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In Changing Times, We Place Our Bets on People

By Robert Bell, Executive Director. Attend any conference, ask any industry guru these days, and the answer is the same.  The satellite industry is facing more change, more competition and greater opportunity than at any time in the past fifty years.  It’s exciting, it’s scary and it doesn’t look likely to stop, as new launch companies, new satellite constellations and new frequencies move into a business that still ticks to the clock of a 15-year replacement cycle for orbiting assets. 

            That’s why our industry needs the Society of Satellite Professionals International more than ever before. 

            The key to unlocking the potential of the new century is talent.  We need super-smart, creative and dedicated people willing to think differently about our future. We need them to find their way into careers with us.  We need to make those careers as exciting and productive as any in technology. 

            Those are SSPI’s unique priorities.  Our annual Workforce Study (www.satelliteworkforce.com), conducted in partnership with Korn Ferry, creates a shared understanding of the challenges we face in recruiting and managing talent.  From that shared understanding can come joint action to make our industry more competitive. The study also provides statistics that let us measure our progress – and that let you compare your qualifications, career path and compensation with others in the business. 

            Our Better Satellite World campaign (www.bettersatelliteworld.com) aims to educate the next generation of employees and customers that the world literally runs on our technology. Our infrastructure is invisible to most of them, but we are a platform for innovation that changes the world every day.  They won’t work for us, buy from us or regulate us properly if they don’t even know we exist.

            Our Next Generation programs present student competitions, scholarships and conference travel stipends to show students the amazing career opportunities in our industry.  Every space-crazed student I have ever met is stunned when tell them there are job prospects beyond NASA or a university.  That’s a perception we have to change.

            We also take the industry on a Leadership Quest.  Through our awards programs, we hold up individuals as models of leadership for a new century.  We look inside their accomplishments and draw lessons that you and I can learn from. That’s what we’re doing at the Future Leaders Dinner in New York, and what we will be doing again at the Hall of Fame Benefit Dinner in Washington in March. 

            I spoke with a graduate student recently and she said words that were music to my ears: “Space is really hot!”  The last time I remember young people saying that was the 1970s.  Today, the industry has the need and the opportunity to tap that excitement, and it has the Society of Satellite Professionals International to do the job.  Please join the dozens of companies and thousands of members who support our work.  Your career and your company will be glad you did.


 November 12, 2015