They held a program for individuals under the age of 35 to attend called the New Gen Initiative. I had the unique opportunity to sit down and talk with a handful of entrepreneurs who are in the space field. The one person I most remember talking to was one of the co founders of XM radio. The three major pieces of advice that I took away from that night are 1. If you’re interested in something, keep working towards it. Take advice when it is offered and seek out a mentor. 2. Don’t be afraid to fail. Everyone makes mistakes, learn from them and move forward. 3. When moving into a new organization sit back and learn all you can rather than try to prove yourself.

While attending the symposium I learned about a couple of interesting organizations. The first one being the Space Foundation; their purpose is to bring innovative space professionals together in a non-partisan, objective and fair manner.

The second organization is the Space Generation Advisory Council who started out of the United Nations.  SGAC works on the international, national and local level to link together university students and young professionals to think creatively about international space policy issues and inject the youth point of view into international space policy creation.

The third organization but definitely not the least is the X PRIZE Foundation.  An X PRIZE is a $10 million+ award given to the first team to achieve a specific goal, set by the X PRIZE Foundation, which has the potential to benefit humanity. Rather than awarding money to honor past achievements or directly funding research, an X PRIZE incites innovation by tapping into our competitive and entrepreneurial spirits.

In all it was an incredible experience, I am very thankful for being afforded the chance to attend.

The image used in this post header is property of http://www.afceacyberspace.com

Who knew so much could happen in seven months? Kati and I are engaged! I just launched KatiandTom.com. I proposed on November 6, 2009 at SQUEAK Soda Shop in Colorado Springs. Kati has been busy planning away for the wedding, in fact she has just about everything planned. We are still looking for a DJ, have any suggestions? Our wedding date is June 12, 2010!

It’s time for yet another update. Four months has been long enough to go without a new post. Where do I start however? Kati and I drove out to California for our Spring break. It was pretty great. A week of not having to worry about anything except the occasional “exit missing” we encountered in San Diego. Apparently my yellow Xterra isn’t as intimidating as I thought. My type A personality and lead foot (which I paid for on the way back in the wonderful state of Arizona by the way) don’t mix very well when the exit you want to take is right there and there are five lanes of traffic to cross. We spent most of the trip on Coronado Island. What a beautiful place. Other than that, school has been moving right along. Its amazing how fast time is flying, we are at the end of our finals week at UCCS and Monday is our last official day then its summer break.

Speaking of summer I will be back on orders with the Air Force until classes start up again. It looks as though I will be spending some time in D.C. over the next few months. I am looking forward to it. This will definitely be a learning experience. I feel so blessed to have such a great job and have the opportunities that arise from it.

That’s all I have time for, hopefully I won’t take four months to post again.

Anyone else need a quick lesson in time management? The last few months have been extremely busy. I’m two weeks into my classes at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS), with 15 credit hours as a pre-engineering student.

On top of school, I just finished up my interview process with the Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD). I applied to work there awhile back, as an intern working in the IT department and had the opportunity to take my first lifestyle polygraph. What an experience that was! Ok, really it wasn’t too bad. Apparently I passed though because they accepted me into their internship program.

On the personal side, things are going great. It looks as if I will be able to go to San Diego for Spring break this year with my amazing girlfriend. Kati has really brought a much-needed change to my life. She has broken the same old routine that I started to get back into after I got off active duty orders with the Air Force. It would seem things are finally starting to fall into place. I am grateful; God has blessed me in so many ways. With this quick update, I am off too hopefully put a dent in my Spanish homework. There will be more posts to come.