Ed Fein

I love my job, I love the work, and I love the mission of the agency. But, what keeps me here are the people I work with. They are like my second family. I am an Intellectual property law attorney in Johnson Space Center’s Legal Office. I have been at Johnson in this capacity since 1967, and the second chief JSC patent counsel since the center opened. Patents are important, because they are an incentive to create. Artists and authors protect their work by copyright. Engineers and scientists can protect their intellectual property rights in their inventions by obtaining patents. NASA licenses its patents to private industry, which provides them the necessary incentive required to develop the technology into useful products and processes. NASA has a storied history of advancing the state of the art in broad fields of technology, and I take great pride in playing a role in that process. 

In life, you have to love what you do or you’re not going to do it well. I continue to enjoy what I do with the incredible people of NASA.