NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Betty Humphery
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
(Phone: 256.544.0034)

News Release: 05-177

Pamela Bourque, a native of Broussard, La., and an employee of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., has been recognized by NASA as an outstanding achiever.

Bourque, an attorney-advisor in the Office of Chief Counsel at the Marshall Center, was honored with a Women's Equality Day award, presented annually to exceptional federal employees in administrative, clerical, professional and supervisory capacities.

She joined the Office of Chief Counsel in 1993 upon completion of her law degree. There, she practices in the areas of personnel litigation, ethics and fiscal and environmental law.

Bourque earned a bachelor's degree in 1990 from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where she was class valedictorian. She earned her jurisprudence degree in 1993 from the Tulane University School of Law in New Orleans. She was admitted to the bar by the U.S. Supreme Court and by the Supreme Court of Alabama.

A member of the North Alabama chapter of the Federal Bar Association, Bourque served in 1999 as chapter president and in 2004 as chair of the Government Employment Law Symposium.

During her 12-year career at NASA, she has received numerous awards of recognition, including the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, which she earned in 2005 for outstanding service to the Office of Chief Counsel. She was presented a Silver Snoopy award in 1995, a rare NASA honor bestowed by the Astronaut Corps for exceptional service to the space shuttle program. She was selected as a NASA launch honoree in 1999.

Bourque also was selected for a NASA Fellowship at Simmons College Graduate School of Management in Boston, which she completed in 2004.

The Women's Equality Day awards are presented by the Combined Women's Federal Programs. The Marshall Center's Women's Program annually joins with other local federal agencies to recognize the work of these individuals, and to celebrate Women's Equality Day and the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Bourque and her husband, Max Patin, have two children, and reside in the Huntsville area.


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