My name is Judy Bruner, I work here
at NASA Goddard and I'm the Director of Safety and Mission Assurance
on center.
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That means that I have the organization
that's responsible for overall safety of all
employees at all of our sites, as well as
mission assurance for all of our flight missions, so we
insure that the mission we are developing
will be able to do what it's designed to
do. So we provide a level of independence
and over site and through the mission live cycle
at various stages, observing the steps that are being
taken to implement our flight missions. And again
the goal is mission success.
I can remember driving
through the gate and I just could not stop smiling.
I was actually here, I was actually working for NASA.
It was awesome.
I was working on Hubble Space Telescope.
So, when I left active duty and
came to NASA as a contractor, it was the first time
in ten years that I actually got to use my computer science degree.
So, my initial job was to design
and develop the software, the ground system
for Hubble Space Telescope. So, I wrote the code
that they used in the control the center, that actually command
the Hubble, for the first few years. I tested
every single line of that code myself.
I was putting myself
through college, and at the end of my junior year I was trying
to figure out how I was going to pay for my senior year, and an Army
recruiter came to the dorm and was telling us about
a program in the Army. If you enlisted then they would pay
for senior year. So, that certainly got my attention, I thought
that was appealing and went to talk to some of the other
services. I was very intrigued by what the Navy recruiter
had to say and so, I enlisted in the Navy at the end of
my junior year in college. In the fall completed my senior
year and graduation day I got my
degree in computer science in the morning and
I was commissioned as an ensign in the United States
Navy in the afternoon.
The most important lesson that I think
I've learned in my life is to
take advantage of every opportunity that you have and
when a door opens take advantage
of that as well. My career has not
necessarily gone the way I anticipated, because
along the way opportunities presented themselves
that I never anticipated. But I was in the right place
at the right time and took advantage of those
and it all worked together to help me move forward
and do the things that ultimately I wanted to do.
My advice
to women would go back to
the principal that's guided me through my career
and that is just be
open to opportunities. Even if it
isn't something you think you can do or you've ever
do or thought you would want to do. If an opportunity presents
itself take advantage of it and be aware, because
sometimes doors open that are unexpected
and take advantage of that. It's
an opportunity to learn to figure out
what your own capabilities are and in some
cases it may lead you down a totally different path than you
thought you were on initially, but that's ok
and again the main thing is
don't be locked in, always be ready
to make a course correction. If you're given that
opportunity.
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end