A space flight ops guy (with many other interests and soft skills)

David W. Scott

A space flight operations guy (with many other interests) who tames big hairy ideas with small words, pictures, and stories

CORE SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES

Empathy and Humor • Synthesis • Writing • Presentation (Authoring and Delivery) • Storytelling • Imagination!

WORK-RELATED PASSIONS

Brainstorming and Ideation / Concept Development / Design (organizational, process, and/or sensory) / Flight (multiple varieties) / Futurism / Human Factors engineering, including User Interfaces (UI), and User Experience (UX) / Making work fun (playfulness sparks creativity and innovation) / Innovation and collaboration principles, processes, and tools / Psychology of operations environments / Technical conferences and the personal and organizational fellowships they foster

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

2020-2022: RETIRED (Take pause, enjoy family, ponder next moves, sell tools & hardware part-time)

1989-2020: NASA ENGINEER – Mission Operations at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)

2009-2020: Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC) Ground Systems Development

•Facilitate IFF (Incident and Injury Free) safety sessions and serve on Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) team

•Define requirements and perform IV&V for Console Log Tool (CoLT) for Space Station flight controllers

•Develop and/or refine operations concepts for various Mission Operations Laboratory initiatives

•Lead standup of formal HOSC Risk Management system and governance

•Evangelize adoption of Agile development methods

•Champion infusion of Human Factors engineering and UI/UX practices in mission operations culture, draft high-level HF governance. Member of Tennessee Valley Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (TV-HFES)

•Pioneer a Facebook®-inspired scheme for managing non-verbal control room communications

•Develop low-cost telepresence methods for conferences (serendipity from a serious injury)

•Originate two innovation proposals for MSFC funding via a selection panel similar to the “Shark Tank” TV show:

Cross-organizational meeting facilitation, Growing a MSFC Alumni Association (20:1 ROI)

•Ponder and predict earth and space activity circa 2050–2100, how it might evolve, and how NASA/MSFC could sow seeds now (invited participant in MSFC’s cross-organizational “Space 2100” panel)

•Very active with MSFC Speakers bureau, present to a wide variety of audiences from young students to seniors.

•Technical Papers and Conferences – IEEE Aerospace Conference (Big, Sky, MT) – 7 papers, founder of “Promote (and Provoke!) Cultural Change” session (Lead Co-Chair since 2011) / SpaceOps Conference (International, Biennial) –

5 papers, one rated a “Top 10 %” / Journal of the British Interplanetary Society (JBIS)

1989-2009: Spacelab and International Space Station (ISS) Payload Training and Mission Operations

•Space flight payload operations development and execution: Communicate pre-mission and real time with Spacelab and ISS payload flight crews / Payload ops equivalent of Mission Control’s CAPCOM for the ATLAS-1 Spacelab mission (1992) and ISS Expeditions 3-15 (2001-2007) / Cultivate strong professional and sometimes personal friendships with crew members, reputation for exerting above-and-beyond effort to help them feel comfortable on-orbit / Serve as “Geek” for payload crew communicator console configuration, evaluate ops-related tools, etc. / Smooth and reduce the occasional gap between science-focused payload team members and “meat and potatoes” ops personnel

•Dive in Neutral Buoyancy Simulator (NBS) during engineering and training sessions with space-suited subjects

•Perform initial definition and design of (ISS) flight crew and ground support personnel payload training program

•Chair Computer Resources Committee for Mission Ops Lab (~250 people) – streamline IT & A/V acquisition, develop in-house tech support to make up for scarce resources, ensure @0%-30% of IT money went into “blue sky” projects

•Originate two real-time video demonstration projects that flew on Space Shuttle/Spacelab

•Oversee use of G2 expert systems tool to build a working simulator of an ISS payload facility in 60 days

1985-1988, FORTRAN PROGRAMMER, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) (worked for contractor)

•Design and implement FORTRAN software models for Spacelab payload flight crew training using Structured Analysis and Design

•Create a speculative design for a simulated onboard display that was subsequently adopted for the flight product

•Write a fun yet comprehensive “Hitchhiker’s Guide” to our software architecture and development approach

•Serve as SME on Structured Analysis & Design and Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools

•Explore screen-sharing and G2 expert systems tools in their infancy.

1978-1984, U.S. NAVAL OFFICER – Commissioned via Aviation Officer Candidate School (AOCS)

Fly as Weapons Officer in F-14A / Supervise flight deck on an amphibious warship

EDUCATION

Principia College, Bachelor of Science in Physics and Mathematics, 1977

OTHER EXPERIENCE AND INTERESTS

Eagle Scout / Volunteer firefighter (45+ years) / Flying / Rural life / Carpentry-plumbing-electrical work / Auto mechanics / Operating farm equipment / Swimming, rowing, body & board surfing, boating / Music, movies, theatre / Folk & choral singing / Acting / Aesthetics (design ads/displays for spouse’s art business)

Work Examples and Deep-Dive Résumé:

https://tiny.cc/dws-supplement

Visual Biography/Résumé (a work in progress):

https://tiny.cc/dws-visual-biores

256-***-**** voice/text

**********@*****.***

PO Bpx 399, Somerville, AL 35670

Contact this candidate