All-women recipients of Silver BEAR Awards announced

August 8, 2022 — Barrios Technology has announced the recipients of its Silver BEAR (Barrios Employee Award and Recognition) Awards for the 2022 first quarter. Each recipient was commended for their outstanding performance supporting Barrios’ contracts with NASA’s Human Space Flight program.

The BEAR Awards Program recognizes superior performance and outstanding support of customer and company goals. The all-women list of employees includes Dominique Brewer, Tram Cao, April Ford, Georgia Hurst, Natalya Ortiz, and Nicole Rose.

Dominique Brewer, Project Coordinator (PC) support to the Human Lander System (HLS) Program Planning and Control (PP&C) organization, was recognized for her forward-thinking management support of the HLS program. She has been instrumental in introducing the Dare to Lead™ courage-building program by Dr. Brené Brown, and her proactive and team-focused approach led to her being hand-picked by the HLS Program management for bringing value-added training to the leadership and staff. The impact of bringing the Dare to Lead™ program to HLS cannot be overstated and has led to further requests for Dominique to provide training opportunities for management and staff.

Tram Cao received a Silver BEAR Award for her outstanding performance as part of the International Space Station (ISS) Program Planning and Control (PP&C) Office. Since joining the team a year ago, Tram has assumed one of the most complex jobs in the PP&C Office while working remotely due to pandemic restrictions. She has become a valued analyst managing funds distribution and tracking obligations for the ISS Program’s $3 billion annual budget across nine of NASA’s 10 field centers. Over the past 12 months, NASA has operated under three separate continuing resolutions (CR) which created additional complexity associated with constrained funding receipts and expedited obligation targets by center. Tram has expertly adapted to her role and has communicated excellently across all levels of management and successfully built relationships across the ISS Program and Chief Financial Officer organization.

As a Cost Estimator for the Human Space Flight Technical Integration Contract (HSFTIC) Assessments Team, April Ford was presented the award for providing excellent cost analysis methods on some of the most complicated projects. As each commercial flight that launches to the International Space Station (ISS) requires detailed estimates for insurance purposes, she developed a Manifest Estimating tool and process that maximizes efficiencies. April developed the concept to track mined data to provide estimates that ensure consistency, repeatability, and accuracy.

Georgia Hurst was acknowledged for her superior performance as a member of the HSFTIC Configuration and Data Management (CDM) team. She has played a key role in the implementation of Configuration Management (CM) processes and tools, not only on the ISS Program but also in providing guidance to the Gateway Program and the Commercial Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Development Program (CLDP). Whilst the team was working remotely during the pandemic, Georgia improved teamwork and communications and ensured that all necessary information was available to continue meeting customer requirements specific to Change Management and Board support, both within HSFTIC and across the Program.

With recent political events affecting cargo transportation to and from Russia, additional coordination and communications with Russian counterparts and NASA have been required. Natalya Ortiz has been honored for the instrumental role she plays in the coordination and integration of the assessments for Space Station cargo transportation options to successfully meet requirements for a Soyuz capsule return. As transportation options changed daily over a two-month period, she provided all parties with up-to-the-minute updates related to the Soyuz cargo complement. Natalya has worked tirelessly in an ever-changing political environment to ensure the safe arrival of the NASA return cargo from Kazakhstan to their final locations in Europe and Ellington Field.

As a Video Producer, Nicole Rose has been recognized for her pioneering work in new filming opportunities aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that highlight space station research.

She has navigated complex procedures and collaborated across organizations and centers to maximize the messaging, resulting in multiple video products that have been used across launch broadcasts and online. Nicole took the lead on learning processes for uplink to the crew and developed procedure-style scripts for use while filming. Her expertise and high-quality work have resulted in improved relations between organizations, communications teams at several NASA centers, and with the astronauts.

Each quarter, our most outstanding employees are selected to receive the Silver Award. Silver award winners automatically qualify for the annual Gold award, which is presented at an annual awards and recognition reception.