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Hispanic Heritage Month

Season 1Episode 214Sep 24, 2021

Members of the Hispanic Employee Resource Group at the Johnson Space Center share their journey to NASA. HWHAP Episode 214.

Hispanic Heritage Month

Hispanic Heritage Month

If you’re fascinated by the idea of humans traveling through space and curious about how that all works, you’ve come to the right place.

“Houston We Have a Podcast” is the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center from Houston, Texas, home for NASA’s astronauts and Mission Control Center. Listen to the brightest minds of America’s space agency – astronauts, engineers, scientists and program leaders – discuss exciting topics in engineering, science and technology, sharing their personal stories and expertise on every aspect of human spaceflight. Learn more about how the work being done will help send humans forward to the Moon and on to Mars in the Artemis program.

On Episode 214, members of the Hispanic Employee Resource Group at the Johnson Space Center share their journey to NASA. This episode was recorded on August 26, 2021.

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Transcript

Gary Jordan (Host): Houston, we have a podcast! Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, Episode 214, “Hispanic Heritage Month.” I’m Gary Jordan and I’ll be host today. On this podcast, we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, astronauts, all to let you know what’s going on in the world of human spaceflight. NASA is committed to diversity, inclusion, and equal opportunity, where employees feel welcome, respected, connected, and engaged. I very much enjoy bringing on guests from a variety of backgrounds, and I like to not only dive deep into incredibly interesting topics but get a sense of these folks’ backgrounds and what it took to land them where they are today. Many times on this podcast, we’ve highlighted different ethnicities, races, and genders to get their perspective. So, with this being National Hispanic Heritage Month here in the U.S., I wanted to bring on a few special guests from the Hispanic community. So, I worked with our Hispanic Employee Resource Group here at the Johnson Space Center to get us a couple of guests. So, joining us are George Salazar and Ana Guzman. George is a veteran of 38 years at NASA and has a wonderful story of getting to NASA and making a difference after struggling in high school. Ana came to work at NASA 13 years ago with a communications background. She’s now using her knowledge and skills to help engage the Spanish-speaking community through communication efforts here at NASA. George and Ana give their perspectives on diversity and inclusion at NASA from the Hispanic community, and it was wonderful to get to chat with them. So, let’s get right into it. Enjoy.

[ Music]

Host: George and Ana, thanks so much for coming on Houston, We Have a Podcast today.

George Salazar: Thank you for having me. I’m very happy to be here.

Ana Guzman: Great to be here, Gary.

Host: Yeah, yeah. This is going to be a great conversation. Happy Hispanic Heritage Month to both of you. And we have an employee resource group here, and I reached out to them to get both of your names and they, and they chose the both of you to come on the podcast today to, to celebrate this month. And I think it’s because you each have very unique and interesting experiences here at NASA. It shows, it shows just the breadth of, of diversity that goes on here. And, and that’s the conversation that I really wanted to get into today is understanding both of your contributions to the agency and really have an open conversation about celebrating culture in the workplace, diversity, inclusion. This is going to be great. I’m very excited. I want to start, though, by understanding a little bit more about each of you and your work so far. We’ll take it all the way back to, you know, your individual biographies and, and other contributions to the agency. But, George, help kick us off by helping us understand exactly what you do now. What is your role at NASA and, and what are you doing?

George Salazar: I am currently the human computer interface technical discipline lead for the Johnson Space Center. So, in that capacity, I look at not just the hardware systems that are being designed for flight systems, but as well as the functionality of the human interface. And that includes imagery, displays and controls, lighting, audio, as well as wearable technology. I have to say right now that my, two of my key roles are in two major programs. One is the Commercial Crew Program, I’m the SpaceX displacement control subsystem manager, and just recently I was knighted the human lander system computer human interface system manager.

Host: Wow, OK, so you are, you are the person that is helping to make these interfaces, I guess, maybe user-friendly is the right term to use, for Commercial Crew vehicles — that’s the SpaceX Dragon, the Boeing Starliner — and then the upcoming lunar landers that we’re going to be working with. So, you’re the guy.

George Salazar: That’s correct.

Host: Very cool. So, what does that take to, to make it, I hope I’m using this term right, is, is user-friendly. What all does that encompass? What is your, what exactly do you do to help to make these interfaces user-friendly?

George Salazar: Well, actually, there’s a couple of things. One is associated with the reliability of the system, and that encompasses, you know, doing the proper testing to make sure that the hardware as well as software is going to operate properly, especially in the radiation environment that the NASA programs, obviously, that we are pursuing, like, for example, Artemis on the Moon and beyond is going to encounter. And then secondly, is working with our human factors folks in ensuring that the usability as well as the workload does not cause problems associated with what the term used is human error. So, in combination with those two, we try to make it user-friendly; make it reliable and then, secondly, make it, as you say, user-friendly. We call it, maybe call it usability and reduction in workload.

Host: Interesting. OK. And that reliability sounds like it’s a very important factor as well. So, awesome. Great description, George. Glad, glad to have you on. I’m going to move over to Ana. Ana, tell us a little bit about your role here at NASA.

Ana Guzman: Yeah, I work as the research integration specialist at the International Space Station’s Program Research Office. I work with the communications team in four different areas. I do a bit of web editing in their research and technologies web pages under NASA.gov. I also do some writing, summarizing research results, publications from payloads that were previously on ISS: researchers and scientists, they publish their results, we get the papers, we summarize them, and we publish them so the public can get a little bit of an overview of what the experiment entailed and what the results were. I also support the ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) ham radio payload. This is more of a like a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) engagement effort where amateur radio operators set up events where kids and students all over the world can communicate with the astronauts via ham radio. So, it’s very exciting to see the kids’ faces, it’s very inspiring. The kids absolutely love talking to the astronauts. And finally, I also support the Spanish engagement efforts on behalf of Johnson Space Center. We translate many articles and videos that already come out in English, and we published it in Ciencia.NASA.gov, and we are also on different social media platforms, so we can educate and inform the Hispanic community of what’s going on with the space station.

Host: All very important work, Ana. So, it sounds like it’s all facing outwards, right? Everything you’re doing is, is taking all the great work that we’re doing and then turning it into a story so that the general public can understand in one way or another, whether it’s through radio, whether it’s in the Spanish language, the English language, and, of course, these, a lot of the research. I work with the research office as well. I’ve transitioned a little bit away from it recently, but I, but I do like those people a lot. They, they are fantastic folks to work with. And one thing that I think is absolutely fascinating is just how much that there is. And, and it sounds like that’s probably a big part of your role is I don’t think folks probably understand is just the quantity of experiments that are on station —

Ana Guzman: Yes.

Host: — and how often these research stories are coming out. And I’m sure that’s a big workload for you.

Ana Guzman: Yes. Yes. We do not have a dull day in our office. There’s always something going on. There’s different teams within communications over there. There’s a group of people that also are communicating what is about to be on board space station, you know, what’s about to launch. For instance, this Saturday on SpaceX, all the science that is launching, they’re in charge of informing the media, you know, what’s going on, what experiments are going to be there. And, yeah, it’s, it’s beginning to end, all the way from the time of, that the researchers bring their experiments to NASA all the way to the end. We follow up with them when the results are finally published. We continue communicating with them to make sure if they were happy with the process, what worked, what didn’t, what they enjoyed. And, of course, we always want them to come back.

Host: Yeah, absolutely. And it seems like it’s, it’s in high demand, right? There’s a lot going on. And, and I know you guys put a lot of hard work into sharing all that research that’s going up on different cargo vehicles because that’s, it takes up a lot of space on those vehicles and, which is fantastic. That means that it’s, it’s in high demand. So that’s great.

Ana Guzman: For sure.

Host: Yeah, absolutely. Both of you contributing fantastic stuff to the agency. This for Hispanic Heritage Month, though, I want to dive deeper into your biographies. I think each of you have very interesting stories to tell into how you got to NASA and other stuff that you’ve been doing. George, I’m going to pass it over to you. Tell us about your early childhood and growing up and eventually just getting us to the path that eventually led you to NASA.

George Salazar: Well, hopefully there’s enough time. I have to say that, I have to say that, you know, sometimes I tell students that for some folks, going from Point A to Point B is a straight line. For me, it was jaggedy as the name goes. I’m originally, again, from Corpus Christi, which is, for those folks that are not familiar with where Corpus Christi is at, and it’s about 180 miles south of Houston. I am the product of the barrios of a Corpus Christi. My grandparents had no education. My parents, my dad, had a fourth-grade education, my mom had a second-grade education. In fact, she was an orphan at the age of ten. But I have to say that between my grandparents and my parents, they instilled a very strong work ethic and responsibility growing up in the, in the barrio. I have to say that also, not too far from where I grew up, it was actually called a shotgun house, which was not a very big house, roughly about 12-feet wide by 30-feet deep. The place that I used to visit quite frequently with my friends was a junkyard, and that junkyard was a haven in learning in terms of what was out there. We, you know, we built a tree house. I learned how a toaster, or tried to learn how a toaster work. I got shocked in the process. But needless to say, it was a, it was a learning opportunity for me. I, you know, I was very inquisitive at a very young age. I, I also made my own, at the time that I was growing up, there was no there was no such thing as superheroes, so I actually took toy soldiers and using a little bit of bubblegum and glue, glue as well as paint, and I made my own superheroes: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman. OK. So, one of the soldiers became a woman, so, you know, it was one of those strange things. But needless to say, I learned a lot about, you know, doing hands on as well as, I built my own models starting the age of five. So, I was very inquisitive. I always enjoyed that. I have to say that as well as growing up, that the work ethic, there was no such thing as what they call allowance. And so, I had my uncle build a shoeshine box, and I used to go shoe-shining back when gentleman wore shoes a lot, and they don’t do that much often now. I, you know, made a few bucks out of that. So, to, to help me buy magazines, to help me buy materials for making my superheroes and my models. At the age of ten, my dad was able to buy a donut shop and again, because of the belief that there’s no such thing as, as allowance, he put me to work, and at the age of ten, actually, he taught me how to make donuts. And actually it’s very beneficial because I knew the business pretty well. At the age of 15, he suffered a heart attack and so, I had to take over the business while going to school. And it was, it was a little bit challenging. Needless to say, my, my schooling was not all that fantastic. I graduated 475 out of 605 out of my graduating class. And actually my counselor had recommended that I pursue becoming an auto mechanic at that time. About a year later, the Hurricane Celia devastated Corpus, and we moved to Houston. In Houston I worked various jobs. I did construction with my uncle, sold books door-to-door, went back to actually making donuts at Shipley’s Do-Nuts here in Houston. I worked at Kmart in building materials. And I wanted to make a change. I saw that this was not going to be a future for me, and so, I tried going different routes. One was looking at being an electronics technician, so I applied at Xerox for electronics technician. And at that time, the digital electronics was pretty hot, so when I took the test, I looked at it without even knowing what I was going to get into. It was just, it was just foreign to me. Digital logic was something that I had no clue about. Needless to say, I failed that test, and then I tried IBM. IBM, I did quite well actually in the mechanical part, but did not do very well in the electrical part because their systems were rather complicated. I tried doing a, what they call technical college, radio and TV, and it just was not for me. About that time, I got married and laid low so to speak for, for about a year, but then wanted to return to school. And realizing that I had to take an SAT to try to get to college, I did, and failed miserably, but I didn’t let that stop me. I actually found out that, you know, trying to go to a junior college was maybe another option. And so, I — applied at a junior college, which at that time was called North Harris County Community College, and they took me on a probation basis because of my high school records. And they said you have to make an A or better in these 12 hours, or four classes. And so, I did. I actually, I, I excelled there. Within two years I got my degree in electronics technology and then transferred over to the University of Houston, where I first majored in technology but I wasn’t happy with the — what I was learning. And so, I came across a group that actually said, you know, we, you know, we can kind of help you navigate around the school. That was another challenge I had, going from a school of 4,000 to a school of 33,000 was rather a little bit overwhelming for me. But this, the group, helped me navigate and also said, hey George, do you want to challenge? Why don’t you switch over to engineering? And so, I did. And, you know, the funny thing is, was a little bit scary, was that I had heard people were going from engineering to technology, and here I was going from technology to engineering. I was saying to myself, what am I getting into? Well, I, I got myself into a whole bunch of challenges, needless to say, but I have to say with a little bit of perseverance and determinism, I was able to make it. Now, during the time that I was going to school, I, I got a part time job as a radio technician at Canon Calculator, a repair technician, rather, at Canon Calculator, and I also had an opportunity to apply at NASA. This was my first opportunity to come work at NASA as a Pathway intern — at that time they used to call it, I think it was called the Cooperative Education Program. Well, my GPA (grade point average) wasn’t high enough. So, I kept applying and there was a company called GeoSource, which was seismic exploration, took me on as an electronics technician. So fast forward, when I was getting ready to graduate, NASA came to, to the university, and the only reason they came was because there were two cooperative education students that declined offers, and so they opened it up to the street. So, there was one opportunity for me to, rather there was one opportunity here at NASA in Houston, to apply. And I think there was another one on the East Coast. So, I was applying, and there were folks that I knew had a higher GPA than I did. My GPA was not all that fantastic. But Mr. Brown, who was the Crew and Thermal Systems branch chief, liked the fact that I had work experience. And he said, your GPA is OK, but we really like your work experience. So, I had an opportunity to, to do my second interview at the Tracking and Communications Division at the NASA Johnson Space Center with a gentleman, division chief, Mr. Ralph Sawyer. And for, for whatever reason, he wanted me to come work for him, and I told him I had some other offers. I, I have to say I was married at the time, I had a child, I was hungry for money, and so I was kind of looking for the highest bidder.

Host: Right.

George Salazar: But Ralph, but Ralph Sawyer insisted that, you know, he wanted me to come work at NASA. And so, he came, and he actually had the human resource lead come and talk to me. And in the end, I was convinced to come work at NASA, and I’m glad I did because it, it’s been an incredible experience. So basically, that is my story, so to speak, of how I got to NASA. Again, not a straight line, but I’m glad I’m here.

Host: Unbelievable, George. I love your story so much, and you’ve been here a while, right? Like 38 years, I think it is?

George Salazar: Yes, sir.

Host: All right. That is fantastic. What I appreciate most about your story, George, is the hustle. There was, there was no point, it seems, since from when you were ten that you ever stopped. You were just go, go, go. And, and I think what I like most about your story is, is, in addition to the hustle, is that if you weren’t happy, you worked even harder, it seems like to, to push yourself. So, you, you talked about from an early age that, that a strong work ethic was instilled in you. But, you know, that seemed to never die out, no matter what the struggle, no matter the obstacle. It seemed like you always kept pushing forward. What was always in the back of your mind that, that helped you to do that?

George Salazar: Well, I have to say that a couple of things. One of the things that I always thought about was the, you know, where I came from. You know, it’s somewhat of a way of building a foundation of, of moving forward. You know, sometimes the, the saying goes that, you know, you, you advance forward by being on the shoulders of, of giants. And I have to say that the giants for me were, was my family, you know, and where they came from, and I wanted to improve that, in the back of my mind.

Host: That is incredible, George. I love your story so much. Ana, I want to hear from you too, because I think your story is, is a little bit different. So, so tell, tell us about your story, how you ended up at NASA.

Ana Guzman: Well, believe it or not, my road to NASA started before I was even born, and I didn’t realize it until I finally got to NASA. [Laughter]

Host: Wow.

Ana Guzman: My parents immigrated from Cuba in 1968 to Miami, Florida. And right when they arrived was, it was during the ramp up of Apollo, and they were able to, you know, see it on TV and, and be involved in the excitement of us landing on the Moon. And ever since then, my parents have always been big fans of NASA and, and learning about space and, and, you know, advancing technology and whatnot. So, by the time I was born, you know, they, they had already included that in their new life in, in the U.S. So as I was growing up in Florida, we would visit Kennedy Space Center every once in a while, and we would get to see the rockets and the launch pads and all that. But at the time, you know, like everybody else, you think, well, I can’t work at NASA. You know, I’m not a scientist or engineer. I’m not a genius. So as a child, I thought, oh, OK; well, I’m good at math and science, but I’m not that smart. So I would just admire the launches, and where I grew up down in Homestead, Florida, which is about 40, 40 miles south of Miami, there was one night that my dad took me out into our neighborhood, and Homestead is, I don’t know, about a couple hundred miles away from KSC, and at night we were able to see a shuttle launch. We were able to see the long fire come up in, in the blackness of the sky, so it, it was amazing to see. But my childhood in some ways is similar to George’s. My parents’ education wasn’t that far along. My dad had a fourth-grade education, my mom had an eighth-grade education. And only Spanish was spoken at home. They did not know English, or very little. They were both very good at math, and they were able to help me with math homework. But when it came to English and, and other subjects, I was blessed to have a godmother in the family who had come to the country many years before my parents, and her English was really good. So, during my grade school years, it was a bit of a struggle, you know, to, to get, you know, to get that A or B and, you know, understand the courses. So by the time I was in junior high, though, I was able to handle my homework and whatnot. But my parents, also just like George’s parents, instilled a good, solid work ethic in me. And quite often they would emphasize the importance of education, and they would tell me stories of their struggles and challenges in Cuba, you know, because they – lived, a lot of people in Cuba live in poverty; there’s not a lot of freedom to, you know, pursue things that you would like in your life. So, you know, they would remind me, we came here so you can have a better life. So that was very inspiring and very motivational for me. So, I continued on in school, and I ended up going into honors classes. Math and science were my strong subjects. I did go all the way up to pre-cal[culus], but that was it. That was my limit. And when I went to college I started as a business major. But then I started taking accounting courses, and I was, I was thinking, OK, this is way too boring, I can’t do this. So, I took a break, and I worked some full-time jobs and whatnot, and I finally decided to go back to school. And I remember taking a few courses in high school in TV production and in yearbook. And there was something there, you know, a passion, a joy of working in that. So, I went back for my bachelor’s and got a bachelor’s in communications with a concentration in TV and video production from Florida International University down there in Miami. So, I started on, off on that career, and I worked in film and video production for quite a while. And then, when I moved out here to Houston, life brought me here, late 2000, and I started looking around for jobs and I found out that JSC has a television operations department and I said, well, let me try and apply. And by February 2008 I had come to NASA and I started as a mission video console operator, which, the primary job was to archive video downlink coming down from space shuttle and the space station. I was in awe. It was never a dull day. And I — it’s, to this day it feels so, it — feels like such an accomplishment to be able to be part of a community that makes history happen every single day. Every single day that we are flying in space and doing science, we’re, we’re making history and, and, it, it really feels good to be a part of that.

Host: Yeah, I, what I like about both of your stories is it seems like once you got to NASA, like you, you stayed here. And so, I’m interested to, to dive into the NASA culture to understand more about that. But Ana, I want to pose that same question that I asked George to you, because it was the same thing. It wasn’t, you didn’t have an easy path to NASA by, by any chance. You know, it was, it was, it was work and you had to hustle, and you had to push yourself to get to, to where you are. So, what was that, what was that thing in the back of your head driving you? Maybe it was that, that early adoption of a love for space that that drove you this way. But what was it in the back of your mind that pushed you to, to keep going and pursue what you love?

Ana Guzman: Well, Gary, I seem to have the personality that I cannot remain stagnant too long. I need to be challenged. I need to, to learn something new. And what better place than NASA to do that. There is always innovation and there’s always advancement in technology. There’s always something new going on, and that is definitely a motivational factor. And of course, I have my dad’s voice in the back of my head saying, I didn’t come to this country for you to do nothing [laughter]. I want you to advance, I want you to progress, I want you to do everything you dreamed of. So yeah, definitely. I owe it to my, to my parents as well.

Host: Wonderful. And it seems that’s the same for both of you, right? You both had parents that, that pushed you to, to because they wanted you to succeed. And that’s, that’s absolutely wonderful. George, I’m going to go over to you because we left, when we left off with your story, you had just started at NASA and as we mentioned, you have been at NASA for quite some time. So, I want to understand more about, you know, starting from the very beginning, day one, what was some of the stuff that you had someone that really wanted you to come on board, so I’m interested to see where you started and then what led you to your current position in human computer interface?

George Salazar: Oh, OK. Well, so I first started out in what was called the telemetry and audio section at, at, in the Tracking and Communications Division, which is now the Avionics Systems Division. So originally it started with the Space Shuttle Program, and right off the bat, I have to say that my section chief, Mr. [Richard] Sinderson, saw, I guess, a lot of maturity in myself and, and my ability to, let’s say, take on challenges because very, at the very, I have to say, within six months, I was already challenged with taking on the responsibility of supporting the space shuttle module auxiliary data systems subsystem manager. When he left about a year later, I took over that job, but along the same lines, I was also becoming responsible for a speech recognition of the closed-circuit television camera systems on the space shuttle. And I have to, again, I have to give credit to my division management that, that, they, they had confidence in me that I could do it. And so, I took over that project. And so, I, it was my first project in NASA that I was the lead. And here I was, and not only designing part of the system, but also, I was the project manager, I was a systems engineer, I was learning by the seat of my pants on a day-to-day basis. But in, in the end, I was very fortunate that the — speech control, well it was called voice command system on STS-41, this system was used by Bruce Melnick and Captain Bill Shepherd, was very successful. And so I, you know, that was kind of like the launching board for a lot of other things that I came aboard. I — became responsible for the X-38 spacecraft vehicle flight computer systems. I also was involved with a cockpit avionics upgrade of the space shuttle display systems. I went on to work space station. I went on to work, at that time, the Constellation Program, and I guess eventually, leading me to where I am right now. So, over the years I became very proficient in hardware, software system design for flight systems, certification of flight systems, and just recently in the last ten years became somewhat learning, on, on my own about the human element of system development. I was not only involved with establishing the, actually the Hispanic Employee Resource Group and getting that established officially at NASA Johnson Space Center, but also I was the developer, or rather the, the co-chair, if you will, founding father, of the Employee Resource Group Human Systems Integration, which is the only technical employee resource group at the NASA Johnson Space Center. But I saw the importance of the, of the human element in developing systems and not just thinking about hardware and software.

Host: Oh, I am very interested to talk about that, George, the, the inception of employee resource groups and the logic behind that. I want to, I want to first start with your, with your progression, though. It seems like if I understand it correctly, your, your career progression is taking on new challenges and constantly learning, learning, learning. And you even mentioned even, even now, later in your career, you’re still, you’re still learning. I wonder, you know what, what helped you to, to keep doing that, to learn new things rather than just sort of sit in the same place and become a resident expert? But in the same vein, I want to add on to that question is, do you find yourself in a position now where you have people coming to you because you have so much diverse expertise that maybe they come to you for advice?

George Salazar: Yes, they do. And —

Host: Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Go ahead, please, please expand.

George Salazar: Oh, I was just going to say in terms of knowledge, I have to say, I think I heard Ana talk about not staying stagnant and I’m the same way.

Host: Yeah.

George Salazar: I tell students, I tell students, because I do quite a bit of outreach with students, is that if I haven’t learned something new in one day, I wasted my time. There’s so much to learn and so little time. And so, every minute to me means a lot, in terms of gaining knowledge and understanding of things that I still need to learn.

Host: And how about, and how about you as a, do, do you find yourself in a mentor role every once in a while, where, because of your diverse experience, you know, all that hard work that you put in towards, you know, pushing yourself and even, even not having a hard, a high GPA, but, but you just kept pushing and pushing it, and now people are coming to you for your expertise? How does that feel?

George Salazar: I – I mean, I feel very fortunate. I mean, I feel very humble about it. I never thought I was ever end up in this situation, you know, coming back from the, you know, I guess going back and thinking about coming from the barrios of Corpus to where I am right now. But I have to say that now in my later years, being a mentor to students is very important to me. I’ve been doing mentorships for, now for, for many years, outreach to students; along the way I’ve earned a couple of awards, a couple of, actually a couple of words that I’m very proud of. One being the Lifetime Achievement Award for Great Minds in STEM, as well as the John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award for being an ambassador for NASA. So, I’m, I’m very proud of what I’ve achieved, and more so that I’m helping students. That’s, that’s the bottom line for me,

Host: Passing on the, the expertise and pushing them to do what you did, which was to push yourself, and hopefully they do the same. That’s wonderful stuff, George. Ana, I want to know about your career. It started off very interesting, you’re getting these amazing views from space. That’s the first thing that you get to experience, and I wonder how it progressed from there.

Ana Guzman: Well, first, Gary, I got to say George is a tough act to follow. What an amazing career.

[ Laughter]

Host: Yeah. Unbelievable.

Ana Guzman: Yeah, when I started in 2008, and I could just stare at the screens and see Earth spinning below, I was a big fan of geography when I was in school, so, you know, when I was working the night shift and bored out of my mind, I would just stare at the, at the views of Earth and kind of guess where on Earth that was, type of thing. But yeah, NASA has been a, a good experience and a good working place for advancement. I was fortunate that within my department I had a supervisor and a manager that were good at seeing employees that were eager to learn more, to do more. And, and I was promoted, you know, every year, year-and-a-half I would get promoted, and it would be great. You know, I started as a console operator, and then I ended up being a Johnson TV operator, which is the, the equivalent to a control room operator in a news station. I would get, route, I would get signals, video signals, from Russia, other NASA centers, and I would send video signals out to other agencies, and the downlink signals I would send over there to your counterparts over there, Gary, in Building 2 at PAO (public affairs office) so they can do their live television broadcasts. And then later on, I got promoted to lead and production coordinator over the video production side of the house in the operations department. And that was a lot of fun because I got to interact with people at the public affairs office, but also, we started collaborating more with outside media outlets and filmmakers. We did a live show with Nat[ional] Geo[graphic] once where they came onboard the space station and they did a live Q&A with the space station. We also have done projects with Discovery Channel and Time Magazine. It just continues to go on. Once one does it, everybody’s interested. And of course, you know, we all want for the, the story of space station and for NASA to be out there. So, we were more than eager to help out in getting the story out. So I organized the projects within NASA to get footage out to these entities. I also worked with people within NASA, like in the Engineering Department and the Human Health and Performance Department, to produce videos for them, whether it, whether it be for training, to train their own employees, or simply for public-facing purposes or something that would be going out on NASA TV or social media to inform the public of different projects they were working on. Later on I did work within what was once known as the Education Office, is now known as STEM Engagement Office. We worked with minority students doing outreach, going to different conferences where these minority students, college graduates, would visit the NASA booth, excited and starry-eyed, wondering, how do I get to NASA, how do I get an internship to NASA. So it was very inspiring and exciting to see that eagerness and the, the excitement behind those students’ eyes of wanting to be a part of this and, and in talking to them and, and giving them pointers and, and letting them know how to kind of maneuver their way around the career, or starting their career, or getting into NASA. And then now with the Program Research Office, now I have the opportunity to help NASA with Spanish engagement with the general public to, because, for instance, you know, immigrants that are coming over now, it’s a similar situation to what I was in. You know, their parents only know Spanish, and the kids are just starting to know, get to know English. So to have this type of content available to them that they both can share and learn from is a good thing, you know? And what better thing about, than space or STEM-related subjects, to motivate students to learn the language and to learn certain subjects? It, you know, I think it’s a, it’s a great thing, and I’m very happy to be a part of it.

Host: You know, it seems like, Ana, throughout your career, you always played some role in sharing the story, right? But it seems like from, you, you started from behind the scenes and, at least the way I interpreted it, and I, and I don’t know if this is completely true, so please correct me, is it seemed like once you started to have that interface with the public one-on-one and see the excitement and understand the, the, there were there was a drive from, from kids that wanted to do what you did.

Ana Guzman: Yeah.

Host: I wonder if you saw something of yourself in them that helped you to keep going because it seemed like from there you started doing more and more projects that were reaching out to the community involving the Spanish-speaking audience, seem like you, you ended up in that path, and I wonder if there was, there was, you were inspired in part by seeing the, the end customer, if you will, of some of the public products.

Ana Guzman: Yeah, certainly. And you know, it’s paying it forward. You know, I see me in them. You know, I remember being their age and not knowing or being sure of what I wanted to do in life, and for them to have somebody that looks like them, you know, tell them, hey, you can do it! You know, you’re, you, all you got to do is put your mind to it. You know, you’ve got to dedicate the time to it. And they can do it. And, yeah, I really enjoy doing that. And I do see that, that excitement now on our social media platforms for NASA en Español. There is a lot of engagement there, a lot of comments of interest from the kids and the, and the public in general, the Hispanic market here in, in the United States as well, eager, asking for more information and asking for follow up: oh, where did this experiment end up, oh, we’re looking forward to seeing the results. So, it, it is definitely very inspiring and satisfying to see that our effort is, are well received and, and it’s making change.

Host: Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s all thanks to you, to your work. Both of you have such fantastic stories coming to NASA and even at NASA, just a very round experience. And I want to transition from Ana’s experience talking with the Spanish community outside of NASA, and I want to, and I want to go to inside of NASA. Now, George, you mentioned when, in your career, that you helped to establish the Hispanic Employee Resource Group. Give us an understanding of the early culture of, of NASA in your career, you know, what it was like as a Hispanic person here, and then what inspired you, transitioning from that, to what inspired you to push for, you know what, we need, we need a place where the Hispanic community can gather inside of NASA and work together and bring that community together. So, so please, starting, starting there, what it was like at NASA for the Hispanic community.

George Salazar: Well, back when I first started NASA, there was an organization called the [Equal Employment Opportunity office], and it was headed by a lady that I became friends with. At that time, the, that was basically where, you know, what, what is now the different ERGs basically was the focal point for coordinating activities, whether Asia or Hispanic or Afro-American or what have you. But then, when there was an opportunity to, to form employee resource groups, more so for affinity, I thought it was a good opportunity to, to get involved in forming the Hispanic Employee Resource Group and make it a little bit more formal process. I have to say the employee opportunity organization was somewhat informal, so the Hispanic Employee Resource Group actually made it more formal and recognized. And, and so, I was very pleased and, and proud to participate in that. I have to say that, that with the, with NASA backing, I say, NASA Johnson Space Center backing, the employee resource groups we had more clout in terms of participating in outreach activities like the Hispanic, Houston Hispanic Forum, which brings in over 16,000, 17,000 students to the George R. Brown Convention Center.

Host: Wow.

George Salazar: This is pre-pandemic.

Host: Yeah, right, right. [laughter]

George Salazar: But, but, you know, doing a lot of outreach activities, you know, for, you know, to, to try to inspire Hispanics primarily to, you know, to pursue a, a career in STEM. And again, I – I use my story: if I can do it, you can do it too. It just takes determination and hard work. You know, don’t let the grades set you back. I, I tell students that grades don’t make the person. It’s determination and hard work that does. And I think I’m an example of that. So, the Hispanic Employee Resource Group is a great opportunity for, you know, to being a, an outlet, if you will, of, of providing opportunities to, to outreach to, to disadvantaged, economic, especially economically disadvantaged students in the Hispanic community.

Host: Wonderful. And, and you also said that you helped with, with another employee resource group, which is a technical one, human systems integration. So, which, which one is that all about?

George Salazar: Yeah, that was a, that was the little one that was hard to, to sell initially at that time. Michael Coats was the, the center director, but the word was, well, wait a minute, you know, these employee resource groups are associated with affinity, he said, and this one is more technical. And, and the reason for that was because I was starting to establish a collaboration, if you will, and rapport with our fellow folks in the human habitability directorate, in terms of understanding the human element in developing systems. And one of the things that I found through some of the work that I was looking at and as well as talking to the folks in human factors, was that there was a lack of understanding about the human element in engineering. I can, I can vouch for this is that in engineering, you know, we’re taught about building the best hardware, the best software systems, and you can make them deterministic because, you know, the person designs to make them operate how they’re supposed to. But the human is not like that. The human is not very deterministic. And, and so, yeah, you’re trying to design a system that’s deterministic with a system for the human that’s non-deterministic. And that’s where the, the mismatch happens. And that’s why you hear about human error, airplane crashes, ship crashes like not too long ago the USS [John S.] McCain colliding with another vehicle, with another vessel, and killing five sailors. And it was associated with a human interface and the lack of understanding of how to operate that system, especially in critical events. And so all this came to, to a head, so to speak, and said, this is an opportunity for us to try and instill more of human systems integration into the NASA culture. And so myself and four other people basically formed the HSI ERG to get the word out and infuse the human systems integration into the NASA development process. And I’m very proud to say that at this point in time, you know, we’ve, we’ve actually infused human systems integration requirements into like, for example, the 7123 NPR (NASA Procedural Requirements) NASA Systems Engineer Procedural document. We just recently, I was part of the group that wrote the Human Systems Integration Handbook, as well as updating the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook and including more of human systems integration into the design and development of systems. So, I’m very proud of that. But it’s, it, it was not necessarily associated with affinity, but rather the technical need for, for NASA to, I say, let’s call it to grow and learn and understand more about the human element, even though NASA has always done human element design since the Mercury program. But it’s more to, to further that knowledge.

Host: Very interesting. Yeah, and, and it’s, it’s all part it seems like about having, having these conversations that say this is why this is important. And then it seems like this group is getting together and injecting themselves into procedures, into handbooks, and that’s, and that’s important to make sure that, that these, that these conversations are had, that these perspectives are, are received. And so, I want to move from there to over to Ana because I wonder, building off of George’s description of, of, you know, building an employee resource group and even, even with this technical workforce, getting together and injecting themselves as part of the conversation, your, your career progression was, you know, you — moved around a lot, you were pursuing a lot, but I wonder what it was like inside of NASA, as a Hispanic person? What were you doing to overcome perhaps some biases or challenges to, to have difficult conversations to, to be a part of the community, if that was necessary? And why do you think that’s important to make sure that we’re having these conversations internally?

Ana Guzman: I took it as a challenge and proved them wrong.

Host: Yeah.

Ana Guzman: All kidding aside, no, in my industry, in the media industry, and a little bit at NASA, not too much, I had challenges more as a result of being a woman than a Hispanic.

Host: Interesting.

Ana Guzman: Since it’s a highly technical environment and it was predominantly male.

Host: Yeah. Yeah.

Ana Guzman: But fortunately for me, as, as you know, the stereotype, it, it stands true: Cuban women are very strong headed, strong charactered women. [laughter] So, I tend to brush it off and, and prove them wrong.

Host: Good.

Ana Guzman: So, I hustled. I learned things as fast as I could, and I proved that I could do the job. But, in general, as far as NASA goes, really, it has been a great environment to work in. I, I haven’t struggled in that way of things. In other areas of my career prior to NASA, yes, there has been some challenges, but it’s, you got to see, you got to understand where the person’s coming from and where they’re getting their information as to why they said or acted the way they did towards you. You know, we all live in a bubble, especially now during COVID. We’re all living in our homes. We don’t have enough interaction, personal interaction with other people. I mean, like when I moved here in Houston, I’ve met several people in general outside of NASA that have told me, wow, I have never met a Cuban person before. You know, so that’s where, where there’s, you know, the importance of having diversity in the workplace and diversity in other areas of life, is to give people the opportunity to have the experience of socializing and communicating and working side to side with someone who looks different than you. It’s, it’s that’s the way to do it. You know, we need to approach things with kindness and, and open mind. And it’s a two-way street as well. You know, we have to come into it and say, yeah, I’m different than you, but guess what? I can do the job just as good or maybe even better than you, you know?

Host: Awesome.

Ana Guzman: So that, that’s how I’ve approached things.

Host: Wonderful, wonderful. And now, George, same question to you because and I’m, I’m particularly interested in after the employee resource groups that you mentioned were established, because I think part of that is, is engaging in a conversation, right? And so I wonder after they were established, if maybe you saw a shift in natural NASA culture and especially if, if it was successful, why it is important to continue these conversations to raise awareness and, and involve more people in the community and be one big NASA family.

George Salazar: I have to say that I can’t say there was a shift —

Host: Oh, OK.

George Salazar: — after the Hispanic Employee Resource Group was established. I personally, I have to say that NASA has always been very good in, in providing opportunities. I have to say that I’m very fortunate to be working at NASA. And I tell students that NASA gave me the opportunity, despite my low GPA, to, you know, to come here and work. They provided me the opportunity to take on major challenges. And, and so I have to say, from the standpoint of inclusion and diversity, NASA has always been very good to me. I also, from the standpoint of the employee resource group, I still think it’s important to have these groups here, especially for newcomers that perhaps are not familiar with the culture at NASA. I have to say that the culture is just not necessarily associated with, you know, ethnic and all that, but it’s the culture of how things are operating from our organizational standpoint.

Host: Ah-ha. Yeah.

George Salazar: Case in point was that when I used to, when I was in module auxiliary data system subsystem manager, early on, I learned that during some of the program requirements review boards, that you, you were only allowed to sit at the front table if you were a certain person, and everybody else sits in the back. And I learned that the hard way because I sat, I sat, I sat up on the desk and they said —

Ana Guzman: I would have done that too. [laughter]

Host: Yeah, yeah, I’ve made that mistake too. I think we all have. Like, whoops, that seat is not for me.

George Salazar: Yeah. They tell me, what’s your responsibility? Well, I’m, you know, I’m the SSM for the MADS system. Well, you shouldn’t be sitting up here, you’re supposed to be sitting in the back. OK. All right. Well, you know, there was just – [laughter]

Host: Right.

George Salazar: That was just a separation, if you will, of, you know, responsibility and your title and all that. But I do have to say from the standpoint also, in terms of, let’s call it the conversation that should continue and diversity inclusion, I have to say that, and I think I’ll echo Ana mentioned this to some extent, was that, you know, we, you know, we have, everybody has a different, everybody brings to the table different strengths and, and capabilities. And I had a branch chief many, many years ago, and you know, I have to say, he was probably ahead of his time because he told me that, of course, he was, he was from Alabama, and he had a southern accent, and he said, George, if you got six people that all think alike, you got five people that are not needed.

Ana Guzman: I actually have a good example for having these conversations.

Host: Yeah.

Ana Guzman: When I used to work in Building 8 in television operations during the fall for about a month, every Thursday, I would tell everybody to bring in, we would have a potluck, and we would sign up a sheet for whatever Thursday they wanted to bring in a traditional food from their family or their culture. And I opened it up to everybody. We had people who were Cajun, Mexican, there were people with an Irish background, and English, German background, Italian background. We had everything in that building. And we would bring the food and we’d come into our, the room where I, where I used to manage the facility, we’d lay out all the food, and we would start, you know, chatting and eating. And you know how, how food is great for social interaction, right? And we would all start talking about our families, and traditions during the holidays, and mom fighting with the kids because we wanted to stick our hands in the pot first — all those stories we, we would share, and you would see that there was so much more in common and so many similarities amongst us, even though we were coming from different walks of life. And I think that, opening that avenue for conversation and kind of making people feel comfortable and, and ease up and free to speak with each other and share our cultures, I think is a good way for improvement with relations, with whatever it has to do with, ethnicities or races or whatnot.

Host: Wonderful, wonderful. I want to end on, on this note because we’re talking about the, the NASA on the inside, especially opening up these conversations, but both of you in your own respective ways have been involved with reaching outside of NASA and working with students and talk, telling your stories and, and trying to reach out to them in various ways. I want to know from each of you, Ana, we’ll start with you, the importance of engaging the Hispanic community, the Spanish-speaking audience and students alike who, who may not think that that they can get to NASA, or that they can accomplish their dreams, and try to convince them otherwise the, the importance of doing so?

Ana Guzman: Well, I could start with the census results that just came out a few weeks ago. It stated that the Hispanic population grew 23% since 2010 —

Host: Wow.

Ana Guzman: — to 62 million people. That is a large chunk of American residency or citizenship. You know, our, our, the United States is indeed a melting pot, and that is a good portion of the public that we need to reach out to and inspire. And we’re seeing it. Like the Twitter channel that we have, NASA en Español, is about to reach one million followers. We have half a million followers on Instagram and, and Facebook. So, there is a need there that we are trying to reach out to. And, like I said before, you know, we’re in a time where immigrants are kind of in between, you know? They have families that just immigrated that don’t know English well. You have children coming into school that might need help, and something like this can help them learn the subjects. It can help them learn the language and, you know, be a thriving and successful part of our society here. So that, that’s what I think is important. And NASA is going to continue, from my understanding, is going to continue growing that, that portion of the communications department from headquarters and amongst all the centers. It keeps growing, all of our efforts and all the products that we publish.

Host: Wonderful. George, same question to you. I know you, you’re involved with students and you tell them your story. You said, if I can do it, you can do it. The importance of continuing that conversation and continuing to inspire the inspire the next generation.

George Salazar: Oh, absolutely. You know, Ana brought up the statistics about, you know, the Hispanic growing population, and one of the things that it tells some of the students that I talked to is that it’s great that, you know, we’re growing, but there’s also a responsibility associated with that in terms of education and keeping America strong. And, you know, not only taking off technologically, but, you know, military, and of course, you know, there’s obviously pros and cons about the military might, if you will, but be that as it may, in order to keep America strong, you know, we need, we need a very strong technical workforce savvy. So, having conversations with students from through Hispanic ERG or whatever, it is important and it’s very important to me. I also have to say that I’ve kind of gone beyond, you know, I reach out to students, but I’ve also reached out to students from other countries. So, I, you know, I remember the line that’s in one of the songs John Lennon wrote many years ago called, I guess “Beautiful Boy.” And it says, “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” And so here I am, you know, doing Hispanic outreach, and all of a sudden, I get involved with students from India, students from Africa, students from Australia, students from South America, students from Mexico. And so, I’ve been doing outreach activities and helping, and trying to inspire them to be the best they can. A lot of them want to come work for NASA, that’s a challenge, but I, you know, I tell them, you know, you can get, you know, you can get to NASA. It just takes a little bit more effort than if you were a U.S. citizen. But this is what I enjoy. This is, this is what I, you know, in my later years here is trying to help students, I have to say, regardless of, you know, the race, color or whatever is to, you know, be the best they can be.

Ana Guzman: Yeah.

Host: So important, so important from the both of you. Unbelievable. This was, this was such a good conversation. Thank you to, to George and Ana for coming on and sharing your, your stories in detail and your work at NASA. And then I think ending with these, you know, talking about the conversations being had and, and reaching out and inspiring the next generation. I think that’s just a wonderful place to end. So, so to both of you, thank you for coming on Houston We have a Podcast. I very much appreciate your time.

Ana Guzman: Thanks for giving us the opportunity, Gary.

George Salazar: Absolutely. Thank you for having us.

[ Music]

Host: Hey, thanks for sticking around! I had such a great conversation with George and Ana today. They shared their stories and we got an inside peek of what it took to get them to NASA and all of their incredible work. So, it was such a pleasure to talk to both of them today. I hope you really learned something. We have a lot of Spanish-speaking resources at NASA. A lot of them Ana works on directly, so I want you to check out Ciencia.NASA.gov, and we’re also on social media, “NASA en Español” accounts that, that’s at NASA underscore ES. We are one of many NASA’s podcasts across the entire agency. You can check us out and the other shows at NASA.gov/podcasts. We’re on the Johnson Space Center pages of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Use the hashtag #AskNASA on your favorite platform to submit an idea for the show or to ask a question. Just make sure to mention it’s for us at Houston We Have a Podcast. This episode was recorded on August 26th, 2021. Thanks to Alex Perryman, Pat Ryan, Norah Moran, Belinda Pulido, and Valeria Cruz. And of course, thanks again to George Salazar and Ana Guzman for taking the time to come on the show. Give us a rating and feedback on whatever platform you’re listening to us on and tell us what you think of our podcast. We’ll be back next week.