PSU Magazine Winter 2001

By Melissa Steineger A chieving your dream can include many strange twists of fate, including the ultimate irony-finding that your dream has changed. Michelle Maynard Collins '85 was a senior at Clackamas High School when she wrote to astronaut Sally Ride asking, Could a girl from ends-of– the-earth Oregon hope to fly through the heavens? Ride sent back the mes– sage: Follow your dream. Since that time, Collins has focused on one goal, but serendipity, coinci– dence, and quirks have often turned and twisted her planned trajectory. Collins, having scoured biogra– phies, resumes, and other sacred texts of NASA's elite, deduced that her first step toward the skies was to earn cre– dentials as a mechanical engineer. She entered the honors program at Oregon State University. The school's Air Force ROTC quickly offered her a full scholarship and a coveted pilot's slot, but the size of OSU overwhelmed Collins. "I was shy, and it was such a huge school," she says. "I was totally lost." Dispirited and broke, Collins retreated to Portland after one term at OSU. But, after a few months, she got back on track, enrolled at Portland State, and found a job at a local radio station sweeping floors from midnight to morning. "I slept a few hours before my work shift and a few hours after, but I was tired a lot," she says. "Fortu– nately, my professors were very under– standing." Understanding, perhap , becau e they recognized her potential. Pah Chen, professor of mechanical engi– neering, was so impressed with Collins that he has stayed in touch with her during the 15 years since she last sat in 18 PSU MAGAZINE WINTER 2001 Michelle Collins' career trajectory has just one way to g<>-up. his classroom. Last fall, Chen nomi– nated Collins to the College of Engi– neering and Computer Science Academy of Di tinguished Alumni. "She was a very special student," says Chen. "Hard to forget. She set goals for herself, created opportunities for herself to reach those goals, and fol– lowed through." C ollins demonstrated tho e traits during her senior year, when she methodically wrote to the 40 or so contractors who supply NASA with everything from 0-rings to oxygen. Morton Thiokol wrote back. In Augu t 1985, Collins joined the then-obscure supplier of rocket boosters. Five months later, the Space Shuttle Chal– lenger exploded on lift-off, and Morton Thiokol and 0-rings became house– hold words-driving home the dangers of shooting into outer space while sit– ting on a tank of flaming rocket fuel. "When I joined Morton Thiokol, the first thing they did was show new employees a film of the dangers of working with the things we would be handling, like nitroglycerin," recalls Collins. "They showed us the hand– prints left in doorways by people trapped in burning buildings, things like that." Danger didn't deter Collins, although her meticulous planning almost did. Collins had scheduled her trip to the stars to include some practi– cal experience before returning to school for advanced engineering degrees. But opportunity couldn't wait. "I had planned to work three years, then go back to school and get a mas– ter's," recalls Collins. "After two years and eight months, an opening came up at Kennedy Space Center. I thought I should wait because it hadn't been three years-typical engineer." Impul ively-for an engineer– Collins applied. Her resume earned her a trip to the Florida Space Center and a chance to walk on the launch pad. "It was so amazing," she says. "Even though they canceled the job, I had seen it-I had walked on the launch pad. I then applied with every agency, every contractor, everyone who had anything to do with Kennedy." Collins landed a job with EG&G, Inc., the contractor responsible for Space Center facilities. EG&G needed to revamp its fire-suppression systems, and although Collins didn't have a lot of experience, she leapt in. Upon join– ing the National Fire Protection Asso– ciation (NFPA), Collin learned that one of the most potent fire-extinguish– ing substances in EG&G's arsenal was raising environmental red flags. Halon is the best when it comes to fighting fires in flammable liquids– like rocket fuel-and electrical equip– ment. It's also one of the most potent greenhouse gases known-eight times more powerful than fluorocarbon refrigerants in damaging the Earth's protective layer of ozone. Collins developed a stellar program for EG&G to reduce the use of halon, and caught the eye of NASA officials. NASA created a job for a halon expert, and she successfully applied– joining the agency in 1990. I n her first year at the Space Center, Collins hit the stratosphere. She was named to manage NA A's entire halon program. he also was invited to join the NFPA' halon committee, and she became a member of an interna– tional halon group. Eventually the