Q&A with Gateway: Meet Will Hopkins, Gateway Schedule Program Analyst

Built with commercial and international partners, each element and office of the Gateway Program have their own schedules. The program relies on Will Hopkins to integrate all these schedules and help keep the program running smoothly.   

Get to know more about Will, below.

What is your role in the Gateway program? 

I am a program analyst and one of two members on the Gateway Schedule Team. 

What are your primary responsibilities?

Parts of Gateway are being built all over the world, and each element, vehicle, and office have their own schedule. As a program analyst, I am responsible for integrating all of those schedules into the Gateway Master Schedule. Once we have those schedules in one place, we perform what is called “schedule risk analysis” in order to fulfill NASA policy requirements and help Gateway management make informed decisions about the future.

What are you excited to share about Gateway and what it will do for human exploration as part of the Artemis program?

If Mars is the goal, Gateway is absolutely the next step. By facilitating longer stays farther from our planet, Gateway will be an excellent tool that will help us prove and develop the technologies necessary for a Mars-class mission.

How has your own personal background influenced your work on the Gateway program?

As an intern, I worked in both procurement and resources. As schedules are often closely related to available resources and greatly affected by the contracts we put in place, my previous experience provides a broader perspective than I might have had otherwise. 

Being surrounded by such a high-performing group of people, what’s a great piece of advice you’ve learned?

There’s a wealth of experience and ability available at NASA. I have often said that, “Everyone in the world knows something that you don’t — the trick is just finding out what it is.” That statement holds true here, as the average person probably knows a lot of things you don’t. 

In line with JSC’s DARE | UNITE | EXPLORE, how do you see yourself fitting into the vision?

By integrating schedules from all over the world, I am uniting things in a fairly literal sense. Additionally, much of the Gateway program Planning and Control Team has also worked to explore new ways of interpreting and tailoring NASA policy in order to facilitate our aggressive schedule.

Now, more about you. Where did you grow up?

Here in Houston. I was born in a house in the Heights, moved to Cypress until high school, and attended both high school and university in town. (Go Coogs!)

How long have you been at JSC?
I started as a Pathways intern in the fall of 2016 and came on full time in the fall of 2018.

Describe yourself in five words.
Confident, inclusive, informal, personable, phlegmatic.

Favorite thing(s) to do to unwind:

Jump out of an airplane! It’s hard to be stressed about emails when the ground is approaching at ~120 mph.

When this pandemic is over, what can’t you wait to do?

Travel internationally. I am well overdue, but I have been saving up my leave for a long vacation.

What is one thing you like about teleworking?

With no commute, I have much more available time during the week.

Tell us a fun fact about you.

I’m pretty good at balancing things (brooms, chairs, etc.) on my chin. I even make it look easy.

At Johnson, we are laser-focused on the next: going forward to our lunar neighbor to build outposts in uncharted territory while revolutionizing the strategies and technologies that will eventually open up the universe. The Gateway is a critical component of the Artemis program and embodies Johnson's DARE | UNITE | EXPLORE vision: We dare to expand frontiers. We unite with our partners to complete bold missions. We explore space to benefit humanity.

DARE | UNITE | EXPLORE