Shakeel Razvi: The measure of a person
2016-05-19
For Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Johnson Space Center is honoring a few employees whose character, courage and commitment have helped shape them into the people they are today.
Shakeel Razvi, discipline lead for Test and Verification within the Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate at JSC, was born and raised in India and part of a family of high achievers. They had a penchant for excellence, one could say, though it was an unspoken rule.
“That was not something that we really talked about, because that was a given—that you would just do your best,” Razvi said. “And I did.”
The son of a physicist who later became a judge, Razvi was fascinated by NASA, but thought the possibility of being a part of America’s illustrious space program was about as probable as an actor or actress making it big in Hollywood. But the funny thing about dreams is—sometimes—they come true.
“It goes back from the days when [NASA] first landed on the moon,” Razvi said. “I was in India at the time, no TV, nothing. It was a tube radio, and we were listening to ‘Voice of America’ on that live broadcast of the landing of the moon. I had asked my brother at the time, ‘What does it take to work for NASA?’ Little did I know … that’s where I would end up.”
Razvi came to Houston, in the land of opportunity, in 1982. His timing, however, was less than ideal.
“I came here at probably the worst time to come to Houston,” Razvi said. “The job market was really bad because the oil industry had gone down, so there were no jobs. I ended up working as a sacker in a grocery store.”
Across the ocean, Razvi had been quite higher up on the professional ladder.
“The first day or two was a big shock for me—from an engineer to working in a grocery store,” Razvi said. “But then I realized, this is only a means to an end. I had my sights on going to grad school, so I knew that’s where I was headed, and I knew it was an engineering career that I was headed to. Once I came to that realization, I didn’t care what I really did, as long as it was getting me towards that goal.”
Months later, Razvi was accepted to grad school. And the rest, they say, is history.
“I started working in the space industry right after Challenger,” Razvi said. “It was actually strange in the fact that when I graduated, there were still not many jobs around, and I was still going to college and helping out at the university there. I had signed up for my Ph.D. program. The day that I got admitted to the Ph.D. program, I came home and there was this package waiting for me with an offer from Morton Thiokol to join them as a senior engineer in Utah.”
From then on, Razvi has been involved with the space program—his ultimate dream imagined.
Some of Razvi’s standout resume includes robotics work for the International Space Station, including the first time ever that a human-rated robotic system was operated from the ground and not station itself. Though the Missions Operations Directorate folks commanded the Space Station Remote Manipulator System, the enabling of that milestone had Razvi’s fingerprints all over it.
A Silver Snoopy recipient to boot, Razvi’s humble beginnings and trajectory have made him an easy person to root for. He is the embodiment of the Asian-American and Pacific Islander Month 2016 theme, Walk Together, Embrace Differences, Build Legacies. Razvi understands that the measure of a person is not in his professional achievements, however wonderful, but rather—who you are and how you treat others.
“So one thing that, even back from my days in India, I always found was everybody that I associated with had something to offer to me, no matter who it was,” Razvi said. “You could not leave somebody behind and say, ‘Well, I’m going to ignore this person—he doesn’t have anything to offer.’ I found that it doesn’t work that way. There was always something that the other person knows that I don’t know.”
What’s most important to Razvi? Making sure that he treats everyone with respect and compassion, regardless of titles, org codes and pay grades. And albeit unintentionally, his standards of personal conduct have only solidified his success.
“It’s not just a professional relationship,” Razvi said of his interactions with fellow JSC team members. “There’s also personal caring that you have … To me, I hope one day my legacy is not that I was a great engineer from a technical standpoint—which, I value that—but that as a person, somebody will remember me as a good man. That, to me, is my measure of success.”
Catherine Ragin Williams
NASA Johnson Space Center
Shakeel Razvi, discipline lead for Test and Verification within the Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate at JSC, was born and raised in India and part of a family of high achievers. They had a penchant for excellence, one could say, though it was an unspoken rule.
“That was not something that we really talked about, because that was a given—that you would just do your best,” Razvi said. “And I did.”
The son of a physicist who later became a judge, Razvi was fascinated by NASA, but thought the possibility of being a part of America’s illustrious space program was about as probable as an actor or actress making it big in Hollywood. But the funny thing about dreams is—sometimes—they come true.
“It goes back from the days when [NASA] first landed on the moon,” Razvi said. “I was in India at the time, no TV, nothing. It was a tube radio, and we were listening to ‘Voice of America’ on that live broadcast of the landing of the moon. I had asked my brother at the time, ‘What does it take to work for NASA?’ Little did I know … that’s where I would end up.”
Razvi came to Houston, in the land of opportunity, in 1982. His timing, however, was less than ideal.
“I came here at probably the worst time to come to Houston,” Razvi said. “The job market was really bad because the oil industry had gone down, so there were no jobs. I ended up working as a sacker in a grocery store.”
Across the ocean, Razvi had been quite higher up on the professional ladder.
“The first day or two was a big shock for me—from an engineer to working in a grocery store,” Razvi said. “But then I realized, this is only a means to an end. I had my sights on going to grad school, so I knew that’s where I was headed, and I knew it was an engineering career that I was headed to. Once I came to that realization, I didn’t care what I really did, as long as it was getting me towards that goal.”
Months later, Razvi was accepted to grad school. And the rest, they say, is history.
“I started working in the space industry right after Challenger,” Razvi said. “It was actually strange in the fact that when I graduated, there were still not many jobs around, and I was still going to college and helping out at the university there. I had signed up for my Ph.D. program. The day that I got admitted to the Ph.D. program, I came home and there was this package waiting for me with an offer from Morton Thiokol to join them as a senior engineer in Utah.”
From then on, Razvi has been involved with the space program—his ultimate dream imagined.
Some of Razvi’s standout resume includes robotics work for the International Space Station, including the first time ever that a human-rated robotic system was operated from the ground and not station itself. Though the Missions Operations Directorate folks commanded the Space Station Remote Manipulator System, the enabling of that milestone had Razvi’s fingerprints all over it.
A Silver Snoopy recipient to boot, Razvi’s humble beginnings and trajectory have made him an easy person to root for. He is the embodiment of the Asian-American and Pacific Islander Month 2016 theme, Walk Together, Embrace Differences, Build Legacies. Razvi understands that the measure of a person is not in his professional achievements, however wonderful, but rather—who you are and how you treat others.
“So one thing that, even back from my days in India, I always found was everybody that I associated with had something to offer to me, no matter who it was,” Razvi said. “You could not leave somebody behind and say, ‘Well, I’m going to ignore this person—he doesn’t have anything to offer.’ I found that it doesn’t work that way. There was always something that the other person knows that I don’t know.”
What’s most important to Razvi? Making sure that he treats everyone with respect and compassion, regardless of titles, org codes and pay grades. And albeit unintentionally, his standards of personal conduct have only solidified his success.
“It’s not just a professional relationship,” Razvi said of his interactions with fellow JSC team members. “There’s also personal caring that you have … To me, I hope one day my legacy is not that I was a great engineer from a technical standpoint—which, I value that—but that as a person, somebody will remember me as a good man. That, to me, is my measure of success.”
Catherine Ragin Williams
NASA Johnson Space Center