The young professionals’ panel at the 2008 International Civil Service Commission conference was a truly remarkable event.  Nick, Garret, and I met with our UN counterparts at United Nations Plaza 2, one of their main office buildings, to go over final preparations and introduce everyone face-to-face for the first time.

We then crossed the street to enter the UN Headquarters grounds.  It’s hard for me to put in words even now the sense of honor and amazement I felt at being an invited guest there.  After we passed through security and were given our access passes, the group made its way to the Secretariat building for the conference session.

Read the rest of this entry »

I knew that I was joining a special group of people when I became a contributing author here because of the passion everyone has shown for making NASA the kind of organization we all know it can be.  I consider myself fortunate to be in the company of such a group.

I have learned a heck of a lot in a relatively short period of time about the various perspectives that people bring to the table from all over the space exploration community.  I expected and hoped that would happen, though.  What I didn’t expect was that participating in this electronic forum would lead to even wider, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately about what it means for managing organizations now that Generation Y makes up a significant part of the workforce. I’ve also been reading some articles that discuss the difficulty and frustration managers today have with the younger workforce. Hopefully this post will help managers as they try to navigate leading their leaders as well as Gen Y’ers who are entering the workforce and are looking for opportunities to do their part in changing the world.

Read the rest of this entry »