Tammy Radford is the project manager for the xEMU (Extra-Vehicular Activity [EVA] Mobility Unit) Portable Life Support System working on the Johnson Space Center Engineering, Technology, and Science (JETS) contract. In her position, Tammy finds it most rewarding to know that she is part of a team working toward a common goal of building the next generation EVA space suit.
“And not only that, but we are also working towards putting the first female astronaut on the moon,” she said.
Tammy has worked in the aerospace industry for the last 20 years and has held many positions including: manufacturing engineer, designer, structural analyst, and test engineer.
“I enjoyed becoming familiar with all the different development phases and having all those positions has given me a broad base of experiences to pull from when leading my current team.”
She joined Oceaneering when the company was in the early stages of the Constellation Space Suit contract.
“I was looking to get in on an exciting and challenging project from the ground up and this seemed like the perfect fit. I was lucky to find a job that I loved and to do it with great people, too,” she said.
The biggest challenge for Tammy has been dealing with assignments that she initially thought were out of her depth.
“Early on in my career, I was very structures-focused, but as more projects came my way, I became more involved in electro-mechanical systems, on which I was bit rusty,” she said. “I spent time in old textbooks for a refresher and would lean on other experts on my team to help me get up to speed.”
Tammy said that the next generation of female engineers need to learn everything they can about their chosen field.
“Every time I was given a new project, I didn’t know everything about it at the beginning – and that’s OK,” she said. “Dig in and learn everything you can. Once you learn how to become a subject matter expert you can become on for whatever is put in front of you and you will go far.”
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