Wright: Life happens. I got married. I had kids. And then it was time for my husband to retire. He said, “Where would you like to settle?” I said, “Florida, because I never gave up my dream to work here.
I followed NASA TV. I did everything to keep up with it. When I first applied, I didn’t hear anything for six months. So I tweaked my resume. And as I mentioned in the book, I literally started going on the computer: studying threads, fabrics, lingo, everything I could to prepare and if by some miracle, I did have a job interview.
Everybody was saying, “You’re not going to get it. You’re not going to get it. You want it too bad.” But that made me even more determined that I was going to get it. I promised myself: I was driving a clunker. I thought,”I live in Melbourne. It’s an hour away (from NASA). If I get the job, I’m buying myself a new car.”
Anyway, I had an interview and it was two hours long with three different people. And they’re asking questions left and right. For some reason, I just felt so comfortable being there. It’s like I knew I was supposed to be there. They were amazed at how much I knew, how enthusiastic I was — that I knew the launch schedule for everything. But I just wanted to make sure that I sounded good and right for the part.
From what I understand, I know there were three other ladies after me who interviewed. But I was the first one. So they invited me out to temporary headquarters (at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center), because the roof had blown off our building during a hurricane. So we’re hanging around at the Shuttle Landing Facility. I thought it was just a courtesy, since they hadn’t hired anybody in that position in such a long time
Well, that was on a Thursday. A few days after my interview, a call from KSC comes up on the caller ID. I’m standing next to my oldest daughter and I tell her, “Oh Jenny, this is going to be the most important phone call your mom’s ever gotten in her whole life. “And it was them letting me know that they had hired me.
My boss says to me, “Well, the fact that we invited you out to the facility, you had no clue (we were going to hire you).” I said, “No, I thought you guys were just being nice.”
Then he said: “Our building was in such a funk. And we were very sad after we lost (space shuttle) Columbia. You had the spark and the enthusiasm and the heart for this. I knew when I saw you. I knew that you were the person that we needed right at that time. I picked you over all of them. I told them when you left the room.”
So I got a late start. I was 49. I was almost 50, just a few months shy of 50.
Discussion about this post