A conversation with Robin Aube-Warren, the director of center operations at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. We talk about the Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team and their emergency response activities. We also chat about what it means to direct the various areas of center operations here at Ames.
Transcript:
Abby Tabor:You’re listening to NASA in Silicon Valley, episode 89! This week our guest is Robin Aube-Warren, the director of center operations here at NASA Ames. In this conversation we talk about our Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team, or DART, their emergency response activities and the 30th anniversary that was last Saturday, April 28th 2018. We also chat about what it means to direct the various areas of center operations here at NASA in Silicon Valley.
Now, let’s get right to our conversation with Robin Aube-Warren.
Host (Matthew Buffington): Robin, we always start it off the same way, with the same question. So, tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get to NASA? How did you end up in Silicon Valley?
Robin Aube-Warren:I would say that it started with me being in the military. I was an Army officer stationed at Fort Bragg, I was a paratrooper. And when I got off of active duty, I didn’t have very many marketable skills. My undergraduate degree was in French, and I had been a military police officer in the Army. So, after a couple of not-so-great jobs, I got a job with the Department of Veterans Affairs as a GS-4 police officer. And within a little less than two years, I became a police chief, and I did that for a number of years in the VA, about 15 years. And then I moved up into management and became an associate director of two different VA hospitals, and then I became a senior executive and was a director of a hospital in the VA.
And so, I applied to NASA, never thinking they would actually hire me, and was very pleasantly surprised when I came onboard, and I’ve been absolutely thrilled to be here ever since I came onboard. That was about a year and a half ago.
Host:I think we do these conversations a lot, but oftentimes I think, we’re in a different advantage, because this isn’t the first time Robin and I are hanging out talking. We work together, but it’s like, you’re literally my neighbor. She made me a birthday cake.
Robin Aube-Warren: Well, my daughter did.
Host: Your daughter made me a birthday cake.
Robin Aube-Warren:But yes, I brought it over.
Host: So, it’s not like we haven’t hung out and talked quite a bit. But it’s like, typically we do these conversations and it’s always, it tends to be a lot of scientists and engineers and researchers, and they’re all talking about their Ph.D.’s and different things. But you’re in this different realm similar to myself of “mission support.” So, it’s less rocket science, but it’s more logistics. And I’d imagine in the federal government bureaucracy, there’s some analogues between working in the VA, working in the military, and then coming to NASA — different skills.
Robin Aube-Warren: Very much so. It was surprising to me when I actually applied for the job that I had done much of what I currently do as an associate director in the VA. Outside of aviation operations — I never had to do that in the VA at all. But procurement, logistics, police, fire. The procurement I had done in the VA. So, environmental management a little bit, but not to the level I do it here.
But essentially, it’s the same job but to a very different degree. Doing it in a hospital was on a much smaller scale. Even though some of the medical centers had 300-500 acres, it was very much just specific to medical care. And so coming to NASA, it’s all these amazing things I had no idea NASA even does. So, there was a huge learning curve for me to learn about what NASA does, but to enable those missions it’s essentially the same. And you have great staff that were already here, so it made it much easier for me.
Host: I think that has to be a little bit of the case throughout the federal government, because people have to do procurement, people have to buy things, people have to work in buildings — there’s a basic logistics, and you ideally probably don’t want your scientists having to worry about what kind of carpet or paint, or repainting the parking lot strips, random things like that.
Robin Aube-Warren: The biggest challenge for me was, in VA, that it’s all civil servants. So, coming to NASA and finding out it’s only about a third civil servants and two-thirds contracting, that makes it a lot more challenging on how to accomplish the work sometimes — making sure that task is in the contract and how it’s funded and all those things.
But yes, it is essentially the same. Our center here at Ames, and most of the centers I worked at in the VA are older. The government has a lot of properties and facilities that are very old. We’re coming up on our 80th anniversary here, and 10 years ago I was at a center that was over 80. So, it’s very difficult to maintain that infrastructure.
Host: And so, for folks who aren’t fully aware, talk a little bit about, what is your current role, your job, your title? Let everybody know how fancy Robin is.
Robin Aube-Warren:Yeah, real fancy. So, I’m the director of center operations. And so, I supervise seven branches — acquisitions, facilities and real property —
Host: This will be the challenge, can you do it off the top of your head? Get a cheat sheet.
Robin Aube-Warren: No, I have it written down. I have my cheat sheet, because I always forget somebody and then they feel badly. Protective services, aviation operations, logistics and documentation, environmental management, and then the Ames Exchange. All of those are very different. They’re not very similar in many respects. Luckily, as I said earlier, they’re headed by some really fabulous people who’ve been doing their jobs for a long time. And so, acquisitions is all the contracts that we do for the center, and that’s, because we have so many contracted staff, there’s millions and millions of dollars’ worth of contracts, and it’s a very time-consuming process, very challenging.
And there’s small business goals we have to support small businesses. It can be somewhat challenging, and you have to work with the end-user and stuff. That’s similar to what we had to do in the VA. The facility’s real property, that can be again very much challenging because of the aging infrastructure. We actually have a new building being built now, which is our first in several years.
Host: This is the space —
Robin Aube-Warren:The lab building.
Host: The bioscience lab, yes, exactly.
Robin Aube-Warren:Yeah, so that’s exciting to be part of that, and to prepare for master planning. That’s something that they had done just before I got here. I got to see the presentation, and now I’m responsible to help us implement that, looking at what we want to look like in 20 years.
Host:Is that normal, comparing other NASA centers? There’s like 10 NASA centers. Are the people, your counterparts, is there similar jobs, even in Johnson or Kennedy?
Robin Aube-Warren: I think they’re similar. How they’re made up is slightly different.
But, every day is exciting. I just absolutely love my job. I’ve been able to go out with the fire department and use some of the apparatus to put out fires on aircraft, because they have to certify every year on that. So, they took me out there. I’ve been able to go out and visit the DART site and watch the training out there. I’ve really had the opportunity to work with not only my own divisions, but just go out and see what we do. One of the first things I did was to go out and tour so I could understand what we do so I can support it better. And had no idea we were doing all this stuff with [air] traffic control, and I got to fly the 747 simulator and crash into the Bay trying to land at San Francisco Airport. Haven’t been able to actually ride in the Vertical Motion Simulator yet, but I’m looking forward to that. But yeah, there’s really such amazing things that I get to support and help.
Host:I’m curious as to — I’m sure most people who think of NASA, they’re thinking of rockets, they’re thinking of astronauts. For people who are really in the weeds, they think of aviation, aeronautics and stuff. But I’m curious, talk a little bit about for you, being a former police officer, and we have police here, and a fire department, is that normal at NASA centers? I don’t know if people realize there’s little fire departments just for a NASA center, or for Moffett Field. Talk about that.
Robin Aube-Warren:Every NASA center has police. That’s standard. Fire department is handled differently at different centers. Some have their own departments, some use local fire departments, and a lot of it has to do with jurisdiction, how the jurisdiction has been given to the federal government — if it’s concurrent or if it’s exclusive or proprietal.
Host:It’s kind of like, does the federal government have to provide services or does the local community counties or municipalities, whatever?
Robin Aube-Warren: Yes. And so, as we are growing Ames and doing things differently, we’re looking at that ourselves, what’s the right way to handle it? And so, because we have an airfield, we have to have airfield rescue available. And so, they have requirements — they have to have water on the aircraft within four minutes from a crash, and they have to get certified by that annually by an outside group. And so, that was some of the training I got to go and participate with.
Host:I guess that makes sense, because it’s not like every NASA center has an airfield. But I’m assuming the ones that do in a lot of ways have to operate as an airport would, in some respects.
Robin Aube-Warren: Yeah, so you either have to do that with the city or the county that the center is at, or you have to provide it yourself. So a lot of it, we depend on how quickly they can get there, what the county or city is willing to provide.
Host:One thing you mentioned — and I wanted to get a little more in detail — you mentioned DART teams. I’m familiar with DART — tell me if I get the acronym right. It’s like Disaster Assistance Reaction —
Robin Aube-Warren: Rescue Team.
Host:Rescue Team. Because at my previous job when I was at the State Department, I worked in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after the earthquake in Haiti. So, I was very familiar with DART teams. These are the search-and-rescue operations, that an earthquake happens and you go rescue people. Having a federal entity like that in the Bay, in San Francisco, in the Bay Area obviously makes sense, because being so earthquake-prone, but I was surprised as I got here, having a DART team at NASA, and FEMA also has somewhat of a presence. Is that unique to NASA centers, is that a thing special to us, and what exactly, how is that involved in NASA’s mission and all that stuff?
Robin Aube-Warren:I think it’s probably unique to us. It was something that, this is our 30th anniversary, and so the way it’s been explained to me is, Bob Dolci, who was the previous protective services director, about 30 years ago felt there was this need to be able to respond. And he just started getting volunteers and finding equipment. And if a shed that was going to get torn down — hey, we could use that. And I think I would say beg, borrow, steal, but I’m pretty confident they didn’t steal anything, but a lot of begging and borrowing and donations, and a grassroots effort that started it. It’s now become very mainstream, and they have responded to some very significant events. They responded to Oklahoma City bombing, to the World Trade Centers, to Hurricane Iniki in Hawaii, the Loma Prieta earthquake here. And they do amazing training and drills, they have a collapsed structure rescue program that I got to go to the training last year.
And what really amazed me the most about that is it’s a very intensive program, about six full 10-hour days or more where they actually learn how to brace and cut through cement, and they do medical training and these other things. And a lot of the instructors are former students who come on their own time, take their leave from their jobs, they pay their own way, they don’t get compensated in any way other than sharing knowledge with other people to save lives.
And when I found that out after meeting these instructors, I was so impressed. Most people are like, “I want to go to the beach. I want to do this. I want to spend more time with my family.” And they’re coming here to train other people. It’s something that isn’t advertised, but by word of mouth being such excellent training, we had people — I think we had two people come from South America, we’ve had people come from the east coast. And it’s absolutely phenomenal.
Host:Because it’s not just a team that’s available to get together and respond, this is training and practicing.
Robin Aube-Warren:Yeah, it’s really intense. To go out and to watch them, it’s hot, it’s dirty, it’s long hours.
Host:I got a chance to go walk over it. Make sure you have working boots on. You’re climbing over rubble, there’s buildings — it’s crazy.
Robin Aube-Warren:Yeah, they have towers that are hollow inside where they can practice rescuing people as if they were in mines. They have rubble piles they cut through and move through. It’s really intense, and they do a lot of training. So, Ames has been very supportive of it. Staff can participate, they can volunteer. They have to do some things to get medically cleared and all these other things, but they can give up to 10 percent of their work time to work on DART activities.
Host:Folks, if you’re in the area, if you’re in the Bay Area, a little pro tip — there’s the Stevens Creek Trail. It’s near the I-85 onramp, the Stevens Creek Trail. And if you walk on that, there’s a bunch of bikes and pedestrians and people walking their dogs. You take it almost all the way down to the Bay, and on that walk, off to your right, you can see the structure.
Robin Aube-Warren:Exactly. It looks like a half-built building, or it’s been partially demolished, and it’s actually intended to look that way. And that’s so they can go and reconfigure to do different trainings. And then they have an old aircraft.
Host:I was going to say, there’s an airplane.
Robin Aube-Warren:There is, where they can practice taking foam and breaking into the aircraft if they had to rescue people. They have a training hall. They have zodiac boats. They go out and do training on the Bay, if they had to do rescues on the Bay. It’s absolutely amazing, and I had no clue whatsoever that NASA and Ames offers that. And so for us being in an earthquake-prone area, it’s huge for our staff to know we have trained people that could be working on rescuing us immediately.
Host:Especially because you talked about living in old infrastructure. Ames used to be a former naval facility, and so some of these are older buildings. I sleep a little bit better at night knowing that if something, if the earthquake was to happen, the response team is just right behind us.
Robin Aube-Warren:That’s right. Yeah, Ames itself was the old NACA, and then Moffett Field was the old Navy base, and that had the airfield. It’s what we call not “behind the black fence.” It’s the mission-style buildings, the old World War II-era clapboard-sided. The Ames side, the NASA side is more of the cement and the brick side. But yeah, it’s very difficult to maintain.
Host:So yeah, you were saying it’s been 30 years since they started this training and put these teams together?
Robin Aube-Warren:Yeah, this is their 30th anniversary. I’m very excited, because I want us to show our appreciation. So, every year they celebrate, but I think it’s time for us to recognize the sacrifices they’ve made to continue to do these things.
Host:So Robin, talk a little bit more about some of the innovations or new things you guys are working on, because obviously, you have this aging infrastructure. There’s different unique challenges, even bureaucratically, within the federal government. So, talk about some of the things you guys are working on looking forward.
Robin Aube-Warren:One of the things I was excited to spend some time on when I got here was to look at lean training.
Host:What does that mean? What’s lean training? It sounds like an acronym. Are we looking at a crazy acronym?
Robin Aube-Warren:It is not an acronym as far as I know. It comes from Toyota Industries. And it really had to do with manufacturing, how to do it better. But lean actually works in so many different things, and so I got involved in it with VA. You’d think it doesn’t work in healthcare, and yet it truly does. But lean really works on two principles — it’s respect for people and continuous improvement.
And respect for people is, you eliminate waste by not asking people to do things that add no value, and not squandering resources. As a federal agency, we constantly are looking at our budget, and sometimes diminishing budgets and challenges associated with that. So really, what that does is teaches the staff the skills necessary to look at processes to really identify where there’s wasted effort. It could be in steps that add no value, it could be on how we organize things, physically organize, so that you’re not spending a lot of time going back and forth being inefficient.
And so, it’s really trying to change the discussion points and the culture to look at things differently. I constantly ask my staff, what am I asking you to do that adds no value? Is there a form you’re filling out that doesn’t make sense, or is there something you’re asking yourself why do we do this? If there’s not a good reason why, and it’s within my purview to stop it, let’s do that. If it’s outside of my purview, let’s challenge it.
We’ve got to constantly look at doing things differently and making it more efficient because we’re going to have less resources, we’re going to have less staff, so we can’t do things the same way and expect the same outcomes. We’ve got to do it differently.
Host:It’s almost a matter of questioning everything. I think anybody who’s been in a big organization, whether it’s government or a big company, anytime where there’s a bureaucracy, you always have that moment of, “Why am I doing this?” And sometimes it’s like, “That’s how we’ve always done it,” or somebody made a mistake and did a bad thing, and there’s a new bureaucratic form you have to fill out from then on.
Robin Aube-Warren:Exactly, it’s very frustrating. And I think sometimes people get inured to, that’s just the way we’ve always done it.
So for us, it’s that, it’s working on employee morale. We’ve got a lot more people teleworking than we’ve had before. We hire people who live in other places, because it’s been so difficult to keep folks with the cost of living in the area. So, in some of our roles that you don’t actually have to be on-station, we’re allowing that.
Host:Offering that flexibility.
Robin Aube-Warren: And getting folks to just have wild ideas, and let’s brainstorm, let’s see what we can do. I think that’s the one benefit hiring me from outside of NASA, is I ask a lot of questions. And while that can be very annoying and I’m sure my staff hated a lot of times, it allows us to not assume that things are required that maybe weren’t.
Host: It’s just a matter of questioning how things are done. You’re not stopping anything, but is there a more efficient, better way to do things? Keeping that open mind, and moving forward.
Robin Aube-Warren: Yeah, and I think asking why — it sounds like a three-year-old sometimes, “Why, why?” But you have to, because sometimes that’s just the way we’ve always done it, and that shouldn’t be a reason why we ever do anything. It should be a value.
Host: Talk a little bit about the exposure you’ve had. Obviously working at NASA is different from working in healthcare, it’s different from working in the military. So, what have been some of the things that have surprised you, or cool things you get to see, things that are impressing you?
Robin Aube-Warren: Oh my God, the cool stuff goes on and on and on. I think if I had had some of the folks that work here teaching me when I was younger, I would have had —
Science is just amazing, and yet in high school and elementary school, it was something that I just didn’t really have an interest in, because nobody made it interesting. I remember coming here for my in-person interview, and I got to do a tour and go to the Fluid Dynamic Lab. And I’m putting a plastic tube in my ear to hear how molecules sound when they vibrate because they’re closer to a surface, versus when it’s in the middle of the area you’re listening to. And it’s like, wow, nobody ever did that. That’s so cool, and to watch how water flows over objects, and to go to the Arc Jet, and to see, we heat things up to temperatures —
Host:Plasma.
Robin Aube-Warren:Yeah, over 4,000 degrees. And it’s like, my God, this is so cool. And there’s, every time I turn around, there’s something else I had no idea about that is just amazing.
Host: And it’s very fitting for your job especially considering the Arc Jet, wind tunnels, the Vertical Motion Simulator — all of these infrastructure-type things. A huge part of your job is to keep them up and running, keeping those buildings moving so the people doing the science and the research can focus on doing the science and research.
Robin Aube-Warren: Yeah, exactly. A lot of times, you feel like you’re so disconnected from it, but I think it’s really important for us in Code J to understand. And we just recently sat down and worked out our mission statement, and it’s all about enabling missions — the science, the technology, the supercomputing. All of those things are the things we have to make sure operate for them to do their jobs. Without us, they wouldn’t be able to do it, and NASA wouldn’t be able to do the cool things. While we don’t often do the cool things ourselves — although recently we were asked to help with looking at habitats for our astronauts to live and work in the future on Mars or along the way. And so, trying to use some of the ideas that they’re conceptualizing in our buildings so we can test it. And I know our staff were looking at me like, “Come on Robin, this is just more work.” I’m like, “How freaking cool is this, that we get to do something that an astronaut will benefit from?” We actually get to help a mission. I think I bring an excitement.
Host:A sense of awe.
Robin Aube-Warren:Exactly, because this is so new and interesting to me, where folks who’ve been at NASA for 25-30 years in mission support are like, yeah, that’s what we do. No, that’s amazing, that’s what we do. So, I’m hoping that a lot of my folks get reinvigorated by some of the stuff we can do, and the passion that we can bring to it.
Host:I definitely feel it the same way, of being somebody from the outside-in — I loved foreign policy, I was always fascinated by it, but it’s just a different level coming to NASA, and you’re looking at these bigger-picture type things. It’s fascinating. And I think it’s also beneficial to the agency to have somebody who comes from a different perspective, whether it’s healthcare, just looking at the bureaucracy in a different way.
Robin Aube-Warren: Yeah, I’m not sure a whole lot of VA folks are going to head over here, but I think they should.
Host: You’re paving a way.
Robin Aube-Warren:It’s fabulous. The things we do are absolutely incredible, and every day I find out something new. I love coming to work. It’s just been an amazing experience. And so glad that when I finally retire, I ended at such a high note.
Host:So, for folks who are listening, if you have any questions, we are @NASAAmes, and we use the hashtag #NASASiliconValley. So, feel free, if you have any questions for Robin, send us questions, comments, anything. Also, as a reminder, we are a NASA podcast, but we are not the only NASA podcast. You can also check out, out of the Johnson Space Center, they have Houston We Have a Podcast, and over at headquarters they have Gravity Assist. They have another one called This Week at NASA. If you’re into music, they have a thing called Third Rock Radio. You can catch us on any of the social media platforms, on NASA.gov, but also can grab us on the NASA app — that’s our iOS and Android.
But Robin, this has been way fun, thanks for coming over.
Robin Aube-Warren:It’s been awesome, thanks.
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