Find your Apollo

I was delighted, honoured and humbled to deliver the oration for the Honorary Doctorate awarded to Douglas Terrier, Chief Technologist of NASA by the University of Warwick on 20 July 2018, appropriately on the same date that the Apollo 11 landing in 1969 enabled humans to walk on the moon for the very first time.

Dr Terrier was inspired to one day be a part of NASA when as a child he watched the Apollo 11 landing on a small, black and white 12-inch television in Jamaica. In his oration he shared the following words with the graduating class: 

"I'll end with few humble words of advice for our graduates. If I can make it from a small village in Jamaica to become a leader in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, anything is possible! So, to our graduates: Find your personal passion. Find your Apollo. And pursue it relentlessly. In spaceflight we have a term, 'signal to noise ratio'. We work very hard to filter out the immense background noise to focus on the delicate signals carrying precious information amongst the vastness of space. In your life and your career, filter out the noise. Focus on the signal, and let your signal be an inspiration to others. The future looks incredibly bright, and it is yours to create. Ad Astra, thank you very much."

Thank you Dr Terrier for your vital work at NASA that is instrumental for the future of humanity. 

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Anyone interested on strategic agility and how an organisation can transform itself over time, please see our article in the Harvard Business Review on "the reinvention of NASA" available here: https://hbr.org/2018/04/the-reinvention-of-nasa

Reference: Heracleous, L., Terrier, D., & Gonzalez, S. 2018. The Reinvention of NASA. Harvard Business Review, 23 April, https://hbr.org/2018/04/the-reinvention-of-nasa