NASA Space Telescope Project Manager

His path to managing a high-profile project at The National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) seemed unlikely due to his family circumstances but because he was a serious student in school, with a sincere desire to get to know people and be trusted by them, he became a successful technology manager. 

FAMILY BACKGROUND

GR was the 9^th of 11 children. His parents were tobacco sharecroppers. Neither parent attended college nor ever pursued knowledge in science or math. 

CHILDHOOD ACTIVITIES

A gifted athlete, GR also worked hard at his school studies, attracting a college football scholarship.

EDUCATION

GR’s early education experience involved attending a racially segregated, Black students only, elementary school until fifth grade, when the school district finally integrated students of all races – sixteen years after the Federal government declared in a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Brown v Board of Education) that “separate (education among different racial groups) is not equal (education).” 

Using his athletic scholarship to fully fund college tuition, books, room and board, GR studied diligently at all schools he attended: first, a small university where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in math and later, at a different university, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. 

CAREER PATH

GR had friends working at NASA who told him about their interesting work at the U.S. government’s civil space and aeronautics agency, the global leader in space exploration. GR applied for employment and was hired as an entry level engineer. Over the years, his work ethic and dedication to continuous learning led to his promotions to Deputy Director of NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and to Deputy Chief Engineer. But the most well-known of GR’s work at NASA involved the “James Webb Telescope Project.”

In 2018, the Webb Telescope, a beleaguered project to build an instrument that could gaze back to the earliest stars in the universe, appeared to be heading to failure. Again. The pieces of the telescope and its instruments were complete, but they needed to be assembled and tested. The launch date was slipping further into the future, and the costs, already approaching $8 billion, were again rising. Congress was unhappy that NASA was asking for yet more money. 

While the Webb project was floundering under different leadership within NASA, GR was the Deputy Associate Administrator for programs at NASA, responsible for assessing the performance of more than 100 science missions. When GR was asked to take over management of the Webb Telescope project, he initially declined. “I was enjoying my job at the time,” GR recalled. 

NASA management persisted with its requests for GR to take over. NASA’s Associate Administrator for Science noted about GR: “He had the confluence of two skills. The first one is he had seen many projects, including projects that were in trouble. And the second piece is he has that interpersonal trust-gaining way. So, he can go into a room, he can sit in a cafeteria, and by the time he leaves the cafeteria, he knows half of the people.” 

Eventually GR relented and stepped into the task of getting the telescope back on track and into space. To do so, he had to overcome a few challenges.

NASA had set up a review board of outside experts to advise what needed to be done to get the Webb to the finish line. A month into GR’s tenure, a botched test underscored how much needed to be fixed. 

Engineers test spacecraft by shaking them. When Webb was shaken, embarrassingly, screws holding the cover of the telescope’s large, fragile sun shield popped loose. “That set us back months – about 10 months – just that one thing,” said GR. The launch date was pushed back again, and the price rose by another $800 million. 

When GR took over as program director, Webb’s schedule efficiency – a measure of how the pace of work compared with what had been planned – was down at about 55 percent. The Webb team had become wary of being criticized, so its work was proceeding very slowly, somewhat paralyzed by fear of making further mistakes. 

One of GR’s early observations was that the engineering drawings did not always have a matching specification. For example, there was no ‘spec’ for how much torque (force) needed to be applied to tighten certain fixtures. The amount of torque was left to the discretion of the contract to decide, and many screws had not been tight enough during the shake test. “You should have a specification to make sure it’s right” calmly insisted GR, without embarrassing anyone publicly. 

GR supervised the Webb project’s review by multiple engineers who checked the drawings and available specifications, looking at the purchase requests to make sure that what was ordered matched the specifications and that the suppliers provided the correct items. This involved GR overseeing multiple teams, led by the most experienced people. For the most part, the hardware did indeed match what was originally designed. A few things needed to be fixed but with the technology so complex, one error can crash an entire project. 

As GR noted: “The ghosts always catch you, right?!”

NASA management credited GR with turning things around within a few months, when the project’s efficiency rating increased to 95 percent. Management noted: “We needed somebody who could get the trust of the team and what we needed to figure out was what was wrong with the team. The speed at which GR turned this thing around was just astounding.”

CHALLENGE – LACK OF MENTORS WHO LOOK LIKE ME

At NASA, GR was a rarity: a Black man among the agency’s top-level managers. GR later said, “There are many Black engineers working at NASA now but certainly not as many as there should be and most have not risen high enough to be seen by the public.”

CHALLENGE – NEGATIVE FORCES BEYOND YOUR CONTROL

Several new issues – which could not have been anticipated or controlled by GR or NASA – caused additional delays. For example: the worldwide, viral pandemic interfered with healthy, continuous staffing and the payload enclosure on the European-made rocket was behind schedule. Additional human mistakes occurred, such as a snapped clamp band shaking, but not damaging, the telescope.

CAREER SATISFACTION

“Certainly, people seeing me in this role – as the manager of a very high profile, ultra-complex technology project – is an inspiration,” said GR. “And also, it’s acknowledging they can be there, too.” 

When the rocket carrying the Webb telescope finally launched in late 2022, everything proceeded without a hitch. With the galaxy observations beginning, there will soon be no more need for a program director for Webb. GR said, with pride, “I guess I have worked myself out of a job!” 

Editor’s note – GR must know that NASA will find other challenges for him to manage. Success in managing projects and dealing with people leads inevitably to new opportunities, well earned by this 9^th of 11 children. Family background never needs to be a predictor of future, adult career satisfaction.

This career story is based on an article written by Kenneth Chang, published within The New York Times in December 2022.