AggieSat Lab
A space odyssey — with a business edge
When senior management major Brette Hardison joined Texas A&M University's AggieSat Lab team in April 2005 as the business coordinator, there were just seven engineers in a room tossing around ideas. Their goal was to design and build small satellites for NASA and the Air Force.
When Hardison graduated in 2006, the team had grown, 60 engineering undergraduates and 20 business-minded students are working hands-on to get three major satellite projects off the ground.
The team's progress is no small feat. Fueled by the business practices Hardison introduced and the receptive environment in A&M's aerospace engineering program, students in engineering and business have formed a partnership that they hope will get the first Aggie satellite into space this decade. That's not necessarily a naturally-occurring relationship between business and engineering students, says Helen Reed, aerospace engineering department head: "Here, they've learned to speak the same language to achieve the same goals."
Hardison said it took about two months to observe how to structure the business end of the science experiments that will drive the lab into the future. What she came up with, culled from her classroom experience at Mays and her natural acumen, is a leadership plan that continues to grow with the program.
First, accounting — there was no purchase system in place, Hardison remembers. The list grew: finance and a budget (not a "power" budget, but a money budget, she had to explain to the engineers); marketing to help raise funds for an endowment; and an information technology section to handle the team's Web site and begin building document control processes.
"Coming into this, I was intimidated by engineers and technical-speak," Hardison says. "Had I not been on this project, I would have been more intimidated about going into an environment I know nothing about. Now, I know I can just absorb and help find the best business solutions, no matter what the situation."