Puerto Rican engineer living his dream working with Lockheed space program
After years of hard work, being part of the team whose main objective is to secure Orion, an important part of the Artemis moon missions, “is an honor. It is the culmination of years and years of dreams. Of many doors that were closed.”
Vladillen “Vlado” González fondly recalls his first interview with Lockheed Martin. He was wearing a “$99 suit,” he said, laughing about a deal that got him everything from the shirt and tie to the suit to the shoes, all for one price.
“It wasn’t the prettiest, but I felt like thousands of dollars,” he said with a smile. “It was pressed, clean, my shoes were shining, my belt, and I was even smelling good.”
The opportunity would bring him a little closer to that dream he had since a childhood fascinated by science and the stars.
He didn’t make it then. But his mom told him “lift your head, and you’re going to keep trying until you get there.”
So he did, another 22 times. He said he often received a generic email saying “thank you for your application but we moved with a different candidate.” Other times he didn’t have specific skills. After working for other engineering companies, he believes he got the experience he needed.
On his 24th attempt, he finally got hired, but not to the space program. He had to apply another dozen times for that.
González, 45, just recently was promoted to Quality Engineering Manager in charge of one of the world’s most advanced space manufacturing facilities: the Spacecraft, Test, Assembly and Resource Center (STAR Center) at Lockheed Martin.
He says it might sound like a cliché, but González is living a dream.
González, a mechanical and aerospace engineer who first graduated from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez campus, has 15 years of experience in engineering.
For the past three years he has been working with Lockheed
Martin’s engineering group on a mission that will take the next generation of astronauts to the moon and Mars.
He is in charge of about 34 people, including quality engineers, technicians and inspectors whose job is to ensure that all components are good to go and verify they are installed correctly.
Their job is to make sure the Orion capsule and other projects work properly, he explained.
No matter what happens, he said he knows that he will “put my grain of sand in history.”
Michael Dale, Quality Engineering Manager at the Kennedy Space Center for Lockheed’s Orion capsule program, said that as González’s manager, “it’s very easy to recognize his work ethic and passion for the project. He is a driven individual.”
“Vlad stood out during his interview process for management for having an innate passion for the project and engineering overall,” Dale said.
González was born in San Germán and raised in Sabana Grande in public housing known as “caseríos” in Puerto Rico until he entered military service at age 19.
“Many beautiful people come out of the caseríos, many good people and my background comes from that type of background,” he said, adding that he had a happy childhood.
When he was about 6 years old, his dad gave him a photo of the Columbia space shuttle. “We put it on my bedroom wall. I would literally wake up and go to sleep looking at the photo of the shuttle.”
That led him to think that he would like to become an astronaut or work for NASA, but he was “coming from a low-income family, it was a very distant dream.”
Over time he continued to learn about science and at the young age of 10, he says he even wrote to NASA for photos of special projects. Receiving those fed his imagination and the desire to move forward.
He always knew that his interest was to study engineering but his path would take a little longer than he imagined. He had to drop out of school due to lack of money and resources.
González hitchhiked from Sabana Grande to Mayagüez, a 40 minute drive that crossed several municipalities.
That’s when military service in the Marines offered him the opportunity to enlist and pay for his education. He got his initial degree in Puerto Rico.
Later, he graduated with an MBA from the University of Southern California’s prestigious veterans program. He started that degree while he worked for Honeywell Aerospace in that state and finished it after moving to Florida.
During his military career, González said he was involved with peace negotiations in the Middle East in 2000 and served as a flight engineer for the presidential helicopter squadron under the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
He said he had to fight for his job
serving the two presidents.
An instructor told him ‘González, put your hand down, you don’t even know how to speak English, you think you are going to work with the president of the United States,’ ” he recalled.
After years of hard work, being part of the team whose main objective
is to secure Orion, an important part of the Artemis moon missions, “is an honor. It is the culmination of years and years of dreams. Of many doors that were closed.”
“The most important thing is to follow your dream, work hard and help someone along the way,” he said.