A conversation with Linda Jensen, associate director for Workforce Culture and Engagement and Kerry Zarchi, the branch chief for Entry Systems and Vehicle Development and also the acting branch chief for Aerothermodynamics. Both are at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.

Transcript

Matthew Buffington:You are listening to what was the NASA in Silicon Valley podcast. Recently, the podcast has evolved into NASA in Silicon Valley Live, a conversational live, video show where, as always, we talk to the various scientists, engineers, researchers and all-around cool people at NASA.

For the original podcast, we had a new 30-minute episode once a week, for NASA in Silicon Valley Live, we will have a new show every two weeks for an hour. You can watch us live on YouTube, Facebook, Periscope and Twitch. If you want to participate in the live chat, we use Twitch.tv/NASA. If you can’t catch us live, that isn’t a big deal, we will have on-demand video available online and rebroadcasted on NASA TV. As always, you can catch the audio version of the show on this very podcast feed.

But today we have a bonus episode – AKA an episode we recorded but just haven’t released yet. We have a handful of these episodes that we are going to release from time to time in between the live shows.

For this bonus episode, a few months ago I sat down with Linda Jensen, an associate director for Workforce Culture and Engagement, along with Kerry Zarchi, the branch chief for Entry Systems and Vehicle Development, but also the acting branch chief for Aerothermodynamics. Kerry and I are participants in a NASA leadership program that Linda helped design and pull together. The program is called, LASER, which is a fancy NASA acronym that stands for “Leveraging Agency Supervisory Excellence and Resilience.” The program includes about 25 experienced supervisors representing all of the NASA centers. We talk about the program, why it was created, and what NASA does as an agency to make it possible for all these smart people to be creative and do things that have never been done before.

Before I spoil the whole episode, here is Linda Jensen and Kerry Zarchi.

Music

Host (Matthew Buffington): We always start the podcast off in the same way. And this is a slightly different episode, but we’ll still jump in the same anyways. We want to find out, how did you get to NASA, how did you end up in Silicon Valley? And I know Linda’s going to jump in headfirst, so I’ll ask Kerry first. Kerry, we’ve all chatted, we all know each other a little bit more, but for folks listening, how did you end up over here?

Kerry Zarchi:So, I was lucky. I had an advisor in grad school who had connections at NASA. And I interviewed at a couple different places, one being here and one was a defense company on the east coast. And I kind of weighed those options and decided NASA was way cooler, and California was way cooler. So, I came here 12 years ago, and I started as a contractor and then converted over to a civil servant. And I intend to be here until I retire.

Host:Were you local? Were you from California, from this area?

Kerry Zarchi:I’m from Michigan.

Host:That’s a good state to be from.

Kerry Zarchi:I did undergrad at Michigan Tech and then grad school at University of Minnesota. So, I had been in the Midwest my whole life. And then, coming here was a bit of a culture and sticker shock, but I’ve gotten used to that now over the 12 years.

Host:We always say there’s no seasons, and I’m like no – there’s only the best seasons.

Kerry Zarchi: It’s true, yeah.

Host:And so, what did you study in school?

Kerry Zarchi:In undergrad, I was mechanical engineering. And I then saw all my classmates going off to work at car companies, or creating little widgets for little things, and I decided that was not the path I wanted to go down. So, I went into grad school and I studied computational fluid dynamics under aerospace engineering.

Host:Cool. And right now, you’re working mainly with the Arc Jet, right?

Kerry Zarchi:I’m working in the division which houses the Arc Jet. Our division is entry systems, and we touch on everything from thermal protection systems to aerothermodynamics, and facilities, Arc Jet facilities, which are simulating the environments. And then my branch, which is systems engineering.

Host:Everything that gets into an atmosphere, basically?

Kerry Zarchi:Anything, yeah, anything in an atmosphere.

Host:People tend to think of Mars, but it’s also Mars. It’s reentry to here, but it’s also getting to Mars.

Kerry Zarchi:Right. Sample return, or Orion return, or Venus, Titan, anything with an atmosphere.

Host:I get a kick out of the Midwest connection, because you’re like Michigan to Minnesota to California. I was Michigan but to Ohio, and then eventually to California. But Linda, you also have a Midwest connection, right?

Linda Jensen:No, sir.

Host:But you know how to play Euchre?

Linda Jensen:I do know how to play Euchre.

Host:You can’t play Euchre without having a Midwest connection.

Linda Jensen: I do. My mother is from the Midwest, relocated out here. But I am a California native, as my father before me. So, my dad was actually a prune rancher in this area. So, it’s very different now than it was.

Host:So, tell us a little bit about yourself, how did you—being from here, did you always want to go into NASA?

Linda Jensen: So, I grew up here, and I actually went to school here too, at San Jose State. About halfway through my couple of years there, I found out about coop programs. And I got a call, I put my application in to get an internship somewhere in the Valley. And on a Saturday morning, I got a call from the person at NASA saying come work with us. That was way back when, 1985. So, I’ve been here a long time. I prefer to talk about that as, I started in kindergarten, but now my story’s out.

Host:I was going to say, you started about five years old.

Linda Jensen:Exactly, I was very young, I was a prodigy.

Host:Very ambitious.

Linda Jensen:Yes, I was.

Host:And so, what are you working on now, what’s your area of expertise?

Linda Jensen: Well, I love developments. I have been—I don’t do the real work like Kerry does, Kerry does real work. I get to work with all the people who do real work. I have been in development, and leadership development, organization development, and I love it. I don’t even know that I would call myself an expert as much as someone who just has a huge passion for helping the people in this agency, and leaders in this agency do what they need to do to help our missions through some really good leadership. And it’s like the coolest job, and I’m so lucky. I love this work.

Host:I feel the same way, where my job is to talk to the cool people who are doing the cool things. I don’t do any of it myself. I get to talk to Kerry, and be like, tell me about this. But, I wanted to bring us all together. We just recently spent about a week together over in Wallops, Virginia, for what is known as the LASER training—and of course, it’s NASA. We’re going to have a tortured acronym, I’m sure. Because the LASER, it’s an S, not a Z in the middle, so it’s not like pew-pew. So, Linda, why don’t you tell us a little bit, what is—for people who have no clue, what is LASER, what is that program?

Linda Jensen: So, LASER is, it’s Leveraging Agency Supervisory Excellence and Resilience, that’s what the acronym stands for.

Host:I’m impressed you came up with it off the top of your head.

Linda Jensen:There is a great story about how the name came to be, if you want to hear that at some point, but basically, it’s a program focused on first-line supervisors to help grow them in being—our mantra is we think better human beings make better supervisors. And so, it’s a 14-month program, five week-long sessions, the first one was at Wallops, with some coaching. And the target there is not to train supervisors on the how-to—we assume you know how to do your jobs. It’s more how you apply the things you need to do, and how you execute as a leader. And that takes growth. So, the only requirement we have at a very high level is that you need to grow throughout the year. That’s what we’re after.

Host:Yeah, because I know from the conversations we had there, I think it’s a minimum, at least two years of being a supervisor, because you’re not asking for the newbs or the people just getting their feet wet. You’ve done this for a while, so it’s just a matter of how to hone that. And so, I’d say Kerry, we both sat through this thing. We’re the Ames cohort. So, how did you hear about it? What were you thinking as you stepped into this whole thing?

Kerry Zarchi:About a year ago, I took the supervisory intensive program, which is a very condensed version, I guess you would say, of LASER, and that whetted my appetite. I feel like supervision fits on me very well. I really enjoy this kind of work, and so I want to hone that skill, I want to be better.

Host:It’s a funny thing I’ve realized, where typically—and this is not just a NASA thing, this is for I think in any organization—you have a job, you’re making your widget. You’re really good at making your widget, you’re the fastest, bestest, most excellent person at your widget-making, and then they’re like, you should be in charge of all the widget-makers. I don’t know for you—I had this realization, I don’t know for you, Kerry, if it was the same thing, where I was like supervising the widget-makers, it’s entirely different from actually just making it. You may have really good insight about it, but it’s a different skillset.

Kerry Zarchi:It’s very different, especially from engineering. I’m going from hard skills to soft skills, people skills. And being an engineer and coming from that world, I feel like it’s flexing a totally different muscle. So, I have mentors that I speak to in supervision, but I wanted to go the next step. I wanted to go further with it, and that would be formal training. And I think that’s one of the models of LASER, also, is supervision as a discipline. And it’s something that we’re not formally trained in, and so this is I think our opportunity to get that formal training.

Host:And Linda, I don’t know if you hear this a lot—I somewhat feel a little bit of the imposter syndrome almost, where it’s like, now I’m in charge. I got the job to be in charge of my widget-makers, therefore I must be qualified and I must know everything there is. And I think you hit this harsh reality that there’s a lot you don’t know. There’s different nuances and things about leading a team that if you approach it the same way as making your widget, I don’t know, it’s not going to be as efficient.

Linda Jensen:Yeah. I would say that, so this is about four years ago, we entered into this whole realm of supervision as a discipline, which hadn’t been thought about. Especially in this agency, we’ve got people with lots of really cool disciplines, in engineering and science and even project management, we treat that like a discipline here. And we scratched our heads and said, wait a second, supervision is really its own discipline, and it takes something really different than what you’re taught.

And I think what I love about what we’ve been able to do is that we are treating that not only as a discipline, and we’re bringing in my field of development a lot of really cool expertise to that, but we’re also relying on model supervisors and people who actually have been in this job for a while. We bring them in to help teach. And I think it makes a huge difference in terms of what’s possible.

I will say that when we were first starting into this, we took this very appreciative and possibility-oriented view, and we said what if we could create a cadre of supervisors across this agency who were really good at what they do in this discipline and were excited about it and had passion about it? And I’d say four years later, we’re getting there. There’s a lot of people talking about this discipline. And I think it’s having massive impact on, when we count the numbers by when we hit supervisors at all levels, like we are, and even if we only hit 25 in this program, the number of people that are getting impacted is crazy. It’s really fun, and it’s neat to see.

Host:I keep thinking of NASA as, always has an eye on efficiency, whether that’s a payload or an airplane wing. And the bottom line is, when you have a group of humans working together, if you don’t treat supervisory, being a supervisor as its own skillset, its own trade in and of itself, then it’s like, you’re not getting the most out of your people, and you’re not being efficient. And so sometimes approaching—I don’t know, Kerry, probably approaching leading your team the same way in engineering, in some ways it could work, but in other ways it may not.

Kerry Zarchi: I think one of my, not fears, but one of the things I try and monitor is, I don’t want to be a hindrance to the people. You talk about efficiency, and I want to be there to help them get their job done, and help them be the best they can be. So obviously, the better I am at that, the better they are at their jobs.

Host:Almost removing the barriers, removing the blocks, make sure they have the funding they need, make sure they have the stuff.

Kerry Zarchi:I’m not trying to be a hindrance on them and get in their way, ask for unnecessary reviews or meetings or anything like that. I just want to be there to help move everything along efficiently.

Host:Maybe Linda talk a little bit about how did this all come together?

Linda Jensen:Actually, I will say from way back when, a couple of things, several things came together. I have an intense passion for this stuff, as you guys know. I eat, I sleep it, I’m like a scientist who can’t not do their work—I do this all the time.

So, I had had a vision for a while, and we have other cohort programs, where we have NASA First and other things that weren’t targeted at supervisors. And I kept thinking, we need to do something for supervisors. And we had actually run a program here at Ames that was very, it was the precursor to LASER. It was something we did as a cohort program here. And at the time, the agency has a culture strategy they put together. And the last one we did, which was about three or four years ago, they had three main target areas for changing the culture. One was to connect people to the mission a little bit more. One was about communicating—I forget. It was around communication. And the third one was about building model supervisors. So, when that came in, we said let’s go. And actually, to be really honest, at the time, I’m just a big believer that when you build—sort of the, if you build it, they will come.

So, without—trying to sell we need supervisors to get better never gets any traction. So, we built LASER. And we didn’t—we said, let’s just get LASER going, because that’s going to focus attention on supervision as a discipline. And when we built it, we intentionally pulled in senior leaders to help us teach it, model supervisors. So, we had all levels. And I will say, that then prompted how SIP—the Supervisor Intensive—we now have a second-level supervisor program. We are building out a first virtual PHRSS.

So, what’s really kind of, I think kind of nifty about the LASER story and the whole how it got is that we built this program on a whim. And we knew it would be good, but we built it, we prototyped it, and we did some rapid prototyping, and it just got a whole bunch of people involved. And I think now, when we were doing the orientation for you guys, I was so tickled because our senior leaders are using the language—supervision as a discipline, you’ve got to be who you are, you’ve got to grow. So, without selling it ahead of time, everybody got into it. So, it’s super fun.

Host:Literally, the three of us, we spent the last three of us in Wallops. We’re going to end up over at Armstrong later on this year. You said it was a 14-month program. Kerry, we spent the whole week together, we hung out, there was different modules. What stuck out to you, what impressed you or surprised you, I guess, from the whole thing?

Kerry Zarchi:I would say by far the most rewarding part of that week was going through the stories, where everyone took turns standing up in front of the room and talking about who they are.

Host:Tell everybody a little what went all into that, because this is not normal, from the normal hey, tell two truths and a lie, or let’s all go around the table saying hi, my name is and here’s my title.

Kerry Zarchi:Right. It was much more personal, and it was geared toward people’s values and how they viewed themselves and their personal experiences about how they came to be where they are. So, it got very deep and very personal very quickly. But, it brought down walls, and we, I felt like we connected immediately with 25 people in the span of a couple hours, where I feel like I know you so well now, Matt. And that was really powerful, and it really set the stage for the rest of the week. And there was, like I said, this immediate connection with everyone there. That was by far, for me, the biggest takeaway.

Host:We don’t want to give away all of Linda’s secrets on how the whole thing—

Linda Jensen:Please don’t do that.

Host:But it was. It was one of those things where you have 25 strangers sitting in the room, and then all of the sudden a couple hours later, people are baring their souls. And I’m like—I’m going to go out on a ledge here, predominantly introverts, but standing in front of a group telling their life stories. And it was, it was like, even though I’d never had a conversation with someone, it really felt like you’ve had a deep conversation. I know them so well.

Kerry Zarchi:I know this person now.

Host:Yeah, so Linda, what’s your favorite takeaway on that stuff?

Linda Jensen:The favorite? I love it all. Well, I actually know what’s coming in the program, so my favorites are still to come. I’m not letting you guys in on that, no. I’m not letting you guys in on that. But you know, I just think, I’m curious from both of you, it’s interesting to me that that is something that stands out to people. And I actually, it’s very sweet to me, because part of what we’re also after is that I think people look at being a branch chief—maybe you guys feel like this too—but a supervisor, a first-line supervisor, and it’s like, where’s the how-to book? There’s a way to do this, and a way to do it right. And people get very boxed in.

And by having people tell their stories, it does get very personal. And our belief is that supervision, there’s no one way to do this. And what’s more important than actually knowing all the ins and outs of HR101 and the things you need to do, but it’s really understanding who you are and bringing the unique human being you are to this job. Because then you can connect with people, then you can really make a difference. And so, I really find that storytelling for me, it’s such a great starting point, and it’s so incredibly sweet.

And I will tell you this last time, what was really special was hearing Robert tell his story. We had the highest-level leader in this agency at the time. And it’s probably particularly sweet now, given that he has now decided to retire. And all of the leaders did too. So, I’m also really, for me what’s striking is how there’s something about getting in an environment like LASER, and everybody comes forward—not just people that are there who are supposed to be there and opening up, but everybody does. So, exciting.

Host:And the story that Robert Lightfoot told us about his time of testing rockets, and then he was a supervisor for a while and went back for one more rocket test—I can’t spoil the whole thing, that’s Robert’s story to tell, but it just stuck with me. And for me, because I could relate to it in the sense of, when you’re so busy doing your job and then you’re like, I’m moving up in my career, things are working out, I’m now in charge. And then sometimes going back—for me, going back to doing press releases and doing the typical comm stuff. And I quickly realized, my team’s a lot better at doing this than I am, because I haven’t done it for like five years. You just realize that your role is different and your role has changed, and now it’s all about making their lives as easy as possible so they can be as good at doing it.

Linda Jensen: Right. You’re a supervisor now, you’re not a worker.

Host:I know. Yeah, it’s kind of weird. But, one thing that took me aback, it precedes even the get to you know, the storytelling part, is the travel to get to Wallops that nobody warned me about. I’m relatively new to NASA, only about just over two years, but for us in California, it’s the flight all the way over to—I’m guessing we all flew over to Norfolk. But then, the two-hour drive over to Wallops over the ocean. And for me at least, it was during a high-wind storm in a little, tiny compact government rental car. I could feel the wind pushing me.

We went all the way out there, and it’s relatively secluded. It’s out on the ocean, where we do some rocket testing. But, I’m sure there’s reasoning and a logic, Linda, to why you guys choose to pull everybody there at the top.

Linda Jensen:Yeah, so everybody at NASA needs to be initiated into the Wallops experience. This is sort of a thing. And actually, this is a little bit about even why we do this kind of stuff. Going back probably 40 years in this agency—this is like, leadership development is built into our DNA. We used to take people to Wallops—you guys could’ve done this—for two weeks, two weeks straight. You’d live there in those wonderful dorms. And at that time, you shared a bathroom with someone, so let’s not go there, because that was kind of crazy.

Kerry Zarchi:That sounds awful.

Linda Jensen:Yeah, for two weeks. Yeah, for two weeks. But there is something—and so, it’s not the greatest place in the world to be. It’s very secluded. But we find—there’s a little bit for us, like we intentionally chose that. We’ll be at the centers for all the other ones. But there’s a little bit of history and legacy and tradition associated with Wallops that as we think about shifting and changing this organization and becoming more efficient and transforming ourselves and even our mission a bit, there’s something I think nice that’s in the walls there. It’s like you’re standing on giants. So, we wanted to bring—that’s why we’re there. That’s why we go there for SIP, that’s why we go there for LASER, to make sure we’re hanging onto the tradition. And it is where we started doing all our leadership development training way back in the day.

Host:And it’s also, there’s something—I don’t know how you feel about it, Kerry—it was like, you can’t escape each other. There was something about, it was like camp. We’re living in the same dorms, you’re seeing each other. You can’t just escape to go hang out with your spouse and go out to eat off-campus, because you’re going to be driving a while to find a place.

Linda Jensen:Yeah, camp is a great analogy. You’re in there with everybody, you’re doing everything together, and there is no other option.

Host:It jumpstarts those relationships, too. Even as we do calls, and Kerry and I have been on different calls back and forth as we get prepared to go to Armstrong in southern California. It’s like these are old friends, people just like—

Kerry Zarchi:Yeah, it’s only one week, but we’re already farther along in our relationships than we should be.

Linda Jensen:But not farther than you want to be, right?

Kerry Zarchi:Right. It’s not a bad thing.

Host:We still have how many more sessions, Linda, to go?

Linda Jensen: Four more to go.

Host:Four more? And that’s Armstrong, then I think we go to Goddard, then Marshall, and then back to headquarters, I guess?

Linda Jensen:Yes, I think that’s right. Yes.

Host:So, Linda, there’s a funny story, how was LASER named? We talked a little bit about the tortured acronym, but go for it.

Linda Jensen:So again, back when we were just starting this whole thing, we were at a session at the Bolger Center, five or six of us. And we were just starting to think about how to do a program. And I wanted to design the LASER program, a 14-month cohort program—I didn’t know how long and all the details. And as soon as you start to talk supervision, all kinds of trails you can go down. We’ve got to select them right, we’ve got to get the right people, we’ve to get competencies, all this stuff.

And throughout that week, I keep saying, I am laser-focused on building a program. And somebody said, let’s name it LASER. So, the funny part of that story, we had decided we were going to name it LASER, and then we came up with the acronym, because that’s how we do it at NASA. But during that week, kid you not, huge thunderstorm rolls through, and right outside of our building, a lightning bold struck a tree, knocked it off, power went out. And I’m like, definitely this program’s LASER.

Host:That’s so funny.

Linda Jensen:That’s the story.

Host:Looking forward to the next couple sessions, we’ll be hanging out and doing that. I’m guessing, because some of my fondest memories I think throughout the whole thing was just hanging out in the lodge with Linda’s commentary around the Winter Olympics, and then hanging out playing Euchre.

So, for folks who are listening, if you have any questions or comments for us, we are @NASAAmes on social. We’re using the #NASASiliconValley. So, if you have any questions for Kerry, for Linda, you can send them our way. We’ll loop everybody back in, and we’ll talk a little bit more.

Just as a quick plug, we are a NASA podcast, but we are not the only NASA podcast. Don’t forget to check out our friends who do Houston We Have a Podcast. There’s also Gravity Assist, there’s This Week at NASA. You can hear all of that – there’s one big podcast app, or podcast feed, called NASACasts, that combines all the stuff into one thing. You can also catch us on the NASA app, and on NASA.gov.

This has been super fun. Thanks for coming on over, guys.

Linda Jensen:Thank you.

Kerry Zarchi: Thank you, Matt.