How It Started, How It’s Going: Johnson Space Center Edition

[NASA]

If you ask Johnson Space Center employees why they work for NASA, many will tell you it was always their dream. For others, landing a job at NASA was an unexpected stop on their career path. Here is a look at where five Johnson team members worked before NASA and how they are helping to advance the agency’s mission today.

Michelle Wood

How it started: Michelle Wood working as an American Sign Language interpreter (left). How it’s going: Wood as a flight controller in Johnson Space Center’s Mission Control Center in Houston. Images courtesy of Wood

Wood worked as an American Sign Language interpreter before joining NASA about seven years ago. Today, she is an Operational Support Officer flight controller and instructor in the Mission Control Center.

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Warnecke Miller

How it started: Miller is shown completing firearms training as a Federal Bureau of Investigation intern in the summer of 1998 (left). How it’s going: Miller emceeing a retirement celebration for a Johnson colleague in April 2024. Images courtesy of Miller

Miller has been an attorney in Johnson’s Office of the General Counsel for 12 years. Before that, she served as an administrative law judge for Social Security and adjudicated disability cases.

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Celeste Budwit-Hunter

How it started: Celeste Budwit-Hunter is pictured as a school counselor (left). How it’s going: Budwit-Hunter with NASA astronauts Mike Finke, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore and her Procedures Group editorial team members in Johnson’s Space Vehicle Mockup Facility. Images courtesy of Budwit-Hunter

Budwit-Hunter was a technical writer in the oil and gas industry before earning a master’s degree in family therapy. She went on to work for The Council on Alcohol and Drugs (now The Council on Recovery) and then as a private school counselor for students with learning disabilities. She returned to technical writing while starting a private family therapy practice. After several years of treatment and recovery following a cancer diagnosis, Budwit-Hunter applied to become an editor in the Flight Operations Director’s Procedures Group. She is now the group’s lead editor and is training to become a book manager.

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Don Walker

How it started: A photo of a young Don Walker standing in front of an Apollo lunar module mockup on the Johnson campus in the early 1970s (left). How it’s going: Walker’s official NASA portrait.

Walker worked as a freelancer in television production before joining the Johnson team 38 years ago. Today, Walker is an engineering technician in the Office of the Chief Information Officer, working master control for the center’s television operations.

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Donna Coyle

How it started: Donna Coyle as a college student in Rome (left). How it’s going: Coyle outside Space Center Houston prior to the Expedition 68 crew debrief and awards ceremony in 2023. Images courtesy of Coyle

Coyle earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations before switching gears to work as an expeditor in the oil and gas industry. That role involved working with cross-functional teams to ensure the smooth and timely delivery of equipment and materials to worksites. After visiting locations and seeing how equipment, piping, and steel were made, she was inspired to go back to school to become an engineer. Coyle’s grandfather worked at NASA during the Apollo missions, and she decided to follow in his footsteps. She joined the Johnson team in 2021 as a crew time engineer, analyzing astronaut time as a resource to help with decision-making before and during expeditions to the International Space Station.

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