[lhood1]

I loved math and science in school and my grandparents suggested that maybe doing something with computers would be good. This was early 1970s so they didn't have a computer but I guess they heard that computers may be big in the future. My father who was a an electrical engineer for NASA encouraged me to major in electrical engineering and I would be able to do whatever I wanted with computers and it would pay better. I have a computer engineering option on my BSEE but I specialized in Communications System for my masters in EE. So that is all of the school related reasons.

Growing up following all of the Apollo missions and the Space Shuttle is the more passionate reason that I became an engineer. There was a lot of pride knowing that my father contributed to those achievements and I wanted to do that in the future. Even though my father didn't work with a lot of women engineers, he encouraged me that I could be anything that I wanted to be.

I have worked for NASA since I graduated from college in 1985 and I work with a number of women engineers. When several engineers in our division started recruiting mentors for FRC team 2936, I asked if there were young women on the team and they said yes but there were no women engineer mentors. I decided to join as a mentor so that the team would see women engineers. I have really enjoyed the last two years with FIRST. I wish FIRST had been around when I was growing up.