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My name is Rena Perwien,
and this is my story.
Wow... I'm proud of so many things
that I've been able to give to NASA.
One of the things that I say about NASA
when I talk outside of the work environment
is that I've been good to NASA,
and NASA's been good to me.
I've gotten so many opportunities um, to...
to work with wonderful people.
I'm not a technical background.
I'm in the financial management field,
in resource management,
and I've learned that it takes all three...
it takes the technical people,
resource finance, procurement,
all the support staff to make the...
this mission work, and us be able to accomplish
the mission that we have.
And, so, I feel like I've been value added
and successful in really helping NASA
achieve its mission.
There's, as a young woman at NASA,
more years ago than I care to admit, um...
in my field there were very few women.
I was one of the first women in the field.
That was a challenge at the time,
and from a personal perspective,
I worked my hardest to get, you know,
I did my best... put out the products,
interfaced with the technical community
to learn what they needed,
went above and beyond as much as I could,
and it helped to show the work of other employees,
the managers and the men really that were
in the leadership field that
women can do these jobs just as well as a man.
When I was younger, and I grew up
in Minnesota for the sirxt...
first sixteen years of my life, I always figured
I would live in Minnesota for my whole life, and it
certainly hasn't turned out that way at all.
I moved when I was sixteen to south Florida...
Miami Beach, a totally different environment
than where I was.
But, that helped me to learn how to meet
new people and different cultures and backgrounds.
When I went back to school in Minnesota and found the
opportunity as a co-op student for NASA,
I drove down to Houston.
I'd never been there before in my life,
and I worked there and met wonderful people
and found a job.
I was on a telecon at Johnson Space Center,
and Stennis and Marshall Space Flight Center
and Kennedy were on this weekly telecon
and the C-F-O at Stennis announced on the telecon
there was an opening over here at Stennis for um...
the D-C-F-O for Resources position.
And, I thought, "Wow!
That sounds kinda cool."
I worked in multiple places
at the Johnson Space Center, and there weren't
really any other ones that I wanted to do there.
And, I have a daughter, and she was younger,
and I thought this would be a better,
more wholesome environment for her to spend her,
you know, teen years in.
And, so, I drove my application over
because I'd never been to south Mississippi,
and I have to say I love the out-of-doors,
and the trees were beautiful,
and it's a very pretty area.
And, so, I applied for the job,
and I've been here for fifteen years...
sixteen years now.
Life lessons...
when I was very young, my mother told me,
"Make sure you stay in school
and get a good education and focus
on that before you get married and start a family
if that's what you want to do."
She said that it was so important to be able
to provide for yourself
and really to give back to the world.
So, that was obviously a primary lesson
that I've carried with me my whole life.
Other lessons that I've learned along the way...
it's about in the work environment,
respecting others, listening,
giving a hundred and ten percent of yourself
to what you're doing, whether it's
something simple or something complicated.
For all of the young women... and men,
I encourage you to stay in school.
Education is important.
It will open many doors for you,
whether it's for college
or a technical career, either one,
whatever, you know, fits for you,
find your passion.
It will be...
won't neccessarily be what you think it is now, but
continue to be open minded and try different things.
But, don't lose sight of that.
Having put thirty-six years of um,
many hours a day, you know,
week after week and year after year
at NASA in various positions,
I would like to be remembered for always
making a positive difference
and helping the technical community
achieve their mission objectives
and get the resources that they need
to make that happen.
I would like to remem...
be remembered as sharing what I know
with the young people
that are coming up behind me and as someone
who has encouraged them to grow and learn.
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