I didn’t start out thinking I’d work in the space industry. My background is in marketing and communications, and early in my career I focused more broadly on agency-side brand and reputation management across a variety of industries. The pivot happened when I joined Terran Orbital, a Lockheed Martin Company. I quickly realized how much I loved working alongside engineers and mission teams and translating complex satellite and defense concepts into stories that external audiences could easily understand. From there, it became less of a pivot and more of a calling. The space sector moves fast, the stakes are high, and the work feels meaningful. That combination really stuck with me and shaped the direction of my career to focus on space and deep tech.

In really technical companies, it’s easy for amazing innovation to stay stuck in engineering language. My role is to bridge that gap. I work closely with technical teams to understand what they’re building and why it matters, then translate it into language investors, media, customers, and the public can actually connect with. It’s not about oversimplifying, it’s about making it clear. Strong communication builds trust, attracts talent, supports funding and partnerships, and ultimately helps the technology reach the people it was built for. In space and defense especially, credibility and accuracy are everything, so my job is to protect both while still making the story engaging.

You definitely don’t need an engineering degree to work in space. The industry needs storytellers, communicators, policy minds, designers, finance professionals, project managers, marketers, really the entire ecosystem. My biggest advice is to lean into the skills you already have and look for where they intersect with the industry instead of assuming you have to start over.

Space is a technical field, but it’s also a human one. The missions may be about satellites or propulsion systems, but the success of those missions depends on communication, collaboration, and creativity just as much as hardware.