Name: Karen M. Smith
Title: Procurement Manager
Formal Job Classification: Supervisory Contract Specialist
Organization: Code 210.I, Institutional Procurement Support Office, Management Operations Directorate, Office of the Director
What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard? How do you help support Goddard’s mission?
I recently joined the Institutional Procurement Support Office as a procurement manager. Our office assists the Management Operations Directorate with their institutional support. We handle all the new construction contracts, facilities maintenance, the power plants, janitorial support, snow removal, the library, conference support, the facilities help desk and security. Basically we handle everything the keeps the center going.
How have your prior supervisors influenced you?
I have been very lucky to have had wonderful and supportive supervisors. They have served as role models for me. All of them encouraged and provided me the opportunities to push myself to do new and challenging work.
What is your management style?
I have been a manager for over five years. I now have a team of 14 people. I believe everybody has a voice in how we do our jobs. I try to be collaborative and flexible. I tend to take a laid-back approach. We are all here to do our best.
The hardest part of being a manager is that sometimes I have to have difficult conversations. I stay calm. I try to enter the conversation with the goal of finding a solution to the problem. People make mistakes, but that does not define them in life. I never attack the individual and I do not blame anyone. I credit everybody with having good intentions. I help move the job forward. I try to find a solution together.
How do you focus on and develop people as individuals?
To me, life is all about the people, whether they are at work or at home. No one can exist in a vacuum all alone. We would not be who we are as individuals without the support of our families, coworkers and friends.
When we come to work, we do not leave ourselves at the gate. We are more than just our work. We all have different growing and learning experiences who make us all unique, each with strengths and weaknesses.
I try to play to people’s strengths. I try to help people grow which gives me total satisfaction. I love making people feel more confident and helping them go to the next level in their jobs.
How did a psychology major become a procurement manager?
I came to Goddard as a co-op student, which means that I was working at Goddard during the last two years of earning a degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Gail Williams, then head of procurement policy, hired me and she was wonderful to me.
I knew nothing about procurement or Goddard. I started my career as a buyer in the institutional procurement office. Then I began working with the GOES/UARS projects. It was really interesting supporting a project and I learned a lot about Goddard’s mission.
After graduation, the Institutional Procurement Office hired me as a contract specialist. Eventually I got my contracting officer’s warrant and became a contracting officer. Now I am back at the Institutional Procurement Office as a procurement manager. I have come full circle.
After 27 years, what keeps you at Goddard?
Our Procurement Division supports so many different offices at NASA. It has given me the opportunity to work on a wide variety of programs and projects. I am never bored. Our procurement division has awesome people from the top down.
What is your involvement with Goddard’s advisory committees?
I have a long history with Goddard’s advisory committees. The center director chartered various advisory committees to provide guidance, advice and education to management and also support and education to employees.
I was a co-chair on the inaugural Women’s Advisory Committee when it first started about 15 or 16 years ago. We drafted the charter for the Women’s Advisory Committee. We got the committee off the ground and it is now going strong.
I am currently a co-chair on the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Advisory Committee, which has been in place for about 12 years. I have been a member for 12 years and am in my second term as a co-chair. We are pleased that we have been able to increase awareness about issues affecting the LGBT community.
Being a co-chair on an advisory committee actually is a lot of work. We have monthly meetings with our committee members, which, for the LBGT advisory committee, now number around 25 people. We make annual presentations to the center director and senior management staff detailing what we achieved over the past year, what we hope to accomplish in the upcoming year and how they can help support our plans. We also have a wide variety of educational and social events throughout the year. Goddard management has its own Diversity and Inclusion Committee which meets monthly which the co-chairs of the advisory committees attend.
These advisory committees contribute greatly to Goddard’s culture. Management’s support of all the advisory committees has made them very successful. We would not be here and do all that we do without management.
What is the coolest thing you’ve ever done at Goddard?
As a participant in NASA’s leadership development program in 2003, I spent a year on detail at NASA Headquarters supporting the Centennial of Flight Commission. The purpose of this Commission was to help coordinate and lead a yearlong, international celebration of the Wright Brothers’ first flight.
I met astronauts Neil Armstrong and John Glenn, who were on the board. I even met John Travolta, who was the spokesperson for the commission.
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum opened the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in 2003. I got a very cool, behind the scenes tour. Throughout the year, I learned about the history of flight and how that influenced what NASA does today.
The year reenergized me to return to Goddard with a new enthusiasm.
What lessons or words of wisdom would you pass along to somebody just starting their career at Goddard?
Take advantage of all of the opportunities offered by Goddard. Attend center events, move around in your organization, and take a wide range of training.
Is there something surprising about your hobbies that people do not generally know?
I enjoy multi-day bicycle rides. In September 2015, I rode a bicycle from Buffalo, New York, to Albany, New York, following the Erie Canal – 380 miles in five days. You see the landscape differently by bike instead of in a car. You appreciate the details. You also meet different people. One day I would like to bike from Key West, Florida, to Maine. I have a road bike for paved roads and a hybrid bike for off road travels.
For the past five years, my wife, Pam, and I have volunteered with the Golden Retriever Rescue, Education and Training Organization (GRREAT). We have fostered 24 goldens, including a mother plus her litter of 10 three-week-old puppies. We adopted two of the pups and keep in touch with the mother’s adopted family and the puppies’ adopted families. We even have annual puppy reunions during which everyone goes on a long walk together. At the moment, we have three rescue goldens, two of which are the pups we kept, and are fostering a fourth, plus three cats. It’s a full house.
By Elizabeth M. Jarrell
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Conversations With Goddard is a collection of Q&A profiles highlighting the breadth and depth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s talented and diverse workforce. The Conversations have been published twice a month on average since May 2011. Read past editions on Goddard’s “Our People” webpage.
