By Jessica Barnett
Building and maintaining a connection with others at work can be a key factor in one’s personal success, and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center’s growing array of employee resource groups, such as Marshall’s Asian American and Pacific Islanders ERG, known as MAARS, are here to help.
Lien Moore and Tony Kim co-chair MAARS, formerly called the AAPI Advisory Working Group.
Their mission is to promote inclusion and connection while also helping employees achieve a sense of belonging at Marshall.
“We recognize the need as well as some of the challenges we’ve had and our desire to help new, younger employees who are like us and might experience some of the same things,” said Kim, who has worked with NASA since 1990 and currently serves as a project manager for SERVIR, a global network of regional partners dedicated to environmental management.
Kim said he knows what it’s like to feel underrepresented and racially stereotyped, whether it was for being good at math or being part of the “model minority,” a myth that Asians are inherently more successful, intelligent, and hard-working.
“There’s a lot of diversity in the Asian minority,” said Kim. “We’re very outgoing and fun, and there’s good, there’s bad – like any group of people.”
It’s one of the many reasons he’s grateful to work at a place like NASA, where he can help break that paradigm and showcase the diversity within the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities.
During May’s AANHPI Heritage Month, MAARS co-hosted two events to help further that cause. The first was a panel featuring Dr. Mamoru Mohri, Kozo Matsuda, Tia Ferguson, and Hoot Gibson. Mohri is known for being the first Japanese astronaut to fly on the space shuttle, but lesser known is how his chance encounter with Matsuda shaped the future of Huntsville.
The other event was a 45-minute Q&A with Jeremy Shu-How Lin, one of the few Asian Americans to ever play in the NBA and the first to win an NBA championship.
These activities help promote the strength and resilience shown by the AANHPI community, even when they’re facing discrimination or unjust odds.
MAARS also hosts fireside chats, where members can connect with executives; outreach activities at Monte Sano State Park to help people reconnect post-Covid; monthly meetings with employee resource groups at other NASA centers; and monthly lunches.
“There were some during the pandemic who were really isolated,” Moore said. “I realized how important it was to get people engaged and really connecting with each other.”
Kim agrees. “We feel very fortunate that NASA has advanced us to the level where we can help other people and maybe help them be a little more successful,” he said.
By working together with Marshall leadership, MAARS and Marshall are poised to build legacy together by interacting with new hires, discussing challenges or concerns involving the AANHPI community, and engaging in recruitment and outreach activities.
“With the recent DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Acceptance) plan, we’ve been supporting and providing input from our ERG to the team at NASA Headquarters,” Moore said.
MAARS’ goal is to provide a supportive environment for members to connect, strengthen their leadership and communication skills, grow their network, and reach their potential. That is why the group is open to anyone who wants to participate and not exclusive to Marshall employees of AANHPI descent.
“We want to be focused on the togetherness and accomplishing a mission, working together, having that camaraderie between different people,” Kim said. “At some point, I would love for that legacy to say that we don’t look at the differences, we look at the commonality.”
Marshall team members can also join the MAARS chat on Teams or learn more about this ERG on its SharePoint page.
“We’re all going to need support sometime. We all need a sense of belonging,” Moore said. “Come join us for lunch as guest members, see how you like the group.”
Barnett, a Media Fusion employee, supports Marshall’s Office of Strategic Analysis & Communications.