Johnny Berry
WORKING OUT OF THIS WORLD
J
OHNNY BERRY ’08 had been teaching high school math and science for five and a half years after graduating from Southeastern. What he never could have guessed is that the next step in his career would be a position as a NASA flight controller for the International Space Station (ISS). With a growing history of four years at NASA, Johnny has worked his way from a timeline-change officer in the planning and analysis branch, where he created daily schedules for the astronauts, to his current position on the operations side as a specialist operations controller. “The job I do now is so different from anything I thought I would ever do,” said Johnny. Stationed at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., Johnny is one of 6,000 workers employed at what
44 SOUTHEASTERN
Johnny Berry '08 and his wife, Amanda
is one of NASA’s largest field centers. With a budget of approximately $2.8 billion, it has been home to some of the most significant quests in history, such as the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and ’70s. Johnny works hands on with scientists and payload developers, helping them get their experiments ready to be executed on the space station. This includes determining the proper hardware and resources required, training crews and being present to troubleshoot once the experiment is in motion. “There are times when the crew needs to be trained on how to operate a payload, so I typically help out on whichever payload I’m currently working with,” said Johnny. “As we get into execution and the crew is actually conducting the experiment, I’m there to work with them and help finetune the details.”
Seeing as the ISS works off the Greenwich Mean Time zone (GMT), which is six hours ahead of the East Coast, Johnny’s position is never the typical nine to five. Rather, it is an around-the-clock operation, depending on what mission he’s currently assigned to. “With flight control, we are 24/7, 365,” said Johnny. “All of the people working flight control positions gave up a lot to do so.” Although he started out on a rotating schedule as a timeline-change officer, Johnny’s new role requires him to be on console while his experiment is running on the space station. When that’s not the case, he works on developing products in his office for the next payload. “What I do every day is so different, but on the whole, it’s really working with people. Southeastern taught me how to talk with people, how to be approachable and how to show God’s grace to people,”
