A life of service
2016-11-07
Navy Lieutenant Commander Brad Ashford landed at George Bush Intercontinental Airport after spending nearly a year supporting the Iraq war, only to suddenly realize he didn’t have a ride home.
His wife had called to tell him that their 1-year-old son was sick and needed to see a doctor. Without hesitation, Brad told her to take their son to the hospital, and that he would find a ride home. In need of help, Brad turned to a friendship he developed while working at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
It was instances such as this—a friend showing support in during a time of need—that motivated Ashford to found JSC’s Connected Veterans Employee Resource Group (conVERG). For Ashford, the importance of building personal relationships remains the greatest takeaway from his service in the Navy, as well as his time at JSC.
To fully understand, we have to head back to his life before NASA—even before enlisting in the Navy—back to when he was studying mechanical engineering at Oklahoma State University.
After applying to the Navy his junior year, Ashford spent his senior year of college as an officer candidate, a position that comes with a few perks for a college student.
“After enlisting, I went from eating ramen noodles every night to actually having some money and being able to go out and enjoy a good meal with my friends, so it made college a little easier,” Ashford said.
Once he graduated and completed specialized Navy training, Ashford was assigned to the USS Enterprise, the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. After spending three years aboard the Enterprise, his next stop was Houston as a Navy recruiter. While Ashford may have arrived in Houston hoping to help students realize that they belonged in the Navy, he couldn’t seem to shake the idea that he belonged with NASA at JSC.
That idea became reality two years later. Ashford started off in the training pipeline for flight control before moving to the Constellation Program Planning and Control Office working for the assessments team.
Ashford now points back to those first years at NASA as a major transition period in his life, and one that would not have been as successful if not for the relationships that he had fostered with his co-workers at JSC.
“There’s a lot of difficult situations out there that you can find a way to succeed in, but to succeed you have to be willing to build connections, work together and use variety of ideas to find a way to persevere through challenging situations,” Ashford said.
As he settled in at JSC and started a family, it looked as though life was starting to slow down. But that’s when everything changed.
In 2011, with one daughter at home and a second on the way, he picked up that fateful call: he was being mobilized for the war in Iraq.
He was stationed in Iraq and then retrograded to Kuwait as the Officer in Charge of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle detachment, responsible for gathering important military intelligence, but that was never as challenging as having to leave his family for a 10-month tour.
Back home, Ashford’s wife Heather, a Navy Reservist herself, was balancing a full load. She had a full-time job as a physician’s assistant, a part-time job performing drills with the Navy and the full-time job caring for their two children—one of whom was not even a month old when Ashford was deployed. This meant that Ashford needed extended support and, for him, JSC was a place to turn.
“Nothing is harder than having to leave your family,” Ashford said. “But something that made it less stressful [were] the strong relationships I had built at NASA. I had this network back home so that if something went wrong or I ran into a problem, I could contact someone at JSC, and they would help me find the answer. That was absolutely key for me.”
One of the countless examples of support Ashford received from his network at NASA was that ride home from the airport. The help he received at JSC inspired him to take steps in finding more ways to support veterans at work.
Once back at JSC, Ashford started the Office of the Chief Financial Officer Military Group (OMG). The group aimed to support military men and women as they adjusted to life at the center, helping them to shape those same connections that Ashford had been able to build.
“The veterans that get hired tend to come from very diverse backgrounds,” Ashford said. “It’s not the standard college-to-work transition. Many of these people have worked all across the world in many different environments and then come to Houston and have to adopt a new culture. We knew we needed to get these people together and build relationships to let them know that they have support. This way, when they feel stressors, they can call someone who can relate to the stress and let them know that they aren’t the first or only person to go through that situation.”
After seeing powerful results with OMG, Ashford decided to formalize the group, transitioning OMG to an Employee Resource Group called ConVERG. ConVERG adds significant value to JSC, because the veterans who work at NASA bring intangible strengths to the workforce from their time in service.
“Military people bring a sense of professionalism and an action-oriented personality to work—they always want to get the next task done,” Ashford said. “In the military, you have to be able to take complex situations, make sense of things, work through them and achieve. It’s a lot like football. It takes a whole bunch of first downs to score a touchdown. ”
These days, Ashford is working as the Projects Control team lead in the International Space Station branch of the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. But while he has continued to reach for the stars at NASA, he remains “Commander Ashford” in the Navy Reserve.
Ashford continues to serve today as the Commanding Officer for a Navy Reserve unit at Ellington Field where, as recently as September, he was preparing to deploy in preparation for Hurricane Matthew.
With a life full of service to his country, Ashford is able to appreciate Veterans Day through a unique lens—one that he said developed from his wife’s point of view.
“Before I was married, I viewed Veterans Day as a day to relax and enjoy a special weekend,” Ashford said. “But my wife, who was on the ground in Iraq during the invasion in 2003, always appreciated Veterans Day as a more somber experience. She has helped me to realize that Veterans Day is a time to reflect and to thank others, but also to thank yourself. It is a day where I can look back and be proud of what I was able to accomplish and what I was able to give to my country.”
With hundreds of veterans at JSC, there are undoubtedly many more stories similar to this one. So on behalf of JSC, thank you for your sacrifice and service.
If you are a veteran interested in becoming involved with ConVERG, please contact David Hall.
Noah Michelsohn
NASA Johnson Space Center
His wife had called to tell him that their 1-year-old son was sick and needed to see a doctor. Without hesitation, Brad told her to take their son to the hospital, and that he would find a ride home. In need of help, Brad turned to a friendship he developed while working at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
It was instances such as this—a friend showing support in during a time of need—that motivated Ashford to found JSC’s Connected Veterans Employee Resource Group (conVERG). For Ashford, the importance of building personal relationships remains the greatest takeaway from his service in the Navy, as well as his time at JSC.
To fully understand, we have to head back to his life before NASA—even before enlisting in the Navy—back to when he was studying mechanical engineering at Oklahoma State University.
After applying to the Navy his junior year, Ashford spent his senior year of college as an officer candidate, a position that comes with a few perks for a college student.
“After enlisting, I went from eating ramen noodles every night to actually having some money and being able to go out and enjoy a good meal with my friends, so it made college a little easier,” Ashford said.
Once he graduated and completed specialized Navy training, Ashford was assigned to the USS Enterprise, the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. After spending three years aboard the Enterprise, his next stop was Houston as a Navy recruiter. While Ashford may have arrived in Houston hoping to help students realize that they belonged in the Navy, he couldn’t seem to shake the idea that he belonged with NASA at JSC.
That idea became reality two years later. Ashford started off in the training pipeline for flight control before moving to the Constellation Program Planning and Control Office working for the assessments team.
Ashford now points back to those first years at NASA as a major transition period in his life, and one that would not have been as successful if not for the relationships that he had fostered with his co-workers at JSC.
“There’s a lot of difficult situations out there that you can find a way to succeed in, but to succeed you have to be willing to build connections, work together and use variety of ideas to find a way to persevere through challenging situations,” Ashford said.
As he settled in at JSC and started a family, it looked as though life was starting to slow down. But that’s when everything changed.
In 2011, with one daughter at home and a second on the way, he picked up that fateful call: he was being mobilized for the war in Iraq.
He was stationed in Iraq and then retrograded to Kuwait as the Officer in Charge of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle detachment, responsible for gathering important military intelligence, but that was never as challenging as having to leave his family for a 10-month tour.
Back home, Ashford’s wife Heather, a Navy Reservist herself, was balancing a full load. She had a full-time job as a physician’s assistant, a part-time job performing drills with the Navy and the full-time job caring for their two children—one of whom was not even a month old when Ashford was deployed. This meant that Ashford needed extended support and, for him, JSC was a place to turn.
“Nothing is harder than having to leave your family,” Ashford said. “But something that made it less stressful [were] the strong relationships I had built at NASA. I had this network back home so that if something went wrong or I ran into a problem, I could contact someone at JSC, and they would help me find the answer. That was absolutely key for me.”
One of the countless examples of support Ashford received from his network at NASA was that ride home from the airport. The help he received at JSC inspired him to take steps in finding more ways to support veterans at work.
Once back at JSC, Ashford started the Office of the Chief Financial Officer Military Group (OMG). The group aimed to support military men and women as they adjusted to life at the center, helping them to shape those same connections that Ashford had been able to build.
“The veterans that get hired tend to come from very diverse backgrounds,” Ashford said. “It’s not the standard college-to-work transition. Many of these people have worked all across the world in many different environments and then come to Houston and have to adopt a new culture. We knew we needed to get these people together and build relationships to let them know that they have support. This way, when they feel stressors, they can call someone who can relate to the stress and let them know that they aren’t the first or only person to go through that situation.”
After seeing powerful results with OMG, Ashford decided to formalize the group, transitioning OMG to an Employee Resource Group called ConVERG. ConVERG adds significant value to JSC, because the veterans who work at NASA bring intangible strengths to the workforce from their time in service.
“Military people bring a sense of professionalism and an action-oriented personality to work—they always want to get the next task done,” Ashford said. “In the military, you have to be able to take complex situations, make sense of things, work through them and achieve. It’s a lot like football. It takes a whole bunch of first downs to score a touchdown. ”
These days, Ashford is working as the Projects Control team lead in the International Space Station branch of the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. But while he has continued to reach for the stars at NASA, he remains “Commander Ashford” in the Navy Reserve.
Ashford continues to serve today as the Commanding Officer for a Navy Reserve unit at Ellington Field where, as recently as September, he was preparing to deploy in preparation for Hurricane Matthew.
With a life full of service to his country, Ashford is able to appreciate Veterans Day through a unique lens—one that he said developed from his wife’s point of view.
“Before I was married, I viewed Veterans Day as a day to relax and enjoy a special weekend,” Ashford said. “But my wife, who was on the ground in Iraq during the invasion in 2003, always appreciated Veterans Day as a more somber experience. She has helped me to realize that Veterans Day is a time to reflect and to thank others, but also to thank yourself. It is a day where I can look back and be proud of what I was able to accomplish and what I was able to give to my country.”
With hundreds of veterans at JSC, there are undoubtedly many more stories similar to this one. So on behalf of JSC, thank you for your sacrifice and service.
If you are a veteran interested in becoming involved with ConVERG, please contact David Hall.
Noah Michelsohn
NASA Johnson Space Center
Navy Lieutenant Commander Brad Ashford started ConVERG to help knit the military community together at Johnson Space Center. Image courtesy of Brad Ashford.