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>> I grew up in Lancaster, California, which is very near
to Edwards Air Force Base,
and where Armstrong Flight Research Center is located.
Growing up near a NASA Center, I mean, the most obvious part
of that was they built the space shuttles in Palmdale,
and then they would take them down the road to Edwards.
They did that two blocks from my house.
And there were three or four times I was late for school
because there was a spaceship in the way.
It was pretty incredible to --
I never got to come and visit the center, but it drove
by my house, basically.
And I think that maybe planted a little seed in me that I would
like to do something like that and make that kind of an impact.
My name is CJ Bixby, I work at NASA, and this is my story.
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So I went to work for NASA after having worked
in the aerospace industry for about a decade.
I had taken a break from that and I had spent
about a year living in Yosemite National Park
and just enjoying the park and working a minimum wage job
and just, kind of, relaxing and settling
down from a really hectic time in my life.
When I worked in industry the emphasis was really
on the product and the schedule all the time.
At NASA there's certainly that emphasis.
We certainly want to do good research.
We certainly want to do it on time and we want
to get taxpayers value.
But we want to do that in a way
that develops people and nourishes people.
So I didn't get that when I first got here,
and I wasn't good at, sort of, being nice to people [laughter].
And just watching how other people interacted
with each other and how they interacted with me.
Watching daily kindnesses and how people were so willing
to help you out when you needed something.
Whether you needed a technical answer or a minute to vent,
people who were always willing to give that to you.
And I -- over the last several years, developing those kind of,
that kind of way of being has allowed me
to become a much better engineer and a far better person
than I was when I came here.
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Finding a really hard problem and that's really important
to somebody and being able to solve it, it gives you --
you know, there's a certain amount of pride in that,
and there's certainly a big jolt of adrenaline in that
when things finally come together and they work
and you're able to help somebody get something important.
So you have something to be proud
of because you made something.
You can hold it in your hand
and it will do something you made it do.
I'm astounded to find that as rewarding as building
and integrating software has been that --
Teaching people how to think about problems and, sort of,
guiding them through tough situations where they've got
to make some tough decisions is really, really rewarding.
And it's amazing to watch people grow
and reach new levels of understanding.
And that's rewarding.
But what makes me just giggly is when I, you know,
when I come back later and I see them in a similar situation
and they just guide right through it
and they just, they've got it.
They know how to do it.
They're cool.
And it's, like, it's theirs and they own it
and that just makes me really --
I go home and talk about that [laughter]
because it's exciting.
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We're always working on something that's bigger than us.
A lot of what we do here is improving aviation safety.
A lot of what we do here is making airplanes faster,
cheaper, more efficient, more green.
So we work for you.
I think that's one of the really great things about working
for NASA is that you're not just working
for some company's profit margin.
You're working for the nation.