Judy Simonds doesn't
look like a bona fide numbers guru.
There's no green eyeshade on her head, no adding machine
clattering away on her desk. But as the financial data manager for
the Space Shuttle Propulsion Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight
Center in Huntsville, Ala., Simonds keeps some of the most
important books at the Center -- and her hard work is helping guide
NASA toward STS-114: Space Shuttle Return to Flight in May.
Simonds, manager of the Business and Management Operations
division of the Shuttle Propulsion Office -- a position she has
held since 2000 -- is responsible for integrating financial data
from five Marshall project offices: External Tank, Reusable Solid
Rocket Motor, Solid Rocket Booster, Space Shuttle Main Engine and
Propulsion Systems Engineering and Integration. Together, these
organizations are responsible for the most powerful space
propulsion system in the world.
So managing their budget, she says, is no small challenge.
But for this 18-year NASA veteran and former Pentagon finance
officer, it's a welcome one. "We're working to safely return the
Shuttle fleet to operation," Simonds says, noting NASA is also
striving to reach a key milestone of the Vision for Space
Exploration -- its ambitious charter to conduct scientific
discovery missions throughout the Solar System. That milestone?
Concluding Space Shuttle operations in this decade, once
International Space Station assembly is complete, in preparation
for building next-generation vessels to return humans to the Moon
and carry exploration missions across our cosmic neighborhood.
"What could be more important and inspiring than that?" Simonds
asks. "You can feel the momentum all over NASA. We feel good about
our work, and we're excited about the future."
A native of Beaumont, Texas, Simonds earned a bachelor's degree
in accounting in 1968 from Louisiana State University in Baton
Rouge, and holds a 1973 master's degree in business administration
from Alabama A&M University in Huntsville.
She has balanced books her entire professional life, from an
entry-level accounting job in the petroleum industry after college
to a variety of government service assignments.
She says a life devoted to numbers paid off in ways she never
expected when she first stumbled into her career. "My mother
suggested I take a bookkeeping class in high school," she recalls.
"I'd never given it any thought before, but that's when I fell in
love with numbers. I realized how much I enjoy seeing things
balance out."
Even so, those early
years left her feeling a bit out of balance, Simonds admits, as she
and her husband Charlie, post-graduation newlyweds, bounced across
the nation, following civil service opportunities from Louisiana to
Oklahoma, to Tennessee, to Alabama.
In 1979, with their two small children in tow, the couple made a
final jump, and stayed put for 14 years. Ironically, it was that
move -- to the chaotic hustle of the nation's capital -- that
eventually restored Simonds' balance.
In 1987, working as an Air Force accountant in the Pentagon, she
learned of an accounting position open at NASA. She was hired as a
budget manager for the Space Station Freedom Office -- the
organization that, a decade later, led to joint development by 16
nations of the International Space Station.
While balancing Freedom's books, Simonds quickly immersed
herself in information about NASA and its mission -- an opportunity
for growth she considers one of the Agency's great strengths. "At
NASA, you're encouraged to learn everything you can about the
organization and its goals," she says, "to become personally vested
in this work."
That has never been truer than now, Simonds says, with STS-114.
the Space Shuttle flight that will put Americans back in space,
just a couple of months away.
"The people of NASA are walking a clearer path these days," she
says, "choosing more judiciously those things we have to do to fly
safely as well as productively."
What does it take to do both?
Judy Simonds smiles. "Balance," she says. And she should
know.