Former NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center official shares engineering expertise with students

Kim Chaudoin | 615.966.6494 | 10/15/2015

Engineer Teresa Vanhooser has gone where few others before her have gone. Space.

Maybe not literally, but she has devoted her career as an engineer at NASA to developing new programs to reach the next frontier and beyond and to help others go into space.

?Vanhooser, who retired on Aug. 28 after a 35-year career with NASA and who was deputy director at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., for the past three years, shared her experiences with student and faculty in Lipscomb University’s Raymond B. Jones College of Engineering as executive-in-residence in the college on Oct. 7.

A native of Johnson City, Tenn., Vanhooser is passionate about engineering and mentoring others. She believes it important to lead with values that are shaped by her faith.

“Engineering is being able to take someone’s creativity and their hands-on skills and being able to match those up, to be able to take what’s in someone’s mind and put it on paper or to be able to build it, to take a thought from an idea to actuality,” said Vanhooser. “Sometimes that’s hard to do. But if you take an engineer that has that training and background they can, with the help of their teammates, take a thought and make it a reality.”

Engineers play a significant role in every person’s daily life, said Vanhooser.

“If you stop and think about it, nearly everything we touch on a daily basis exists because an engineer was involved in making that happen,” said Vanhooser, who has a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Tennessee Technological University. “It’s incredible. Everything we do, from the time we get up and fix our breakfast in the morning, until driving to work, to the places that we work in and the bridges we cross on the way to work. All of that is a result of an engineer that had the expertise to make that happen.”

As deputy director, Vanhooser assisted Marshall Center Director Patrick Scheuermann in managing one of NASA's largest field installations, with nearly 6,000 on- and near-site civil service and contractor employees, including those at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, and an annual budget of approximately $2.5 billion.

In that role, Vanhooser also helped oversee a broad range of propulsion, scientific and space transportation activities contributing to the nation’s space program. Previously, she was manager of the Flight Programs & Partnerships Office at the Marshall Center. She held primary responsibility for managing the implementation of the center’s work in the areas of human exploration projects and tasks; flight mission programs and projects; and external government, industry and academic partnerships around the world.

She was appointed in 2000 to the Senior Executive Service, the personnel system that covers most of the top managerial, supervisory and policy positions in the executive branch of the federal government.

From 2010 to 2011, Vanhooser was director of Ares Projects at the Marshall Center. Her responsibilities included the overall integration of the launch vehicle system, and development of a first stage derived from the current space shuttle booster and motor elements, and a new upper stage powered by a J-2X main engine. From 2009 to 2010, Vanhooser was acting manager for Ares Projects and served as deputy manager for Ares Projects from 2007 to 2009.

From 2004 to 2007, she was co-deputy director of the Engineering Directorate at Marshall. Under her leadership, the organization designed, tested, evaluated and operated hardware and software associated with space transportation, spacecraft systems and science instruments and payloads under development at the center. The directorate also manages the Payload Operations Center at Marshall, the command post for scientific research on the International Space Station.

As deputy director of the Flight Projects Directorate in 2004, Vanhooser was responsible for project management, design, development, integration, testing and operations of ground and flight systems for the space station, along with overseeing operations of the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope.

She was appointed in 2000 to the Senior Executive Service, the personnel system that covers most of the top managerial, supervisory and policy positions in the executive branch of the federal government.

From 2000 to 2004, she served as manager of the Payload Operations and Integration Department, overseeing all space station science research experiment operations, payload training and safety programs for the station crew and ground support personnel and the development, integration and delivery of multiple payload racks.

Vanhooser, who has a master’s degree in administrative science from the University of Alabama-Huntsville, served in the Flight Projects Office, from 1987 to 2000, in a variety of leadership positions. She was manager of the Space Station Utilization Office from 1997 to 2000, where she was responsible for the space station ExPRESS racks, formally named the Expedite the Processing of Experiments to the Space Station. She oversaw development and integration of the racks and pallets, as well as station payload operations.

In addition, Vanhooser served as mission manager of Microgravity Science Laboratory-1, a mission in which a series of 29 experiments were performed in a pressurized Spacelab module onboard the Space Shuttle, from 1994 to 1997. She was assistant mission manager from 1987 to 1994 of the first ATLAS mission, and later managed the ATLAS-2 mission, the shuttle-borne, remote-sensing laboratory that studied Earth’s atmosphere, as well as the sun’s influence on Earth and it’s climate system.

She began her NASA career at Marshall in 1980 as an engineer in the Group System Analysis Branch, where she defined, developed and documented requirements for integration and testing of payloads for the Spacelab carrier used to conduct science experiments in the shuttle’s payload bay.

Most recently, Vanhooser’s thoughts were aimed at Mars — specifically working to enable the first human steps on the red planet, thought to be about 15-20 years away. She believes that mission will be accomplished.

“This nation was born to explore, and that’s what we do. Putting a man on Mars is a natural next step for us,” she said. “Since we’ve had rovers there and we have a lot of information about Mars, it just makes sense. For NASA and the country it’s an opportunity to challenge us to think about what it would take to live on another planet. You can argue about whether our next step should be the moon or Mars. But you have to set a destination, and we have the capability to get there. It’s pretty exciting to think that maybe in my lifetime it will happen.”

Engineering is a field that Vanhooser believes will benefit from increased diversity, especially the presence of more women in the industry.

“I am very passionate about diversity in general,” she said. “It’s gender, it’s ethnic diversity. People think differently based on their experiences, their make-up, where they’ve grown up and a lot of other factors. The more diversity we can get in engineering or any field the more creative we can be. It helps bring a variety of ideas to the table so we end up with the best one. If we all grew up the same and think the same thing, we all have the same ideas over and over again.”

Vanhooser said women need to see other women being successful in the engineering field and employers need to offer more flexible work environments to attract female engineers.

“Women think differently. And that’s okay. I saw it every day. We need that and they need to feel like they can share their ideas and be comfortable,” said Vanhooser. “The more we have women in the workplace and in those teams the less they are inhibited and will be inclined to put their ideas on the table.”

Building confidence in young girls that they are capable of being successful in math and science careers is essential, Vanhooser said. She has devoted much time to mentoring women during her career to encourage and empower them in this field.

Of all of the experiences she has seen and the advances she has witnessed in the space industry, the successes that stick out in her mind are when “someone I have mentored or helped develop or grow step into leadership positions.”

“There were a lot of people who helped me,” said recalled. “They were there to guide me. One of the more rewarding aspects of my career is to be able to look back and see where I’ve had some influence to guide people in the right direction.”

Sometimes, she said, the most helpful thing she could do to inspire others was simply to do her job.

“Especially with women in leadership, it’s helpful for them to see someone who has done it so they can visualize what they can accomplish,” said Vanhooser. “I loved when people would tell me that ‘you’ve made a difference because I never would have thought I could do that, balance my family and my work. I know that I can take on this challenge.’ That means a lot to me. I think we all need to think about those people who are watching and what kind of example we are setting for them.”

Universities have a responsibility to train future engineers to be well rounded.

“We can’t just graduate highly academic engineers,” she said. “We need to teach leadership, teamwork and communication. All of that needs to be in a package. If you can’t communicate your ideas then you can’t sell them. Engineering graduates need to come out of universities with an education that includes the teaching of those skills. Companies want the cream-of-the-crop when they are hiring, and students have to be at the top of their game.”

Vanhooser also noted that today’s generation of engineering students is very concerned with making a difference and giving back.

“In engineering we need to be able to communicate how what we do fulfills that. You can be an engineer and make a difference,” she said. “What Lipscomb does with the engineering missions program is a great example of that.”

In her career, Vanhooser has been a part of a number of exciting projects as well as difficult challenges, but through it all she said her faith played a key role in her approach to leadership.

“My grandmother and mother instilled values in me that I’ve carried with me my entire life,” she said. “Have respect for people. Treat everyone you encounter with respect, whether in business or in the community. You don’t know what’s going on in their life or if they’re having a bad day. I’ve always valued people. That helped me as a leader. It helped me to be an authentic leader. I always tried to lead with my values. I think that makes you an authentic leader, and you’re not projecting something that’s not you. That helped me through a lot of challenging situations we had from time-to-time at NASA, because people knew that I cared about them and that I respected them. Because I built relationships with people, they trusted that I had their best interest at heart. For me it was doing the right thing even when it’s hard. When people know that’s what you do, and that you’ve demonstrated that on a regular basis then that builds the trust that they have in you. As a leader that’s a heavy responsibility. But if you always have the goal of doing the right thing and caring about your people that it may not be the perfect answer but it’ll be the best you can give. And all you can do is your best.”

Vanhooser said she is pleased with the course her career has taken over the last 35 years.

“I would not have done anything differently,” she reflected. “It was incredible. I couldn’t have dreamed that it would have been so incredible when I was going to work for NASA right out of college, but I couldn’t have put a plan together that would have been any better. I believe that God has a plan, and if you let Him, He will show you what it is and will provide those opportunities for you to do what He wants you to do.”

While Vanhooser is not in any hurry to determine what challenge she will take on in the next phase of her career, she said she is sure God has a plan that is even better than she can imagine.