Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[ MUSIC ]
My name is Jill Marlowe, and this is my story.
When I was in elementary school,
I was that girl that played with Barbies.
But mostly I was into building my Barbie houses.
I was all about optimizing my Barbie dream house.
I used to take it apart, rebuild it from parts of other things...
Between the desire to build things,
optimize things and tweak things
and figuring out that I was really good at math and science,
I kind of stumbled into engineering.
I fell into engineering because I was good
at math and science and also because, I think,
I grew up on the Chesapeake Bay sailing.
Seeing the wind go over the sails
and figuring out how to trim them and optimize,
you know, how fast we were going...
So when I went to school and went to engineering and
had to choose which discipline, I chose aerospace.
So, the biggest influence on my life, I think,
have been my parents. My dad grew up
kind of on the "wrong side of the tracks"
in Detroit and was self made.
He eventually went into the Navy and got
himself on the G.I. Bill and put himself through
college and worked very, very hard to kind of
get to a place in life where, you know,
we had a very comfortable upbringing.
He was a great influence, always reminding us that
if you work hard, you know, it will pay off.
I was inspired to work for NASA because I was
actually getting transplanted to the area.
My husband was in the Navy, up in New England at the time.
He got assigned to a destroyer in Norfolk.
And I was working on my Master's degree and
in one afternoon sent a bunch of resumes out.
I got a cold call from a guy that, eventually,
was my boss and my first mentor here at NASA.
And by the end of the first conversation
with him, I was totally intrigued.
I just never thought *I* would work at NASA.
By the time we got done with that conversation,
he invited me on a plant trip.
Coming here and meeting the people and
seeing the range of challenges that people
were working on -- spaceflight instruments,
thinking about climate change -- I mean,
big stuff that mattered. I was sold.
I wanted that job bad, and I eventually got the offer.
And the rest is history.
They cared about me as a person.
NASA actually cares about people and about
our interests and wants to tap the best in us.
The biggest barrier in my career...
You know, it's funny. I asked my
husband about this just the other day.
He had a very interesting insight.
He said that I have, as a woman, probably
tried very, very hard to prove myself,
felt like I had to prove myself although
nobody else is judging me in that way.
And what he said is I work at a crazy pace as a result.
And I sometimes get frustrated with people
maybe not keeping up or working at the same pace.
It's interesting, because I've never had that insight at all.
You know, I just think about, you know,
try to do the best that I can every day.
I think it goes back a little bit, maybe,
to my father teaching me that you need to give
a hundred percent and if you work hard
it'll pay off and anything worth working for
is worth giving your best toward.
The happiest moment of my career...
People tell all kinds of stories
about launches of a big project,
but I would say that my happiest moments
are really when, you know, I'm working with a
particular person, and they're chewing on a
problem and they cannot figure out how to solve it.
And we'll sit down and have a conversation.
And through that I can watch the
wheels turn, and they get unstuck.
And it's just those little moments,
really, that I feel like those are
the times that people will remember.
My greatest accomplishment is probably the
people that I've brought to the agency, and
hopefully making that difference through them.
I've been working in management for
probably about 15 years at this point.
So I've had a fair amount of opportunity
to hire some folks over the years.
And I've watched those people move
from the technical work that they've done.
Sometimes they move into being
subject matter experts that are sought
out by people all over the world.
Sometimes they're managing projects for NASA.
But when I see those people doing things -
great things - that I know that, from talking to them,
that when they came into this agency,
they never saw themselves doing.
That just makes me smile; it warms my heart.
Feel a little bit like a mom.
I think the most important lessons that
I've learned in my life are seize the
opportunities when they present themselves.
I couldn't have planned the career that I've had,
the opportunities that have found me.
NASA really, really values its people, and it's
the people of NASA that makes things happen.