Meet John Conley

About

The story of a country boy who dreamed of space.

I grew up in a sleepy little town in Arkansas. The hills of rural America provided a verdant backdrop to my childhood, but my thoughts were somewhere else. I was looking up.

From model space shuttles to documentaries by Carl Sagan, I filled my young mind with the wonders of outer space. It become my first love. As I grew older, I abandoned toys in favor of heavy textbooks and late nights studying. Even though there were no rockets piercing the humid skies overhead, I found a way to give myself a future building and planning their missions through dedication and perseverance in my studies and preparations.

Southern ethics gave me the values and foundation that define my character. Honesty, integrity, hard work, and respect are as much a part of me as my technical abilities. Growing up in a rural setting, though, did not limit my ambitions or my ability to learn. I build on my past experiences, but I am never bound by them.

With this in mind, I pushed forward in my studies to see how high I could reach.

Education

I've learned a lot during my time in school.

As I progressed in my education, space got a lot closer than just my imagination. My undergraduate degrees in mechanical engineering and physics gave me the skills not only to build space hardware but also to use it to understand the world better. I took advantage of design projects like the NASA Lunabotics Mining Competition and the AIAA Design Build Fly drone competition to enhance my classroom knowledge with practical experience. In graduate school, my spacecraft design class allowed me to investigate ground station networks for small satellites and to design a carbon composite solar panel for Stanford’s 2U QB50 CubeSat. The QB50 satellites from universities around the world will form a constellation designed to measure Earth’s thermosphere and to help us better understand re-entry.

Institutions

University of Arkansas

Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, Bachelor of Science in Physics, and Minor in Business Management.

International Space University

25th anniversity Space Studies Program at the Florida Institute of Technology and NASA Kennedy Space Center.

Stanford University

Master's in Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Experience

The first time my work touched space.

I took the skills I learned in the classroom and put them to use at internships. My roles at SpaceX and NASA allowed me to become well-informed on the global launch industry. From helping to build part of an actual launch vehicle to cataloging the characteristics and availability of every small satellite launcher, I became very passionate about the ride to space. I think I might have a rocket launch addiction. I’ve seen seven so far in person including the last shuttle launch and a Delta IV Heavy carrying a different type of Earth observation satellite. My work also helped me develop practical software skills necessary to get a payload launched. As a staffer for the Center Director of NASA Ames, Dr. S. Pete Worden, I have gained intimate knowledge of what it takes to manage contracts, build organizational relationships, balance political considerations, and keep projects on schedule. Through my work experiences, I was finally helping to build the vehicles and design the missions that I had dreamed about since I was a just a boy with a toy spaceship.

NASA Ames

2011-Present

AERO Fellow

Joined Ames through the NASA Academy under Dr. Pete Worden. Continued as staffer for the Office of the Director while supporting smallsat studies in the Mission Design Center. Responsible for launch and integration section of recent Small Spacecraft Technology State of the Art paper.

SpaceX

2011

Structures Intern

Member of unpressurized structures team that built the first commercial spacecraft to service the International Space Station. Significant work in carbon/hex composites.

Life

It wasn't all just work and study, though.

Along the way, I met interesting people from around the world and visited some amazing places. My friends stretch from Cape Town to Moscow. I know how to treat a sprained limb in the woods and am pretty good at baking apple pies from scratch from my grandmother’s recipe. I skydived from 18,000 feet over space shuttle launch pads and had a drink on glacier ice I plucked out of the Strait of Magellan. I learned how to dance “Das Fliegerlied” with a NASA center director and two astronauts. Life is an incredible adventure, and I think the next step of that adventure is at Planet Labs.

Future

Technology can enable a better future for humanity, and I intend to lead it there. I know that my skills, motivation, and courage will allow me to achieve my goals while affecting positive change on the progress of society. What makes me exceptional? I am a human being. I am an engineer and a scientist—one who peers into the inner workings of the universe, finds new truths there, and creates a new reality from them. The same drive and spirit that has made human beings exceptional for centuries makes me exceptional. That is not to say that I do not fail. As a human being, failure is part of life, but it also an integral component of the learning process. I am not exceptional because I know how to succeed; I am exceptional because I know how to fail. In Belize, I worked on a team to build a water filtration system on a rainforest-covered hillside in the Billy Barquedier National Park. Until we installed the filtration system, the residents of two local villages, Steadfast and Pomona, were drinking water directly from a stream. By working alongside the local Belizeans to build something real, I was able to understand the globally uniting power of hard work. Even when equipment broke or when we were physically exhausted, we pushed forward together. The sweat equity put into the project from hauling pipes and concrete over vines and tree roots connected us to the project in an incredibly strong way. I learned the value of working on a team to build a project that truly transforms the lives of hundreds of people. I learned that my professional responsibilities exceed simple design; technologists literally build the world of tomorrow, and it is up to us to make that world a better place. It’s now time to transform the lives of even more people, and I think the best place to do that is at Planet Labs. By providing the best Earth observation and analysis platform on the market, Planet Labs is helping real people around the world solve real problems. Although there are significant challenges facing humanity, we can face them by supporting transformative ideas in diverse industries. At Planet Labs, I could help provide that support from Earth to space and from the present into the future.

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