The Barrios Employee Awards and Recognition (BEAR) Team recently awarded four employees of Barrios Technology the Silver Quality Award. The BEAR Silver Quality Award is presented to 1% of Barrios employees each quarter whose contributions are so significant as to merit special recognition by their peers. Sandy Johnson, President of Barrios Technology, made the presentations. The fourth quarter recipients and the basis of the awards are as follows.

JILL NOVAK, MIC Increment Engineer
Nominated by Kathy Leary/NASA

Jill Novak was instrumental in the successful completion of the Requirements Planning Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) conducted in Moscow in December 2005. During pre-TIM planning, Jill played a key role in organizing the agenda, coordinating discussion topics, pre-protocol inputs and obtaining background data. This enabled her to establish the knowledge base necessary to conduct discussions with Russian counterparts on behalf of Increment team members in Houston and achieve positive results. She demonstrated her leadership skills, initiative and professionalism by acting as the lead for NASA representatives during the first few days of the TIM in the NASA Increment Manager's absence. Due to NASA's confidence in Jill's decision-making skills and job knowledge, Jill was key in leading negotiations with a prime international partner critical agreements pertinent to the effective recording, program documentation, and discrepancy resolution of increment crewtime issues. The NASA customer was so impressed with Jill's performance and contributions during the TIM, they have awarded her with the "Go the Extra Mile" (GEM) award. Increment 13 Manager, Merri Sanchez, commented on Jill's professionalism, innovation, exceptional level of performance and quality of work as "Jill went above and beyond her responsibilities in being proactive in meeting with people before the TIM to discuss their topics, in her preparation for the TIM each day, stepped in and acted as trip coordinator with Tech Trans International (TTI) prior to and during the TIM while I was not available.

Sandy Johnson, Jill Novak, Kathy Leary/NASA, Deanna Dumesnil

HAL GETZELMAN, SFOC ISS Capcom
Nominated by Frederick Sturckow, LtCol, USMC/NASA JSC Astronaut Office

Hal Getzelman is a gifted leader, team player, and unusually intelligent/hard worker. Over the course of the last year and a half and in his role as an International Space Station Capcom and Lead Capcom for Increment 12, Hal has broken new ground for NASA contract employees while directly supporting the Space Station crew, the 35 active Crew Office Capcoms, and numerous Flight Control Teams. In addition, Hal continues to be considered the Astronaut Crew Office expert for Space Station life support and emergency procedures/systems. Hal was chosen, in an unprecedented move, to become the first Crew Office full-time contractor Capcom. Months and hundreds of hours of classroom and computer training, simulation runs, and real-time operational runs later, Hal has become one of the most knowledgeable and effective Station Capcoms. As a Capcom, Hal supports demanding weekend and overnight duties, some of which last for 10 to 12 hours or more, and Hal is one of the most dedicated Capcoms that cheerfully and regularly volunteers for these shifts at a level well beyond his fair share. Further, Hal has become an expert at coordinating real-time Station events with his Russian, European, Japanese, and Huntsville counterparts, always using the utmost good judgment that reflects well on the Astronaut Crews, other Capcoms, and the Crew Office. Hal was recently assigned to be the Lead Capcom for Space Station Increment 12, another first for a contract employee. In each of these endeavors and more, Hal's teamwork, leadership, and planning skills have proven to be of the highest quality.

Hal Getzelman, Sandy Johnson, Keith Carley

DUANE RADICIONI, SFOC Staff Engineer
Nominated by Steve Gibson/NASA/DO4

Steve Gibson, the Increment 13 Lead Operations Planner, having worked closely with Duane over several months nominated Duane. Steve's nomination stated "he is a great asset to the Station Planning Group and deserves recognition for his exceptional work." Mr. Radicioni supported Houston in Moscow as the Houston Support Group Planner from 7/29 to 10/22 and received many positive comments about his proactive approach to the job. Duane provided outstanding support to Backup Control Center (BCC) Operations during Hurricane Rita. He was the sole Mission Control Center-Houston (MCC-H) representative in planning for US segment ground and crew activities for International Space Station (ISS). Duane coordinated with Russian Planners to secure the US crewmember's work schedule during the MCC-H evacuation and worked long hours (over 10 hours per day) and on nominal weekend days off. The BCC team in Moscow was recognized during the Crew Debrief at Space Center Houston for their outstanding service. As the Lead ISS Increment 13 Real-time Planning Engineer, Duane was a huge asset during the development of multiple assessments requested by the program office.

Sandy Johnson, Duane Radicioni, Steve Gibson/NASA

MICHAEL ERDMANN, SFOC THOR Engineer
Nominated by Christine Tyrell/Barrios

The Thermal Radiator Rotary Joint (TRRJ) is a key component of the Thermal Control System of the Space Station and is needed for full operation for 12A.1. TRRJ is a significant technical challenge as the rotary joint has cooling fluid, power and data cables feeding through it. Michael Erdmann is the Thermal Operations and Resources Officer (THOR) technical lead for the TRRJ, which demonstrates the group's extremely high regard for Mr. Erdmann's technical and leadership skills. Christine Tyrell nominated Mr. Erdmann for a BEAR based on his exceptional work in planning, training, and executing the TRRJ test on GMT 2005/346. This highly successful checkout, designed to collect data and to verify several software modes, is a prime example of Mr. Erdmann's consistently high standard of work in performance of his duties as TRRJ lead. In addition to supporting significant console shift work, Mr. Erdmann works diligently and often long hours, supporting meetings and preparing the on-console team. His high level of dedication ensures that these tests successfully demonstrate the system's capability and exposes any anomalies. It is a credit to Mr. Erdmann's professionalism and dedication to do the job correctly that he keeps the console handbook (CHB) updated despite the demands on his time. His CHB work also benefits the rest of the THOR team by ensuring accurate and up-to-date reference documentation on both the hardware and software associated with the TRRJ. During the test, several issues were discovered and were resolved quickly. This was in large part due to not only Mr. Erdmann's system knowledge, but also his effort to extend his knowledge to the team of controllers and engineering community.

Christine Tyrell, Michael Erdmann, Sandy Johnson

Barrios Technology is a woman-owned business providing aerospace engineering and related technology services to the government and aerospace industry for over 25 years.