-ends in microwave communication systems and solid-state amplifiers to replace low-power traveling-wave-tube amplifiers; and ultimately, the introduction of phased arrays for space.
"All those activities and more involved many people both at Aerospace and the contractor community," he said. As a scientist, he investigated how new technology could improve system performance while providing insight into how devices work—and how they fail—in order to determine appropriate expectations and screening procedures. Hurrell received the Aerospace Trustees' Distinguished Achievement Award in 1994, in part for the program contributions already mentioned, and shared an Aerospace President's Award in 2004 for guiding a nationwide recovery effort involving the reliability of heterojunction bipolar transistors. Also in 2004, he received two patents for the design of an optical demodulator and a tunable optical local oscillator. He retired that same year.
"The decision to retire was predicated on the assumption that I could continue employment as a retiree casual at Aerospace, pursuing unfinished programs and passing on some personal corporate memory to help sustain the quality of future satellite programs." At Aerospace, retirees can continue working on a part-time basis and be paid up to 1000 hours per year. This phased-retirement plan is one reason why Aerospace was selected—four times—as one of AARP's "Best Employers for Workers Over 50."
"During the first year of retirement," Hurrell said, "I worked over 900 hours, with typically six-hour days; last year I worked a little less, so I am on the way to a soft landing, rather than failing the test of retirement." Gradually, he expects that new priorities outside the office, and his decreasing responsibilities within the office, will lure him away from Aerospace more and more. So far, however, he feels he's struck an appropriate balance. "New directions after retirement can hold the promise of excitement and newfound gratification," he said, "but if the work continues to be creative and challenging, there is less incentive to change."
For now, he said, access to some office space and stimulating interactions with colleagues and contractors are helping to maintain professional continuity. Hurrell will most likely continue his scientific pursuits in some form or other, regardless of where retirement takes him. "Scientists may change disciplines," he said, "but they seldom lose curiosity about the world around them."
