At the Future Leaders Celebration conducted during the Silicon Valley Space Week event in Silicon Valley, Space & Satellite Professionals International (SSPI) presented the 2024 Promise Awards to Mackenzie Mason of Boeing, Paige Webster of ATLAS Space Operations and Bradley Williams of NASA.
The Promise Awards honor the three top-ranked members of the annual “20 Under 35” list of space & satellite employees and entrepreneurs age 35 and under who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the early stages of their career. The three recipients were honored at the 19th annual Future Leaders Celebration in Mountain View, California, in conjunction with Silicon Valley Space Week, produced by SatNews Publishers.
“Every year we present these remarkable 20 people to our industry,” said SSPI’s executive director Robert Bell. “I walk away thinking I really need to relive my life over again. But then, I realize that the future of our industry is in the very safe hands of innovators dedicated to a bold future.”
The “20 Under 35,” Promise Award winners and Mentor of the Year are selected by a jury of industry executives who donate their time and expertise to reviewing dozens of nominations received from around the world. Starting this year, the jury includes members of the Space & Satellite Hall of Fame.
The 2024 Promise Award Winners:
Mackenzie Mason
Engineering Manager for Space Mission Systems Structural Dynamics, Boeing
Mackenzie Mason began her career at Boeing in 2014 as a Structural Dynamics Engineer. Her early contributions to the company were pivotal to the development of the 702MP/MP+ spacecraft, as she provided crucial recommendations to program management offices and customers and led numerous innovations in dynamic loads analysis and testing. Mackenzie spearheaded the dynamic shaker table move at Boeing’s El Segundo site, a project in which she had to overcome numerous challenges, including excavation of the structural test floor, removal of a vacuum chamber and reduction of the structural test lab footprint while adhering to an accelerated schedule.
Her strategic planning and oversight ensured that multiple satellites completed testing on the new dynamic shaker table with 100% success, completing a $5 million investment. While working at Boeing, Mackenzie also authored a white paper documenting updated NASA methodologies for predicting shock on composite honeycomb structures based on Boeing’s actual spacecraft-level shock measurements. Her white paper is now a critical reference for resolving requirement and verification disagreements in new satellite programs.
Mackenzie was instrumental in the successful vibration, shock and acoustic qualification of hardware for Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, which ensured the successful launches of Orbital Flight Tests 1 and 2 (OFTs). She developed a validation tool that significantly reduced cycle time and errors, enhancing the effectiveness of spacecraft environmental validation efforts. Mackenzie’s work has been reviewed and approved by NASA, contributing to the success of both OFT2 in 2022 and the anticipated Crew Flight Test in 2024.
In 2021, Mackenzie was promoted to Engineering Manager for the Space Mission Systems Structural Dynamics department in 2021, where she now leads a team of 16 high-performing engineers. Under her leadership, the team has constantly exceeded expectations, optimizing processes to reduce testing schedules, including a 30% acceleration in the sine vibration test for the Viasat3 F3 spacecraft.
Mackenzie has earned multiple accolades for her leadership, including the Satellite World Class Engineer Award in 2019 and 2023. Mackenzie is a key contributor to the 702MP product line, a medium-power variation of the Boeing 702 high-power satellite that offers an affordable and technically adaptable design for the medium-sized satellite market. She was appointed the management focal by Integrated Design Engineering Director to lead the 1000+ engineer large organization on knowledge transfer across multiple sites and programs. In this role, Mackenzie establishes lunch and learn meetings and leads management discussions on skill development and knowledge capture.
Outside of working hours, Mackenzie has served as a Senior Design Project Industry mentor for the California State University, Los Angeles College of Engineering for moe than six years. She guides students through their capstone projects and helps them develop technical and professional skills. She also serves as a mentor for Boeing’s Mentoring on Rotation Experience (MORE) and as a new hire mentor for engineers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Mackenzie also participates in multiple community service activities, including beach clean-ups, assisting at the LA Food Bank and contributing to park beautification efforts.
Paige Webster
Director of Customer Solutions, ATLAS Space Operations
Paige (Cooley) Webster joined ATLAS Space Operations in November of 2021 as a Technical Sales Engineer in Client Solutions after completing three internships at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Her keen eye for identifying process improvements led her to spearhead the development of a new role that aligned the Operations, Integrations, Engineering and Client Solutions teams to create a more streamlined approach to customer relations. Paige’s exemplary performance in this new role she helped create led her to be promoted to her current position of Director of Commercial Solutions, a position in which she focuses primarily on sales and business development, developing ground station solutions for a wide variety of unique missions.
She has a unique talent for explaining complex topics in a way that is accessible to diverse audiences, allowing her to bridge the gap between engineering and sales. As a Director of Commercial Solutions, Paige led ATLAS’ effort to design the ground station solution to support Blue Origin’s DarkSky-1 and follow-on Blue Ring missions. Simultaneously, she oversaw the solution development for more than 12 customer campaigns and managed ATLAS’ commercial contracting, resulting in great customer satisfaction. Since joining ATLAS in 2021, Paige has quickly become a significant contributor to the company. She has closed approximately 40% of 2024’s current revenue, and is on track to close more than 70% of ATLAS’ Commercial and Fed Civil sales by the end of 2024.
Before her time at ATLAS, Paige contributed to multiple flagship missions at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, implementing rigorous flight system and payload verification and validation procedures on the Mars 2020 and Europa Clipper programs. Her work on Europa Clipper ensured that the suite of more than 10 sensors and science instruments onboard were fully tested so they perform and adequately meet their mission objectives once on orbit. Paige was published in the 2021 and 2022 IEEE Conference on Aerospace proceedings as part of her work on the mission, and launch of the project is currently scheduled for October 2024.
During this time, Paige also worked at the University of Michigan as a Graduate Student Research Assistant, where she researched magnetic modeling of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa while supporting active NASA mission proposal efforts. Her achievements prompted a former professor from Principia College, where Paige completed her Bachelors of Science in Engineering Science, to ask her to teach a full course load in the Mechanical Engineering department for the 2023-2024 academic year, which Paige did while continuing full time work at ATLAS. She has since been asked to return for the 2024-2025 academic year. Paige also holds a Master of Engineering in Space Engineering from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of North Dakota.
Outside of work, Paige mentors undergraduate engineering students, advising them in their professional career preparation and assisting with internship placement. Additionally, she teaches a review course for the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) Exam, preparing students to successfully pass the exam upon graduation. Paige is also a competitive triathlete, who races on the local, national, and world stage, including at the 2023 Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii.
Bradley Williams
Acting Associate Director for Flight, Heliophysics Division, NASA Science Mission Directorate
Bradley Williams began his career in aerospace at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, where he served as a Project Manager and Systems Engineer collaborating with faculty and research teams to identify proposal opportunities and develop spaceflight proposals for NASA. He went on to serve as the Director of Civil Space Programs at Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems (now Terran Orbital Corporation, LLAP), a role in which he led the development of project/program management processes that prepared the company for trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
While at Tyvak, Bradley led the NASA Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator CubeSats project, which included the TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) payload achieving a groundbreaking 200 Gigabits per second optical communications downlink. He also provided critical leadership during the design and integration phases of the CAPSTONE mission, a landmark project that continues to operate in cislunar space. Upon joining NASA, Bradley was a vital member of the OSIRIS-Rex Camera Suite (COAMS) team, contributing to both development and launch successes as a member of the systems integration and test team, management team and later as the ALTO lead and primary inte4rface to the spacecraft team.
Following the OSIRIS-Rex launch, Bradley served as Deputy Payload Manager on GUSTO, a first of its kind, balloon-borne observatory selected as a Mission of Opportunity out of NASA’s Astrophysics Division. GUSTO completed the longest duration flight from Antarctica on a long duration balloon after its launch in 2023.
In his current position at NASA, Bradley has worked on significant projects such as the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), the Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites (TRACERS), the HelioSwarm mission and the Solar Cruiser solar sail technology project. He also serves as Senior Program Executive for the NASA Space Weather Program.
In 2023, Bradley led the complete overhaul of a mission that was facing intense technical and schedule scrutiny as well as momentous project management challenges at the mission level. He was able to rapidly evaluate performance, identifying gaps and weaknesses in the mission implementation, and established an incremental approach to regaining confidence in the mission development plan. This ultimately resulted in a successful re-plan and continuation of an Explorers mission, which is on track to launch in 2025. Bradley’s success also enabled the NASA Heliophysics Division to expand its pool of small satellite providers that can and will design, build and integrate spacecraft for exploration of the Sun-Earth connection.
Outside of working hours, Bradley is a member of SSPI and a Senior Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), having served in several leadership positions, including as a leadership council member in the Tuscon section and Orange County section, a Region VI Deputy Director and the Communications Committee Chair in the Young Professionals Group.
He served on the Commercial Advisory Board to the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group at the Lunar & Planetary Institute and as a member of the Southern Arizona Leadership Council, and he is currently a Fellow at the Arizona Center for Civic Leadership. Bradley frequently donates his time as a speaker inspiring the next generation to work in space and STEM fields. He gave a TED Talk in 2024 on his path to NASA and finding his place in space at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum, which was attended by hundreds.
About SSPI
Founded in 1983, Space & Satellite Professionals International (www.sspi.org) is on a mission to make the space and satellite industry one of the world’s best at attracting and engaging the talent that powers innovation. The space and satellite business has never seen a time of greater experimentation and disruption than we see today. Investment is the fuel for transformation, but people are the engine. SSPI helps the industry attract, develop and retain the talented people it needs to keep the engine turning. People who connect through high-profile events and gain recognition from prestigious awards. People who rely on SSPI for a broader understanding of the industry as much as for individual networking and career mentoring. From young people seeking a career path to industry veterans with wisdom to share, SSPI connects them all. Talent, investment and opportunity flow to industries that make a difference. SSPI is the only organization that also promotes the enormous value of space and satellite through dramatic stories of our technologies and companies making a better world. Those stories overturn misconceptions about the industry that hold it back. They inspire our people and attract new ones to the industry. They help justify investment and give new customers a reason to care about our services and products. Through the stories we tell and the people we serve, SSPI inspires the growth of the $1 trillion space economy of the future.
