Tony Gallina:
CLASS OF 1980
Choctawhatchee High SchoolClass of 1980
Ft. walton beach, FL
Tony's Story
Let's see - long story now - I figure I would write something with our 30th coming up so I'm not repeating the same boring story over and over at the reunion! After high school, went to the University of South Florida - double majored in Chemical and Mechanical Engineering - focused on Chemical Engineering, went to work in Tampa, Florida for a while at a Chemical Engineering Consulting firm. Decided that there was no job security in that to get married and start a family so took a pay cut and went to work for the DOD in Toms River, NJ. Spent a few years there working some cool black stuff. Got married and now have three kids. Matthew, Christina, and Marc in that order (1992, 1996, 1997). Hard to believe Matthew will be 18 now in May! Great kids! Fun having a bunch of teenagers now!
Left the DOD Navy job after the Challenger accident and went to work for NASA moving to Cocoa Beach and working at the Kennedy Space Center. Got the job over the phone as Rogers Commission stressed for them to pick up "outsiders" of NASA to fill their new Safety Office.
Best move I made as I love NASA - spent 20 years here now. I have worked all Human Spaceflight activities from the Space Shuttle to the International Space Station where I was the Test Manager leading some of...Expand for more
the most complex tests in the history of mankind (way cool!) We simulated on the ground what the Space Station would function like on orbit with all of our International Partners (Russia, Japan, Europe, etc.)
Spent 5 years at the Kennedy Space Center before leaving to work for the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas on the Space Station. Spent 11 years there before moving to NASA Headquarters in 2004-5. Worked Space Operations (Space Shuttle and Space Station) for a while and then moved to Exploration Systems to work the effort going back to the Moon and on to Mars. I manage a key area in that, developing the latest high tech IT, Enterprise Architecture, CM, security and cybersecurity areas. Divorced now after 20 plus years of marriage but found a wonderful fiancee Amor and we have developed a wonderful green cleaning business that has just taken off in 2007. It has been featured on CNBC, ABC, the Washington Post a couple of times, and we are in Entrepreneur Magazine this year as one of the top franchise opportunities in the new economy - January 2010. So crazy as I still have my NASA job and I run a multi-million dollar company with 36 employees - all this occurred in less than 3 years now. So, we travel a lot now and have fun - work hard/play hard!
Register for Free to view all details!
Yearbooks
Register for Free to view all yearbooks!
Reunions
Photos
