NASA’s FIRST BLACK MANAGER – DOROTHY VAUGHAN








Have you ever dreamed of working at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA? When I was young, my dream was to be an astronaut or work for an Aerospace Company related to stars and planets. Well, I guess that didn’t work out for me.

In this article, I will tell you about a woman who doesn’t get much appreciation and is rarely seen as the face of the program for her contribution to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA).

 

Her name is Dorothy Vaughan, a mathematician, the first NASA black manager, the first African-American to receive a promotion at NASA, and an expert in FORTRAN – a frontrunner in electronic computer programming, her contribution to NASA is vast.







Dorothy Vaughan was born on September 20, 1910, in Kansas City, MO. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics from Wilberforce University, in 1929, she was hired by NACA (currently NASA) in December 1943 and retired from NASA by 1971.

In the time when NASA was led by an African American (Administrator Charles Bolden) and a woman (Deputy Administrator Dava Newman), and when recent NASA Directors come from a variety of backgrounds, it’s easy for people to overlook who paved the way the agency’s current diverse workforce and leadership.

Pioneers rarely mention the name Dorothy Vaughan, but as the head of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), Vaughan was both a respected mathematician and NASA’s first African-American manager.

Dorothy Vaughan came to the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in 1943. During World War II, she left her position as a math teacher at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, VA. Two years after President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802 into law, prohibiting racial, religious, and ethnic discrimination in the country’s defense industry, the Laboratory began hiring black women to meet the skyrocketing for processing aeronautical research data. Dorothy Vaughan was assigned to the segregated “West Area Computing” unit, an all-black separate dining and bathroom facility. Over time, both individually and as a group, the West Computers distinguished themselves with contributions to every area of research in Langley.

 

 

Dorothy Vaughan was promoted to lead the group, making her the NACA’s first black supervisor, and one of the NACA’s few female supervisors. She also manages West Computing for nearly a decade. In 1959, when the NACA made the transition to NASA, segregated facilities, including the West Computing office, were abolished. Dorothy Vaughan became an expert FORTRAN programmer, and she also contributed to the Scout Launch Vehicle Program. Engineers valued her recommendations as to the best “girls” for a particular project, and for challenging assignments they often requested that she handle the work.







Dorothy Vaughan retired from NASA in 1971, She sought, but never received, another management position at Langley. Her legacy lives on in the successful careers of West Computing alumni, and the achievements of second-generation mathematicians and engineers

What can we learn from Dorothy Vaughan? People will have a different opinion on this, but for me, the best leaders never lose sight of their mission, they build positive working relationships while delivering crucially important results.