 My first small step that I would say is when I was here at Purdue I decided to major in aeronautics and astronautics and it was hard. It was it was harder than I expected it to be even though I was pretty good in high school but now all of a sudden I'm surrounded by a lot of really smart people and so at one point I thought about changing fields I thought about changing majors and I had a conversation with my dad he came up to campus and I thought he would be mad if I said hey I'm thinking this engineering thing's not gonna work out for me and he said well you know what you need to do what what makes you happy and I thought about it and I ultimately stayed in engineering and I'm so glad I did but by having that ability for him to believe in me and give me the confidence to be able to make that decision was really important. My second small step I would say is going into the co-op program because I had a fantastic experience phenomenal experience actually in working for one of the contractors for NASA Johnson Space Center so it was a division of IBM at the time called the IBM Space Systems Division and so we were responsible for programming four of the five on board computers on each space shuttle and during the height of the space shuttle program it was an amazing experience and here I am as a young college student able to go over to mission control at Johnson Space Center and work with some of the people in that area was just an amazing experience and then I say probably a third step probably going into my career in the FBI I was in the FBI for 29 years and by having that Purdue education I know opened doors for me because there were things that I got involved in that I don't think that I could have potentially competed for if I didn't have that extra piece of having the Purdue education and one example would be where I went into into management ultimately which actually is my big step my big leap in going into management but as part of that journey my management career ended up transcending everything from the FBI's investigations to our science and technology areas and that having that Purdue piece behind me was was enabled me to be able to succeed in that field so that's it my big leap going into management I spent 20 years in management in the FBI and then in local government and state government and by having I know the experience here at Purdue enabled me to be able to make better decisions to think critically and to really to use that experience to be able to identify contingencies and identify the best solutions. Amy Hess School of Aeronautics and Astronautics 1989 and I am a Purdue engineer.