Brady Pyle, Deputy Chief Human Capital Officer at NASA | How to Recruit for the Most Difficult Job (Not) On Earth

Welcome to Success Story, the most useful podcast in the world. I'm your host Scott D. Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. The HubSpot podcast network is the audio destination for business professionals to seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business. HubSpot podcast network hosts act as on-demand mentors to entrepreneurs, startups and scaleups through practical tips and inspirational stories. Listen, learn and grow with the HubSpot podcast network at HubSpot.com slash podcast network. My guest today is Brady Pyle. Brady is the deputy chief human capital officer for NASA. He is responsible for supporting the chief human capital officer and leading human resources for all of NASA. For this role, he works at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Since March of 2018, he has led executive HR directors for NASA's 10 field centers across the country and development, execution, and integration of HR services, programs, processes and policies. He has an incredible amount of experience, recruiting hiring for some of the most difficult roles in the world, including astronauts. So he is originally from Corpus Christi, Texas. He studied HR management at Texas A&M, joined NASA in 1995. He has progressively held more leadership roles. He spent his entire career almost almost entire career with NASA. He leads a team of 100 civil servants and contractors. He has developed more than 3,000 civil servants, including astronauts who support the International Space Station and other human space flight programs. He has received numerous awards for his work, leadership recommendations and recognition for his work. What do we speak about? Well, we speak about NASA. We speak about how NASA has grown throughout the years. The culture of NASA, leadership style within NASA is coming from a more military focused organization to a more innovative focused organization. We speak about just some general HR best practices that he's learned through his career, how he hires for one of the most difficult jobs in the world. And then of course, we speak about the future of space, the competition between SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, NASA and some of the things that he's dealing with in the day-to-day as space moves forward and is more privatized. So without further ado, this is Brady Pyle, Deputy Chief Human Capital Officer for NASA. All right, thank you, Scott. I'm glad to be here with you today. My career started, actually started thinking about career when I was in high school and I wanted to go work in the in the government. And so I had my dad and grandfather were both civil servants and really wanted to follow their careers, although they were they were more on the blue collar side. I always wanted to be working in a suit and in the air condition. And so when I went to college, I went in the public administration route at Texas A&M and they had the co-op program. So I was able to work a couple of jobs with the Department of Health and Human Services and that was my first exposure to the HR field. And then I knew I wanted to pursue that field. I got a graduate degree in HR management from Texas A&M. It became a graduate co-op reached out to different government organizations including NASA and landed a co-op opportunity with NASA and been there the last 25 plus years and been a great experience of growth and opportunity. I was able to actually spend some time outside the HR field. I spent nine months as a frontline leader in engineering back in 2013. I also spent a year in DC working at our headquarters office and also at the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation as well. So I had a variety experiences over my career the last several years I've been in the HR executive ranks at NASA. Working on shifting our model we've gone from a model where for 60 years NASA was very decentralized. So HR worked autonomously in each of our field locations and field centers and now we're really pulling that function together. So that's been an exciting time to be in the middle of that and that transition here at NASA. That's incredible. So I guess just walk me through some of the nuances of how NASA operates, of how NASA manages and leads and because I don't think people really understand, they know NASA from what they see and perhaps movies or if maybe you're a little bit more educated you understand some of the programs they're working on. But I think that some of the leadership nuances, even in the preamble we're talking about coming the background that it came from and how it's evolved. So walk me through that. Yeah that's been an interesting evolution even over my career at NASA to watch how leadership style has evolved. So if you think of NASA when it started in the 1960s, a lot of the talent and leadership came from the military. So it was a leadership style that was very hierarchical, kind of came from the Department of Defense and the leadership style kind of evolved and the culture kind of evolved around that. And then if you've seen the Apollo 13 movie, you know the famous line failure is not an option. You know we needed to bring the crew home and that was a great success story for NASA. They built Tom Hanks built a great movie around that. If any of your listeners haven't seen that, I would definitely encourage that. But the failure is not an option, was critical to getting the crew home. But then that culture really started permeating parts of NASA that it didn't need to. And what we were seeing is that was impeding a culture of innovation. We weren't really being innovative like we needed to in a lot of areas. And so several years ago we initiated a recognition for teams that we said lean forward and fail smart. And we used specific criteria around that award. So we wanted to recognize those that were daring to try new things. They were they were exhibiting risk taking behavior to achieve new innovations. We wanted to recognize perseverance, you know determination to succeed kind of that never give up attitude. We wanted to recognize learning how are they applying lessons learned after failing to achieve desired results. And then really wanted to emphasize collaboration. How are you sharing knowledge with others? How are you openly collaborating and networking to gain perspectives that were different from yours and different experiences. And so that has really helped us in areas where we need to be innovative to really start shifting that culture and become more innovative and risk-taking where it makes sense. I would say NASA has also kind of evolved its overall strategy. If you look at how we're engaging with the emerging space industry, for a long time NASA would develop requirements, detailed requirements, and then contractors and industry partners would come in and work to those requirements. What we did more recently with our uncrewed missions to the space station, these are missions that take supplies and food up and down to the space station. Is we just said a detail here are the outcomes we need. Here's what we need to have happen. And then the emerging space industry could figure out how to make those things happen. We weren't. We were detailing what we needed not how to make it work. And so bringing to bear innovation from industry into the mix. And so we really need that kind of innovation and that kind of effort to put the first woman back on the moon and the first person of color on the moon as well and go on to Mars. That's the exciting things that we're about now. The NASA has branded its moon program Artemis. Artemis was the Greek sister of Apollo. The Apollo program was our moon program in the 60s and we're being very intentional about we want to put a woman on the moon and the first person of color on the moon as well. So so NASA has obviously evolved. It's gone from military more regimented to innovation to bringing in bringing in other agencies other industry to help fulfill. And right now is it a mix of both is it a mix of other industry plus NASA as well which seems to also be championing some of their own initiatives. So because that was something that I I had screwed up when we were first talking I was confused because I thought that okay so NASA was doing all these initiatives but realistically even before Virgin Galactic even before SpaceX or Blue Origin you were already working with industry. So where where where who did you work with in the past 30 years and and what does NASA do now versus what did they quote unquote outsource which is probably not the right way to say it but yeah that's that's a great point Scott yeah even if you go back to the the the moon program industry partnerships have always been part of the fabric of NASA. So the the big aerospace companies like like Boeing Lockheed Martin you know before them Rockwell we had the United Space Alliance when the space shuttle was was flying which was kind of a merger of Lockheed and Boeing. We have always had partnerships with industry what we're seeing here more recently is kind of a new way of engaging with industry and allowing for for more of their innovation and more of their ideas and trying to trying to invest in and stimulate that industry where we can. So we we still have traditional partnerships so the International Space Station we've got a strong contract with Boeing that get the biggest contract there we've got a strong contract with Lockheed Martin to build the Orion spacecraft which is the spacecraft that's supposed to help get us to the to the moon and onto Mars and then we we've got partnerships with with teams building our rocket as well and then we have these other unique partnerships on getting like I mentioned supplies up and down to space station and then now crude missions you saw not too long ago SpaceX has flown crews up and down to space station successfully and then Boeing is is supposed to test similar technology soon and get crews flying up and down to space station as well so that was the first time in since the shuttle stopped flying that we were able to fly crude from American soil and so yeah having those partnerships is critical to NASA's current success and future success amazing um okay so I want to I want to look at some of the the lessons that are probably more in your purview I actually just have I have one more question on some of the one point that you mentioned so the future of of NASA's put the first woman in first person of color on the moon and go on to Mars and that's incredible what what would be the the actual game plan for that would that be something that would involve industry partners or would that be in a NASA initiative internal and how would that actually manifest would that go to RFP and just think from the business minded folks how this process would most likely come about and I know it's probably not 100% set in stone but I'm just curious how something like that would happen yeah again it's a mix so um you know building the rocket that is needed to go to the moon um the rocket and the technology to go to the moon is different than than the technology in rocket that's needed to get the space stations the space station flies in low earth orbit you know to get to the moon you're going to have a lot more propulsion capability um and and a bigger rocket you know more more power power so you've got that and then you've got the spacecraft being built and and as I mentioned both of those cases we've got um industry partners involved and so um you know that's that's huge for us um and and then you also have in the emerging space industry you have you know Elon Musk talking about um SpaceX has plans to to try to do similar thing things to try to get them wires and and explore and and they're laying the groundwork for some of that as well and we need you know we need them to succeed because if if we have um you know good ideas and and good partnerships and then also good competition among industry we can drive costs down um everyone wins yeah and everyone wins and ultimately we explore deeper um then we can go if if it's just NASA funded activity amazing okay so you were speaking about how the culture of NASA has evolved um and now very much focused on a culture of innovation entrepreneurship I feel like every organization would love to have that but it's hard to quantify it's hard to measure so what are some of the strategies that you've worked on to build this culture and also NASA as a whole over the years so that you can guarantee you have a culture of innovation entrepreneurship and you can measure how that what's like the metric to actually see that succeed yeah and I know from a from a workforce perspective um we have some strategies and I'll talk a little bit about that we also have strategies for for innovation on on the technical side where we are um we are working solutions with uh and seeking ideas from from outside the walls of NASA so we put out their different different challenges to our technical problems and trying to bring innovation um in to NASA where it may not succeed organizationally and then if we pivot and talk about within the organization um we like to say that building a culture of innovation is not rocket science um we actually leverage our annual employee engagement survey it's called the federal employee viewpoint survey and we work closely with the partnership for public service there a independent nonprofit organization that actually puts out the best places to work in government um proud to say NASA has been named the best large agency in the federal government the last nine years but they have different indices that they look at that are based on this this engagement survey and one of them is the innovation index and it's it's basically three questions and it asks employees are you consistently looking for ways to better perform your job do you feel encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing things and our creativity and innovation rewarded so if you think about those three elements it kind of simplifies and helps focus uh leaders on what they need to be doing you know are we are we encouraging you know new ideas and and better ways of doing things uh are we giving employees the the space to to better perform their job look for new ideas and then are we rewarding and recognizing that creativity and innovation might happen so it comes down to those leadership behaviors so we're consistently monitoring how we're doing against that um with our engagement survey and we we probe down into different elements of the organization see where pockets are doing really well in that regard and see where pockets of the organization uh that might need help and and we go in and and consult with those leaders uh that may not uh be showing up the way we we want them to to drive that culture of innovation so that's that's how you're actually getting that constant feedback loop from the employees as as you as you try and foster this culture of innovation entrepreneurship um now getting the feedback loop is great but how do you actually because a lot of these a lot of these models for them to be successful are are something that has to come from leadership and leaders within NASA so how do you actually ensure that this is a model that leaders can help support and help drive because if obviously your leaders are failing then i'm sure that the the the team and the and the results from this innovation index would also not be so great so as there is there leadership lessons or that you try and um you try and uh look for or instill in the actual leadership team leads managers directors vp's yeah that's a that's a great point Scott night i briefly mentioned earlier that um in 2013 i spent nine months as a front line leader in our engineering organization and part of that is we we recognize the key role that the front line leaders play to to engage met into our culture and so walking in the shoes i was able to kind of see um some of the challenges that are faced by our front line leaders and and the role that they play um if i go back to kind of the the innovation index that the partnership for public services built they've done a bunch of studies that show what are the different engagement questions that really influence that innovation index and then you're getting into even more specifically leadership behavior that we can we can look at we can measure we can um frame some of our leadership development activities around and there are there are six six of those things so you know one is that that employees are rewarded for providing high quality products and services so do our recognition programs um you know really get at that uh one is i'm given an opportunity to improve my skills in the organization so we want leaders to to continually um give opportunities uh both in the sphere of influence they have but also we want a model um that allows for growth and skill development beyond your current role or our current team um how satisfied are you with involvement and decisions that affect your work as a third element uh so really having a leadership style that's inclusive and that seeks that input uh from employees is really important to us um and similarly for the element is employees have a feeling of personal empowerment with respect to work processes we want employees to to figure out new and better ways of doing things and be able to implement those you know not have organizational barriers that prevent that um and then uh fifth element is supervisor provides an opportunity to for employees to demonstrate their leadership skills it's really important for for us to build this culture of innovation to also expect um people to be able to have influence in that and when i think of this particular element i think of leadership as influence you know not everyone wants a supervisory or management position but everyone wants a say in decisions a say in where the organization is going so uh supervisor's fostering that and and giving employees that ability and then ultimately uh another key element to this is that um employees have a high level of respect for senior leaders so senior leaders being visible um uh walking the talk of what they expect from other leaders and from the organization living out the core values uh is all very important so from uh from an HR standpoint um you know we're kind of watching for that we're giving feedback where um we see that senior leaders may not be aligned with um uh either what's what's being expected in the organization or um you know modeling of core values and so uh having those conversations and and that accountability is important as well so this is how you've built your culture this is this this feedback loop between the leadership basically these points for leadership and these points for employees this is how you've actually built the actual culture that has uh like some of the some of the items you mentioned before where you were one of the highest ranked places to work in in federal government but also in in the United States if i'm not mistaken this is the culture that's sort of fostered that um these and this is or go ahead sorry yeah no you're right on scott and if and if you look at the the things that we've talked about here these these are not things that are unique to NASA unique to our workforce i mean these are very um translatable uh actionable things that that really any organization can do to build build that culture of engagement build that culture of innovation um you know no matter what industry you're in or what organization you're in uh the kinds of things that that we've done again or not not unique to us or or the fact that we've got rocket scientists so so okay so next next so we figured out culture um i want to understand unpack uh how you hire so how you hire employees how you uh what are what are some of the the high level learnings um for hiring into because let's just assume so let's let's assume this is the model organization so if we have a model organization we have a model culture how do you hire people into this organization so that you can obviously maintain this culture is it looking for the right people or is it is it something that you do that where you source people from what are some lessons for people that are looking to hire the right people that uh that you recommend i just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot is the CRM platform that is easy to implement and it's even easier to get your team to adopt and ask anybody that's implemented new technology in a company the biggest issue is not finding it or buying it it's getting your team and your company to actually use it and adopt it and when it's a piece like a CRM one of the most critical pieces of your business infrastructure and your tech stack if people don't adopt it and use it that means you're getting incomplete data you're getting missing data you're getting garbage data it could impact quite literally everybody in your company as well as it could negatively impact your customers and your revenue so how does HubSpot solve for this with their CRM platform there's two 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metric dot com slash pod offer and go see if you qualify for the 12 days of insights offer using the code success the 12 days of insight offer gives you 12 days of access to the quantum metric platform with a bespoke insight report that will help you identify where customers are struggling and engaging with your online experience and your digital product some restrictions apply but for the majority of people go to quantum metric dot com slash pod offer enter the code success and you will be able to receive their 12 days of insights offer get ready to understand your customers with intimate detail they can optimize experience and revenue and give your customers an overall much more pleasant experience when they hit your site all right let's get back to the yes so for us you know technical education and experience kind of kind of get you to the door but but really we're we're looking for kind of people who fit the culture and and align to the the core values that NASA has so core values of teamwork excellence integrity inclusion so the kinds of things we look for is what is the track record for excellent results how do they work in teams what has been their experience being part of the team and certainly what we like to hear too is are they passionate about the mission usually people come to NASA because they want to explore they want to they're excited about the the kinds of things that we're up to and so we're we're looking for people who align with and care about and are excited about the mission now the other thing from a from a workforce standpoint like at the Johnson Space Center in Houston for example we have about 3,000 NASA positions government positions there are another about 12,000 people who are on on contract so that's people who work for Boeing Lockheed Martin other companies there's there's probably about 50 companies represented on site here in Houston so a lot of times when we're looking for experienced hires that is our talent pool source in a lot of cases so we've seen their track record of results we we've watched them in their roles as contractors and saw how they lead how they work and from a from an HR perspective you can't really get much better than that because past performance is always the best predictor for future performance so if you've seen them operate that's way more than than a traditional interview can do for you so we tend to blend about half of our hires come through that pool and then about half come directly from colleges and universities and we have a real strong kind of student program as well that kind of facilitates us seeing people in action before we before we bring them on board even as students and I was going to so I'm also curious and and and I and I have to go into this how do you hire astronauts because I think that so all these lessons are incredible but I think that the fact that somebody is going to be potentially going to space adds a an extra level of complexity into the hiring process so I'm very curious how how you do that yeah absolutely and as as you might expect I mean we've got a very detailed lengthy selection process so we've got you know traditional interviews that you do for most jobs we involve other current crew members current astronauts because they're looking from the perspective of can I fly with this person you know if I'm if I'm going to a deep space mission either to moon or to Mars you're talking months potentially years at a time in small confined spaces so you know am I able to to fly with those persons a big thing they're looking at there's a lot of psychological assessments there's a lot of medical screening to very very rigorous process that folks go through ultimately get into the astronaut program and excuse me excuse me how many people actually end up applying for this like what's the selection process like if anybody wanted to be an astronaut as a kid I'm sure they were I'm sure they were wondering what their chances were like and I'm sure they're not so great because I you know how many people are actually selected it doesn't seem to be a lot so yeah your odds the last couple of cycles are probably less than one and a thousand of people who apply so in 2017 we actually had a record number of applicants we had 18,000 people who applied to be an astronaut and a lot of that was we had a a strong recruitment blitz we had a great social media campaign and marketing campaign and really drove those numbers up ultimately out of the 18,000 you applied 13 were selected and so yeah you're less than one and a thousand in that we we are going through a process right now we actually had an application window earlier this year we had 12,000 applicants this year and we're anticipating hiring 10 to 12 people now the difference between 2017 and 2021 is in 2017 we only required a bachelor level degree 2021 we came back and said you know if we look at the past few astronaut classes it's hard it's hard to even get past the initial screening without at least a master's degree so that was the the entry level requirement was changed in 2021 to a master's degree so that impacted a little bit of our our applicant members but really didn't impact that that front level assessment generally speaking you're more competitive even with the PhD level really either science or engineering degree there are folks with masters depending on the the kind of astronaut you are as well we have we hire pilots from the military and those were were even more critical back in the shuttle days when you actually were flying the shuttle the capsule like program is a little bit less you know like flying the jets that they fly in the military so a little bit different and the PhDs would be to provide so if these would be so just tell me understand why a PhD would be required yeah so so today we're flying crew members up and down to space station most of what they're doing is scientific research and experiments so they're conducting experiments aboard the space station they've got detailed requirements about those of looking at various things looking at medical technology looking at agricultural technology because you know you've got to be able to grow your own food in space especially if you're going to go to Mars and and deeper space missions so you know a lot of the folks when when you get into this this kind of competition what what tends to set people apart is is they've got a little bit more either that's a little bit more education or a little bit more experience and what would disqualify somebody from being an astronaut besides the fact that there's already a ton of competition and there's interviews psychological screening there's probably I'm assuming some sort of physical requirements as well yeah so are there other things that may disqualify an astronaut from from actually being hired yeah we you know we we tend to ask the kind of questions and assess their experience on explorations so if you think of people who are big mountain climbers or scuba divers or they've spent you know time and kind of deep sea exploration there there's a lot of corollary there um so some folks get eliminated because they don't have that kind of that kind of experience in their background um but probably the most surprising thing I think that that not some people out is man our culture and core value is around teamwork and every team member is important so um you know you've got your traditional interview process you get like I said the medical screenings and other things so um as part of the process we we ask the the receptionists we ask the nurses you know how how are the candidates how did they interact with you and we have eliminated some folks in the process who treated receptionists and nurses differently than they did other folks not realizing I think that they hey these folks are part of the process too they're part of the NASA team and so um that's that's really important to us that we get astronauts who appreciate uh all team members and all contributions and so that's another element that we look for as well and for somebody who is still holding on to the dream that they can be an astronaut or perhaps there's a there's a kid listening to this podcast somewhere what does make the perfect astronaut yeah I think um you know I think I think a lot of folks want to be an astronaut for different reasons I mean some some folks dream of being one since they were a kid you know whether they love space or they saw one on TV or looked up to astronauts um I think others kind of kind of bump into that along the way in their career path um they see uh whether they're kind of a test pilot in the military their um scientists or engineers that have this this inner desire to explore uh or to be part of a team or or really want to be um a leader in some way um there's just that there have been a lot of different reasons that have led people um to this path and there are a lot of people who dream of of being an astronaut you talk to a lot and hear a lot of the current astronauts many of them have to apply three and four times so they had to to kind of be persistence uh they would get feedback through the interview process of other skills they need to develop experiences they need to have to make themselves more competitive and you know hung in there and and eventually uh you know made it through the process but it's it is extremely extremely competitive and as a grind let's get a way to put it it's amazing okay um I want to I want to uh pick your brain about some of the uh I guess relevant topical uh space companies or stories that are in the news and how they interact with NASA but I also want to give you a chance to um to show off a little bit because you had dropped some really impressive numbers on uh NASA employee tenure and workforce numbers um that I think we spoke okay so we spoken about culture we spoken about how you hire an onboard some leadership lessons we spoke about astronauts that was fun but I think that all of this I want to just tie it up with and put a bow on it some of the some of the numbers that you experience in terms of uh your employee uh attrition rate you how many employees stay with the company the length of tenure these are all very um in my opinion uh impressive stats because I feel like I'll let you talk about these numbers but I feel like that's not the norm in many companies I feel like that come people last a lot people do not last half as long in many companies and the attrition or the churn of employees is much higher or attrition rather so walk me through some of these numbers and I want to uh I want to congratulate you because they're very impressive yeah and Scott I would I would say they're um you know people come to NASA for the mission and then stay for for both the mission and the people they work with you know again this teamwork culture you develop these these relationships and um and I think there's a there's a shadow side to our numbers too that I'll talk about um okay so yeah the the average NASA employee is is about 48 years old they've got about 18 years of experience at NASA um we run about 4% attrition per year which is extremely low so our workforce changes very slowly over time one of the disadvantages of the NASA workforce is that less than 5% is under under the age of 30 so what what you're seeing right now kind of in the space industry is that um a lot of uh college grads um younger talent is going to the emerging space industry um you know the SpaceX Blue Origin you know those those companies um and then you know we're hopeful that over time we're gonna see a revolving door and kind of what what we like to call porous borders between NASA and the space industry but the artwork force is is very stable um but the challenge that provides for us is that um I've heard it said that that really to change culture uh true organization culture change you can rule of thumb you can take about half of your average employee tenure and that's how long it will take to change the culture well if that's true for NASA that's a nine year um you know nine years to to turn the ship which in our case is then influenced by different administrations as well so a lot of times NASA pivots with changes in presidential administration one of the the nice things about our current approach is that um the previous administration had had come up with the the Artemis idea and putting a first woman on the moon and the new administration came in and and embraced that and then added to them said hey we should also put a person of color on the moon as well so they've kind of enhanced that that program but what we've seen in past administrations is that we've done complete pivots or right turns which then makes it makes it hard for the culture and the organization given the um you know the ten year and the stability of the workforce so there's some positives in that and that yeah people come they want to stay they feel passionate other numbers that we have show our scientists and engineers typically stay uh five to seven years past their retirement eligibility so you know people um they're passionate about the work it's a good spot to work yeah passionate about the work passionate about the team and the relationships the you know if you think of in your average 10 years 18 years you you get a lot of long-standing relationships built you know in this team amazing okay so I want to unpack the relationship between NASA and some of the emerging uh space companies so you touched on this before um you did say that you work in tandem with a lot of these organizations but walk me through uh some of that relationship um how NASA initiatives interweave with some of the initiatives of some of these you know SpaceX Blue Origin and so on and so forth yeah and I think if I go back to some of the starting point I alluded to that earlier about how we changed our our approach to contracts but um you know a lot of us started when we were looking to get uncrewed missions for for food and supply up and down to the space station so we awarded contracts to SpaceX to Boeing to Blue Origin um for that so they they were all developing um spacecraft and and methods to get those supplies up and down to space station um now we're going through a contract process for the next lunar lander which is which is key to this Artemis mission you know we're going to the moon you gotta have a a a lander that will get to um to the surface of the moon and so we we selected SpaceX for that contract um Blue Origin actually protested that that award and um it was interesting because there was a big headline here a few weeks back that the Jeff Bezos said hey I'll pay the the two billion dollars and in fees on the contract um which which is really challenging for NASA because we have to abide by federal government acquisition regulations and so we're trying to work through that I mean how to you know how do we handle this this is kind of unprecedented in government contracting to have that level of uh uh investment offer being paid by your by your offer so um you know as as I mentioned sky we're you know we're seeing a lot of young talent you know move into these organizations they're getting really good hands-on experience and and so we want uh from a workforce and talent strategy we we really want um folks to be flowing in and out from these organizations come in and influence the the NASA culture keep us innovative you know keep pushing us and then we want folks is they get a little more experience in NASA to be able to go to the SpaceX's and Blue Origins and kind of lend experience and in that direction as well so um we're actually working with Congress now on some legislative proposals that'll that would better enable that kind of strategy you know the exchange of talent um because there are there are rules around you know particularly when you get into a certain level at NASA and you can influence contract decisions you know you have to be real careful kind of how people move and uh for future uh contract competitions and that sort of thing and and do you find that there is like a like a rocket scientist talent war where you may lose access to talent because of emerging space organizations private space organizations yeah that's a great question i i think um you know we're we're not seeing it that way and we're not really thinking of it that way uh right now we have not we haven't seen those kinds of impacts uh to this point but part of NASA's mandate is to help help with STEM education and provide STEM talent for America so from our perspective we're excited that the the the billionaires are joining us and in providing kind of inspiration to America's youth um you know we have with 4% attrition relatively stable budgets that leaves you with very little hiring capability so we need these two these companies to attract the students from colleges and universities uh if they're gonna get started in uh the aerospace industry um you know we just based on NASA's capability we couldn't attract enough talent uh that's coming out of the colleges university so it's it's awesome to see they have unique exciting opportunities can can lend their energy and and innovation to these companies and and again hopefully take us further in space than the NASA could go on its own amazing um i wanted to um just ask uh i always tee these up with a few rapid like uh career questions rapid fire career questions the bullets of insight from you before you pivot was there any other closing points that you want to touch on for NASA HR culture leadership anything there and then also how do people get in contact with you is their social website what's the best spot yeah so um you know i i think for for NASA part of part of what i've seen is um our success comes from continually trying to learn and so we are we're out there a lot you know benchmarking with other companies um involved in in conferences and other things to try to try to stay and in touch with uh with what's going on from a leadership perspective uh certainly a hot topic right now for for us and a lot of a lot of organizations is the future of work um you know we have had uh NASA's had for the last 60 years of very um facilities in person based organization and and we've had to pivot like a lot of companies have the last year and a half to to more of this kind of teamwork you know how do you do the screen-to-screen relationships and um so we're really really working on that um so yeah if listeners have ideas want to engage want to have conversations i am out there on linkedin uh also on on twitter as well i got a blog on the side that's called out of this world leadership that's um clever and uh one of the things that i keep me going as far as continuing with the read and the learn about leadership and in different aspects of it so glad to engage with with folks and and have conversations that will help us all improve amazing okay perfect okay so let's go into some rapid fire and you don't feel don't feel rushed but i just say it because uh there's a few they're very very short question um so biggest challenge you've had in your career um what was it and how did you overcome it uh biggest challenge was we we had an issue um at the johnson space center houston um that involved kind of how we hired students the the government had changed its rules on the co-op program and uh we had some big challenges and differences and in philosophy and approach between the local approach we were taking in houston and what are folks at headquarters thought that we should be doing um as a leader i had to personally engage um in those relationships build trust with the um with the team from head corps to show um we we were taking some risks with the uh with the approach we were taking and why we were doing that um how it was going to help the agency mission um but then really showing that showing that trust and building the trust with uh with the team from head corps um was big so that's what i found mostly in my career is relationships and and working with people is is key to success and um keeping those relationships strong uh i love the advice that you you never know who you're going to work for uh i've certainly observed that in my career and and experienced it as well so as you keep those relationships strong and uh uh with with a variety of people you'll be in a good spot good advice um if you had to choose one person i know there's probably been many but one person who's been very impactful in your uh life it could have been a mentor could have been a family member appear whatever um who was that person and what did they teach you yeah so i actually um kind of early in my my leadership career um let's see that would have been uh probably about 17 years ago uh i was making the transition into kind of a leadership role this was the 2004 time frame we were um we were going into uh that was right after the Columbia accident shuttle Columbia accident in 2003 and we were doing a big hiring surge in engineering to bring more engineers uh back in to get the shuttle to return to flight um at the time i had kids that were four and two at home and so my pattern was um i would go to work i would come home have dinner with the kids help put the kids to sleep and then i would go back in and do more work and i had a mentor at the time his name was Joe Tanner he was actually in the astronaut program um and then i knew him from church as well and and Joe told me he said you know he goes uh in your life stage and where you are because it's easy to focus on you know your role at work and then your role as a father he is but you really need to focus on your role as a husband as well and so that led me to have conversations with my wife and make make adjustments and and i think i mean i just observed um what i what i often tell leaders is NASA will take as much as you're willing to give it so you've got to set those boundaries and and figure out um you know your own work life fit and i think without Joe's advice Joe Tanner's advice there um i don't know i could have been making some some bad choices that could could have hindered my marriage and coming up on uh 25th anniversary year this January and um congratulations yeah very very excited about that but that was pivotal advice from someone who had been there you know and that's that's where i encourage leaders get them into or you know get someone uh you know who can help you you know navigate some of the life challenges very good um if you had a book or podcast um that's impacted you you'd recommend somebody go check out what would it be so i'm i'm a big fan of uh uh John Maxwell and i know early in my leadership career his his book the 360 degree leader was really pivotal for me so making the transition to leadership i focused a lot on my relationship with my boss my relationship with my team and what what he pointed out in the book is the criticality of your relationship with your peers after reading that i began to be more intentional about going to lunch with peers even though um we didn't necessarily have to work together on different things um but building those relationships were were critical because then i moved into different leadership roles um where where i had to work work with them from a little different position um and i i think that was that was a pivotal book he's got other books out there that are leadership gold and which summarize a lot of his his lessons but i like his stuff because it's a simple easy easy to follow and easy to implement amazing um if you could tell your 20 year old self one thing what would it be um um keep at it i think as a 20 year old i was uh very focused um uh one of the things that that i think i did well as a 20 year old is is uh participate in the co-op program you know got out there and and saw some things from a work perspective and began to see what i liked and what i didn't like um about career opportunities kinds of organization kinds of leaders to work for um and i i think i would say uh definitely stay at it um i would say be patient so i didn't actually didn't get married till i was close to 25 um and that was always a desire of mine but um uh you know being patient and staying in the course um would have been important advice as well um and if you could by the way 25 25 is still yeah it's like i'm not married yet and i'm older than that okay yes um yeah the fair affair i i get it i get that i get the lesson um and then uh lastly uh last question what does success mean to you yeah i think success is um for for me my my personal core values are integrity excellence and improvement and so success is about living a life of integrity um you know doing doing my best and and whatever i'm involved in and then getting better over time so success is you know living a life that's aligned with those values um it's also um i think for me with you know with with kid it with three kids it's um you know those those who are closest to me um you know know me best and and respect me most um so i don't want uh you know a lot of times the work commitments um can stack up and and don't want to lose sight of the the value that i have on family who will who will be there long after career yeah no very good very good okay that was that zitman that's the last question that was uh that was perfect all right you you killed it that i appreciate you helping out when setting up some of those some of those points because we just got through a lot of a lot of stuff normally there's more uh there's more um frivolous not it's all good frivolous conversation right like just like stuff that's not as meaningful but you it was really good i'm i'm really happy with that thank you very much