My name is Debbie Fairbrother, I'm the
Chief of the NASA Balloon Program Office and I am
the management structure for the balloon program.
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I don't know what I wanted to do when I grew
up. When I went into college, I liked math and
science, so I picked engineering. I didn't know what engineering
job could do. My aunt was an engineer so I knew
that a female could do engineering. But, I was more just getting
tools for my tool box and doing something
and I'd enjoyed. I enjoyed the math and I enjoyed the science. I didn't really
understand balloons until I was in grad school and some of my
fellow students were working on balloon film research. But, I didn't
quite understand balloons until I actually got the job.
It was at international and realize how unique
and enormous and just cool balloons could be.
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My first day at NASA, I was
kind of in shock that I had actually taken the leap
to leave Texas, to leave my family and friends
and venture out on the eastern shore of Virginia
for a job following balloons. So it was
nervous, but I knew some of the people I worked
with because I had done research for them and so that made me feel
a little bit more comfortable and ultimately has become home.
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In my life my family has been a huge influence. Growing up both
sets of grandparents owned small businesses. One owned a small country
store and the other a tavern and I remember
one pair of my grandparents in their will it said
that first thing that their money would go to if they
died would put my brother and I through college.
So before any money would go to my dad or his sisters
they wanted to make sure we had an education.
Understanding that education was so important to them
really instilled in us how important it was to do well in school
and to get our degrees.
The great barrier I had to overcome was, going out of my
comfort zone. Sometimes change is not
easy, so the decision to leave Texas and take a job
at Wallops was kind of taken me out of my
comfort zone. My decision to apply for the chief
position took me out of my comfort zone and
sometimes you need to push yourself and
its amazing what you could do.
(music) My greatest accomplishment is being part of the super pressure balloon
team. So, the super pressure balloon is kind of the next generation
balloon development and any research and development we've had
our highs and our lows. So, getting through
the lows and understanding what happen when you had a failure or anomaly
and being able to fix it and move on, has been
very rewarding. It's frustrating but rewarding.
We went to Antarctica back in 2009 with a balloon
and we launched it and went up to float and
it failed. So, here you're half way around the world
it's right around Christmas time and
you got to regroup and investigate and try to find out why
did this balloon fail, so you can move the project forward.
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The advice that I would pass on to the next generation is
to find something you like to do. If you work hard
and enjoy what you do. It makes things so much easier.
I typically like going to work.
I mean there are some days when you got meetings or reviews that you dread going to.
But I enjoy what I do. I light up when I get to talk about
balloons. I enjoy going
the travel and doing that. So, if they are doing something that they are not
enjoying, find something else. Because you've got to have it
in your heart, you want to do this. It will make
life so much easier and so much happier.
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