“It was part of my career, but then it was also personal. I was doing it on a volunteer basis, but it was part of my work because I was bringing my service dog in training everywhere with me, which meant to work every day and to meetings at NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). And I was taking the dog across the country to meetings over at Ball Aerospace; that was all part of the training of a service dog. That was an incredible time. I really enjoyed it.
“The fact that I was able to do the two combined, that to me was just such an accomplishment. To some people, it could be they got permission to do it and then that’s all they focused on was the dog, but no. I had my job I had to do. I’ve always gotten a distinguished rating in my performances my entire career, and it didn’t change when I was training this service dog.
“It was a challenge for sure.
“After I had to turn back over the service dog I trained, it was really very difficult because the dog was with me for two years, even though I knew it was for a wonderful cause. I ended up going out and getting my own dog who I’ve trained to be a therapy dog, so now we do therapy visits with veterans, elderly, and others.”
—Jean Wolfe, Program Executive for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-R Series, NASA Headquarters
Image Credit: NASA / Aubrey Gemignani
Interviewer: NASA / Tahira Allen