Rhino Ramblings

An amazing carved Africa shaped bowl (from Disney World Animal Kingdom)

Last week I submitted the “paperwork” and publicly announced my intention on Oct 17 to end my almost 49 year internship at NASA.  The positivity and good wishes and hopes for my future from people I know well and those who know me only through brief interactions or even just by reputation alone have been overwhelming.  I am exceedingly grateful for the support and kindness of all.

This upcoming transition warrants this normally personal blog to be a blending of the professional and the personal.  I have so much to ponder, write about, speak to on the amazingly, unexpected and really unplanned (other than a desire to work for NASA from my earliest youth) career.  For now, I will focus on the timing (Why Now?) and then thoughts on what lies ahead (What Now?).

Why Now?

I recognized a few years back that one way or another my time at NASA and especially as the driving force since 1999 for the SEWP Program (if you are unsure what SEWP is – see “SEWP Success Factors”) would either involve me lingering around, moving along, or being forced by time and circumstance to move out. I do not like the phrase “succession planning” as it implies that I would have some dynastic determination on who and what follows me.  I prefer to consider what I have done in recent years as “success planning”.  It is not for me to say who or even how the Program exists once I am gone.  What I do have control over is how much opportunity, growth, mentoring, etc. I provide all program staff such that they can hopefully discard my failures and build on my successes in their own way moving forward.

Here are core keystones for the decision and its timing:

1. I am not retiring – I hope.  I want to explore if there is a non-NASA opportunity for my skills and talents that would be interesting and useful.  After 48 years at NASA the time to do so is now or never. (see the second half of this blog – What Now? for more on this topic)
2. The NASA SEWP program is entering a major transition with the sixth iteration to start, hopefully, prior to Oct.  I am proud of the work done by myself, the SEWP staff and our NASA team.  This is a perfect time to hand the reins over to carry on that transition and tradition.  There is a tremendous amount of work ahead but also a boundless opportunity for others to propel innovative customer (Government and Industry) acquisition forward into even more effective and efficient ways.
3. The NASA SEWP staff is an unbelievably dedicated, hard-working, customer-focused group of people. I have full faith they can continue and build upon the success of the SEWP program.  If all of those congratulatory postings have any validity and I have truly been a successful leader, then that has and will be shown by the staff that relies on each other and not just a single leader.

What Now?

The “What Now” is a mix of emotions, plans, thoughts, realities, etc.  I will note that I understand how fortunate I am.  With a 48+ federal career, I would be able to wave goodbye to work altogether, and then what?  I fully understand people who cannot wait to be into a fully retirement state.  But for me, my biggest fear is that on Oct 18 and onward I will not have a challenge, a goal, an interaction with problems and possibilities.  I know I have more to contribute.  Now the question is if there is a pace for me to do so in a way that is fulfilling to myself and those I would be employed by/working with.

There is a practical limitation – there is an ethics issue in that for one year after leaving NASA, I cannot work for any company in any capacity who is awarded a SEWP VI contract this year.  In SEWP I, 34 years ago that would have affected a dozen companies.  With success comes growth – this sixth iteration, places hundreds and hundreds and hundreds (until award I have to be vague on exact numbers) out of consideration for even vague contacts.  The good news is that there are still many companies and opportunities out there.  And quite honestly, my skill set and interest is not limited to government-wide IT acquisition.

Long before SEWP and IT acquisition came into my life, I would find myself frustrated when I would broach the possibility of a different job from what I was doing – the oft-stated remark was “I thought you were focused on (take your pick based on the time): <meteorology>, <graphics>, <customer support>, <supercomputers>, <database>, <system administration>, etc and of course, now, IT procurement.  The focus and success I ultimately brought to the project I worked on was not an indicator that the project itself was my motivator.  The driver to success was my ability to discern underlying problems and find effective solutions with the resources given and visions of new paths to success.  I spent the first half of my career motivated by the excitement of finding ways to program a computer to provide the customer with solutions to their needs and desires.  In the second half, I had to learn to refocus that problem solving excitement into how to create opportunity, resources, motivation, etc. to staff so they can provide the customer with solutions to their needs and desires.  While the first half is literally programmatic and the second half is literally human-effused, each have the common thread of seeing a problem and finding a solution.  The solution found is often flawed and is in continuous need of rethinking and learning and growing, which in itself is exciting and interesting to me.  That is my strength of motivation.  That motivation has led me to continue to solve my own problem of how to be a better leader and manager – still a work in progress.  I believe I have proven to have programmed myself to leverage my strengths and reduce my weaknesses such that those around me are able to grow and succeed themselves.

Problem solving and the visionary concepts I draw on are then the central core of my professional being. That is buttressed by three elements which I can only briefly touch on here (otherwise this will be a book and not a blog). As alluded to in the last paragraph, I have a keen instinct and awareness of the customer experience – no not that “customer experience” buzzword that has been going around in recent years.  It is a fully immersive understanding and insight into what people need based not just on what they say, but what they and others do and don’t do; say and don’t say, complain and do not complain about.  It is reading between the lines to the central premises and then determining what path can lead to their satisfaction.  This is way too simplistic an explanation – but I hope I get the gist across. 

When I started at NASA in 1977 one of my first jobs was merging analog data (text feed from the weather service which was not quality controlled so “snow” might be spelled “snwo” and satellite imagery and other digital data.  I also worked on the earliest versions of interactive user interfaces.  Yes indeed – we were just switching from punch cards to teletype machines to actual monitors. Thus began a career-long interest and successful utilization of data, information and user interfaces that have permeated my life. 

So now I wait and will see if the Why Now together with the What Now will culminate in Oct (or shortly thereafter) in an opportunity (love to have several but only need one) for a Wow Now!