| Gwendolyn Sykes, SPA ’01
Forty miles above the Earth on the morning of February 1, 2003, space shuttle Columbia disintegrated while racing through the sky at 18 times the speed of sound, claiming the lives of seven astronauts on board. Three months earlier, Gwendolyn Sykes had been named acting chief financial officer for NASA, a position she now holds on a permanent basis. Sykes, who earned a master’s degree from AU’s School of Public Affairs’ Key Executive Program in 2000, vowed to ensure that the families of the seven heroes were cared for by NASA.
Gwendolyn Sykes and NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe during a ceremony enacting the agency’s Family Assistance Fund.
(Photo courtesy of NASA)
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“I thought, ‘What can I do after such a great tragedy?’” Sykes says. “NASA didn’t have any funds established to help the families of astronauts, or any NASA employees, similar to the types of funds the military and firefighters have. I was instrumental in establishing what we now have, the Family Assistance Fund.” The fund compensated the astronauts’ families, as well as the families of the three NASA employees killed in a car crash this fall. NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe called the fund Sykes’s greatest legacy at the agency. Sykes grew up near Anchorage, Alaska, and came to Washington to attend Catholic University, where she earned an accounting degree. She worked as an intern and later a legislative aide for Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska before serving at the Department of Defense as a contract auditor. It was there that her then boss, Ron Brooks, a 1992 AU SPA graduate, wrote her a recommendation for the Key program. “I think she epitomizes what you want to come out of [the Key] program,” says Brooks, who now works for Sykes at NASA. “She’s long since passed me.”
Sykes credits her AU degree with helping her become an effective leader at NASA.
“It helped me recognize that your greatest resources are the people you have,” she says. Three or four times a year Sykes, an Arlington, Virginia, resident, travels back to Alaska, where she fishes for salmon and halibut. On both coasts, and everywhere in between, people are impressed when she tells them her employer. “NASA’s name recognition spans all generations from elementary school children all the way up to grandparents,” Sykes says. “The people here are dedicated to our mission of space exploration. Everyone is motivated to work toward it. [You] take a sense of pride being associated with that.” —Mike Unger continued next page |
