Robert Hixson:  

s past co-workers at Lockheed Martin called her about a job opening back in Denver. While we had decided that Lisa was going to be a stay-at-home mom, I was able to convince them I was the right person for the job, as a launch team lead, and we made plans to return to Colorado (keeping with the "C" trend) in the fall of '03. The transition was less than smooth; we sold our house in CT, but Lockheed was slow in finalizing my offer, and we were getting very close to not being able to travel due to Lisa's pending delivery. So, we made a leap of faith, packed up our house, the two dogs, and moved to CO, with no official job offer, no house, and 34 weeks pregnant! Lockheed finally came through with an offer just before Thanksgiving, and we closed on our house the week after. Our household goods arrived on Dec 9, our daughter, Carlin Elizabeth, was born on Dec 13, and I started work on Dec 15! After about 2 months on the program, we learned NASA was canceling the contract after President Bush laid out the plan to return to the moon. I was able to find odd jobs around Lockheed until I ended up on the proposal team for the Crew Exploration Vehicle, the follow-on manned vehicle to the space shuttle. After nearly 2 years, Lockheed won the contract last fall, and I've been working as the Project Engineer for the program's landing system. If all goes well, we'll be flying to the space station in 2013 and back to the moon by about 2018. I started working on my Masters in Systems Engineering at the University of Denver, which will be complete this fall, and we welcomed our son, Mitchell Robert, into our family on Jan 18, 2007, so it has been quite an ride. Lisa and I both love being parents, though it is an amazing amount of work. Lisa owns her own business at a knitting instructor and teaches private lessons and classes at local community colleges. So, that's the short version of 20 years since OHS graduation.