Contractor Conversion Flaws Arise At NASA (Update)

Keith’s update: see “Contractor Conversion: Two Things Can Be True At NASA” Keith’s note: I have been hearing of some concern at NASA KSC (and elsewhere around NASA too) about a perceived rush to convert core functions from contractors to civil servants. At a top level there is a certain logic to this. But when reality pops up it gets messy. One issue has to do with waiving education requirements to retain civil servant expertise. Again, this makes some sense – people who have been doing the job and doing it well should be allowed to continue regardless of where they got their experience. But when this is put in practice it is totally different. Some of the engineering folks at KSC have 10, 20, 30+ years of experience but are lacking college degrees. They are being told that this prevent or limits their ability to be converted from contractor to civil servant. At the Launch Equipment Test Facility (LETF) the younger contractor engineers with degrees were converted – but the ‘legacy’ (older) engineers were laid off – and with them a lot of space muscle memory went out the door. Update: this response from the NASA Administrator’s witter account was just tweeted. NASA PAO does not bother to contact me directly any more. I stand by my post. Apparently the full picture is not being communicated clearly at all levels and among affected employees at NASA KSC.