The Space Renaissance

It’s a great time to be in space! This is a phrase I find myself saying and frequently posting on social media. The space industry is experiencing this rebirth, a reemergence of great innovation, design, solution expansion, and exploration. The space renaissance is upon us. Over the last decade, the space industry has grown rapidly, with many new entrants and new offerings from launch services to interplanetary exploration. As a collective, we are revolutionizing our approaches to various mission solutions, launch, space services, and manufacturing, revisiting and reevaluating our utilization of commercial products and driving innovation in space technology. These innovations are enabling the government to acquire a wide variety of systems to service every type of mission and fly demonstration vehicles to advance our understanding of what is possible. Launch affordability and increased access are enabling new acquisition approaches and allowing us to develop and launch large quantities of spacecraft for customers like the Space Development Agency. We are living the wildest dreams of our space industry pioneers.

As vice president of Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) and Geospatial Systems at Northrop Grumman, I am honored to be overseeing a talented team leading the way in missile warning and missile defense, civil space, and national security solutions. 

We are delivering groundbreaking solutions and are thrilled to be part of the diversified OPIR architecture to help keep the nation ahead of its adversaries. My team also has the pleasure of supporting NASA in the operations and sustainment of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). If you don't follow NASA on social media, I highly recommend you do so; the images from JWST are absolutely spectacular. We are looking back into the earliest light in our universe.

“Launch affordability and increased access are enabling new acquisition approaches and allowing us to develop and launch large quantities of spacecraft for customers like the Space Development Agency”

We and others across the industry are working to find the balance between traditional acquisition and development approaches and new modernized approaches. We are working with our customers to manage risk while developing new solutions. At the heart of this innovation is our workforce. So much has changed for all of us since the global COVID-19 pandemic. People are making different choices about how and where they work. We are experiencing this great cross-pollination of the workforce as talent moves across industries, helping to change and question our thinking. These great minds are developing ideas about how to best leverage innovations like additive manufacturing, article intelligence, and machine learning. The next decade is going to be transformational, and I am honored to be part of leading the space renaissance.

In my 25 years of managing complex, technical and mission-critical programs across the government and defense sectors, I've created and scaled new practice areas and delivered double-digit y/y revenue growth.

Throughout my career, I’ve worked hard to advance equitable business practices while serving as a culture champion. Having recently completed my Ed.D. in organizational change and leadership, I'm excited to focus even more of my work around challenging entrenched systems for the betterment of businesses.