Keith Koehler Portrait

“I’ve always had an interest, even as a little kid, in mechanical things. How things work. I was good at math when I was younger. I liked science. I was actually going to major in chemistry when I went to college. But during my senior year of high school, I found out I was colorblind. Back then, you didn’t have machines you put could something in and it would tell you what it was. You had to do litmus tests and fire tests, and based on the colors, determine what different things were. Well, I came to find out: I couldn’t do that. So, I happened to be working on the school paper in my senior year of high school and I figured I would go into journalism. I ended up covering things like science and construction because those were the things I liked and was interested in. Once I got to NASA, it was a marriage of two things I liked. Everyday I come in to work, I get to learn about a new project. I learn different things about launch vehicles, physics… all sorts of things. So I’m constantly learning something. Which is kind of cool! In my life I’ve learned that things don’t always go your way. You can either dwell on those things and mope and cry… or you can say: “Okay. Now what?” And so that’s what I did. I moved on. And I don’t know if I would have ended up at NASA if I hadn’t.” NASA Wallops Flight Facility News Chief, Keith Koehler, Friday, Feb. 7, 2020 at NASA NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)