Heading right into a latest employees assembly for Johnson Area Heart’s Enterprise Improvement & Know-how Integration Workplace, Jason Foster anticipated a typical agenda of workforce updates and dialogue. He didn’t anticipate an announcement that he had been named a 2025 Rookie of the 12 months – Honorable Point out by way of the Federal Laboratory Consortium’s annual awards program.
Foster was one in all solely three expertise switch professionals throughout the federal authorities to be acknowledged within the Rookie of the 12 months class, which is open to early-career people with lower than three years of expertise. “It was positively a shock,” he mentioned. “It was fairly an honor, as a result of it’s not solely representing Johnson Area Heart but additionally NASA.”
Foster is a licensing specialist and New Know-how Report (NTR) specialist inside Johnson’s Know-how Switch Workplace in Houston. That workforce works to make sure that improvements developed for aeronautics and house exploration are made broadly out there to the general public, maximizing their profit to the nation. Foster’s function entails each capturing new applied sciences developed at Johnson and advertising and licensing these applied sciences to firms that wish to use and additional develop them.
He describes a lot of his work as “expertise looking” – reaching out to branches, places of work, and groups throughout Johnson to show them concerning the Know-how Switch Workplace, NTRs, and the worth of expertise reporting for NASA and the general public. “NTRs are the muse that enables our workplace to do our job,” he mentioned. “We have to learn about a expertise so as to switch it.”
Foster’s efforts to streamline and strengthen the reporting and patenting of Johnson’s improvements led to his recognition by the consortium. His proactive outreach and relationship-building improved customer support and contributed to 158 NTRs in fiscal 12 months 2024 – the very best variety of NTRs disclosed by federal staff at any NASA middle. Foster additionally proposed a three-month NTR dash, throughout which he led a workforce of seven in an intensive train to determine and report new applied sciences. This initiative not solely cleared a backlog of leads for the workplace, but additionally resulted in additional than 120 beforehand undisclosed NTRs. “We’re nonetheless utilizing that course of now as we proceed processing NTRs,” Foster mentioned. On high of these achievements, he helped safe the very best recorded variety of license agreements with industrial entities within the middle’s historical past, with 41 licenses executed in fiscal 12 months 2024.
“I’m very happy with my accomplishments, none of it will be doable with out the open-mindedness and steady assist of my unbelievable workforce,” Foster mentioned. “They’ve at all times offered an area to develop, and actively welcome innovation in our processes and workflows.”
A self-described “house nerd,” Foster mentioned he at all times envisioned working at NASA, however not till a lot later in his profession – ideally as an astronaut. He initially deliberate to pursue an astrophysics diploma however found a ardour for engineering and fused that along with his love of house by learning aerospace, aeronautical, and astronautical engineering as an alternative. In his final semester of faculty at California Polytechnic State College of San Luis Obispo, he landed a Universities Area Analysis Affiliation internship at Johnson, supporting flight software program growth for crew train programs on the Worldwide Area Station and future exploration missions. “I obtained actually concerned within the Johnson Area Heart workforce and the work, and I believed, what if I joined NASA now?”
He was employed as a licensing specialist on the Know-how Switch workforce below the JETS II Contract as an Amentum worker shortly after graduating and regularly seeks new alternatives to increase his function and skillsets. “The extra I can find out about something NASA’s doing is unbelievable,” he mentioned. “I discovered myself on this excellent place the place actually my job is to be taught every thing there’s to be taught.”
Foster celebrates three years with NASA this July. In his time on the company, he has realized the worth of attending to know and perceive your colleagues’ wants so as to assist them. Earlier than he meets with somebody, he takes time to be taught concerning the group or workforce they’re part of, the work they’re concerned in, and what they could talk about. Additionally it is vital to find out how every individual prefers to speak and collaborate. “Doing all your homework pays dividends,” Foster mentioned. He has discovered that being as ready as doable opens doorways to extra alternatives, and it helps to avoid wasting helpful time for busy workforce members.
When he’s not expertise looking, you may discover Foster working towards the artwork of fireplace spinning. He picked up the interest in faculty, becoming a member of a membership that met at native seashores to apply spinning and capturing totally different geometric patterns by way of lengthy publicity pictures. “It was sort of an odd factor to get into, nevertheless it was actually enjoyable,” he mentioned. His love of studying drives his curiosity in different actions as effectively. Gardening is a comparatively new interest impressed by a realization that he had by no means grown something earlier than.
“It’s a real pleasure, I feel, coming throughout one thing with curiosity and eager to be taught from it,” he mentioned. “I feel it particularly helps in my job, the place your curiosity swap needs to be on at the very least 90% of the time.”