NASA Pilot Launches Second Careers
expected I'd be retiring in one to five years, but I hadn't stopped to think through the details. When I saw this opportunity, I knew it was the way to go," says Frank Manning, a senior research fellow with the Continuing Career Program (CCP) at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. He joined the program to smooth his transition from NASA executive to aerospace consultant.
Manning began his CCP fellowship a year ago, after retiring from NASA with 36 years of experience in launch vehicle engineering and mission safety. He and some of his colleagues are starting a consulting firm to advise clients on such matters as launch services and program management.
The pilot career program kicked off in September 1998 with a three-year, $1.2 million grant from NASA, whose employees were struggling with major downsizing. The program teams retired or displaced NASA employees with faculty, graduate students and other university staff to work on aerospace problems and initiatives of concern to both government and industry. If the pilot succeeds, the program will include other government and private-sector aerospace employers and later serve as a model for other fields.
The project's goals are to produce:
The university selects the senior research fellows, who receive a $20,000 annual stipend to supplement retirement or buyout packages. They can spend up to three years in the program, which offers course work as well as consulting opportunities. The 10 fellows in the program so far came from NASA's Washington headquarters, Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The Continuing Career Program provides "a structured work context utilizing the talents and expertise of employees coupled with an orderly transition to full retirement or further challenges," according to the project's mission statement. One fellow has already gone on to a full-time job in the private sector. Others, like Manning, are advising university staff and commercial entrepreneurs through the CCP projects while taking the first steps toward private ventures.
"I had plenty of industry contacts at the technical level while I was at NASA," Manning says, "but the ones I'm making through this program are broader and of a different kind. Now I'm talking directly to entrepreneurs who need our help in making decisions about new businesses and initiatives."
Manning is working on what Continuing Career Program Director Frank Hoban calls the "Holy Grail of the space business" - the all-important issue of reducing launch costs. Many consider this to be the key to regaining a more significant U.S. share of the commercial launch business, which has been migrating to the European Space Agency and China. "It's the first launch stage that has the greatest potential for cost savings, and that's where we've got to concentrate," Hoban says.
Hoban envisions fellows like Manning choosing among second-career options such as consulting, signing on with entrepreneurial firms or even joining the GMU faculty. "Or they may decide that it really is time to go fishing," he says.
Harold Miller, a veteran senior analyst on the space shuttle program, intends to take his time making that decision. "I wanted to retire and spend more time skeet shooting," he says, "but I wanted to keep my hand in space, too. This way I can do both."
Miller has been researching congressional action on space programs and has written a paper on Leasecraft, a 1970s private initiative for a space platform to carry commercial payloads. "It was a good idea, which was unfortunately before its time," he says. "But it should be of interest to private-sector planners today."
David Dickinson, who spent his NASA years at the Kennedy Space Center, is working on two teams that help aspiring spaceport operators. One team is compiling a spaceport architecture handbook dealing with such issues as processing and facilities. The other is developing an integrated curriculum for spaceport training aimed at certification. Dickinson retired as Kennedy's public affairs director and earlier headed the center's training office. He agrees that the CCP "is perfect for retirement. You keep mentally active, but you have a life."
Whatever the ultimate destinies of the CCP fellows and of the program itself, the concept of linking a university with employers could be a model for government agencies and private companies going through the agony of staff reduction. The wealth of employable talent and expertise flowing out of organizations that are downsizing often falls through the cracks with the customary catch-as-catch-can approach to contacts between senior employees and potential employees.
A structured transition guided by an educational institution or other respected sponsor gives potential employers the
opportunity to become acquainted with experts in their fields, get their advice and size them up for more permanent relationships.
David Hornestay, a Washington-area consultant, served in government for more than 30 years, primarily in human resources and institutional management.
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