Key Moments Lead to Fulfilling NASA Stennis Career for Joseph Ladner | Space

Joseph Ladner’s experiences working at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, motivate him to “pay it forward” so more people can be a part of something great.

“It is exciting to be at a place like NASA Stennis that continues to reinvent itself to stay relevant,” Ladner said. “You can do just about anything you can imagine with a workforce committed to its success.”

The Gulfport, Mississippi, resident is the lead budget analyst in the NASA Stennis Office of the Chief Financial Officer. His team manages budgets that fund the nation’s premier propulsion test site.

Ladner can point to three pivotal moments propelling him to a career with NASA. The first came by attending ASTRO CAMP at NASA Stennis every summer as a child. The thrilling experiences of launching paper rockets and conducting science experiments left him with the question, “How do I get to work there?”

The answer came into focus years later. Much like launching paper rockets, Ladner’s career started at ground level before reaching higher heights.

He started on the lowest end of the General Schedule pay scale as a GS-1 clerk for the Naval Oceanographic Office, located at NASA Stennis, while attending Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.

A second pivotal moment also came during this time. The Saucier, Mississippi, native credits mentor Pamela Stenum for putting him…