[MUSIC] Most people don't understand why space is important to them. The space industry bubble needs to burst to let more people in and for them to understand what role space plays in our everyday lives. It needs champions and Shelly Brunswick is leading the charge. [MUSIC] Welcome to T-Minus Deep Space from N2K Networks. I'm Maria Varmausis. Our guest today is Shelly Brunswick, formerly a space acquisition program management leader and congressional liaison for the US Air Force and COO at Space Foundation. Shelly is now running her own business. Her passion is to connect the commercial, government and educational sectors. She brings a rich perspective and deep vision of the global space ecosystem, advocating for space technology innovation, entrepreneurship and global partnership. [MUSIC] I'm Shelly Brunswick. I'm the CEO and founder of SB Global LLC. And this is the fourth chapter of my journey starting my own entrepreneurial experience. I have three other chapters that go with this. My first one was when I enlisted in the US Air Force right out of high school. The second chapter of my journey is when I became an officer in the Air Force and I became a space acquisition officer. So that started my 25 year career in the space industry. My third chapter is what many people know me for is when I was the chief operating officer at Space Foundation. And then in 2024, I took the big leap and I became an entrepreneur and started SB Global LLC. >> That's wonderful. Well, congratulations on starting your business, Shelly. That's really exciting. Really great to be taking the reins and forging your path that way. So congrats. And thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so looking forward to picking your brain. You know so much about so many things. So I was like, let's just dive into this. You have written a number of fantastic pieces for Forbes. And there were two recent ones that you had sent along that I thought were just absolutely fantastic. Putting it in a nutshell, it was sort of like the space industry needs a wake up call. And I don't want to give too much away about the pieces. I'd love for you to sort of walk me through it a little bit. But I guess maybe let's start with, why does the space industry need a wake up call? >> Well, excellent. And again, thank you. And it's an honor to be a Forbes Technology Council member. And I love submitting articles and thought leadership because my real goal and the reason I started my own business was because I want to be that bridge from the space community to the rest of the world. And as you know, being in the space industry, we can be very insular. We can kind of be this little island. You go to all these conferences. We're all talking to each other with the same talking points. And we all agree. We're all nodding our head like, yeah, you're right. But the challenge is, is that that great insight and innovation in how space is helping us with our daily lives and helping everyday citizens around the world is not getting out to everyday citizens. And so that was part of why I wrote those articles about challenges and opportunities in the space industry. There are a lot of wonderful opportunities. And we hear about those all the time at space conferences. The growing space economy, according to the World Economic Forum by 2035, will be at 1.8 trillion. And we connect, are being supported by a satellite 45 times a day, indirectly or directly with how our food gets to our table or GPS or weather, financial transactions. So we're using satellite technology every day. But the challenge is most citizens around the planet don't know that. And so one of the first challenges we have with the space industry is awareness. Awareness of how important the space industry is to everyday economics, quality of life, and even life in general. And so it's really important that we're getting that message out because it goes to the second piece of the challenges, the workforce challenge. We're not inspiring enough youth, especially in America, but in other countries, the European Union, you can see Japan, where our youth are not wanting to come in and be STEM space part of this community. What they're wanting to do is be social influencers or NBA players. We've got great basketball going on right now. So the challenges without that great awareness of how exciting space is and how it's part of our everyday lives, we're not going to draw in the talent that we need to continue to grow the industry. And then the third challenge is really one of the first challenges, and that's policy. You know, everything is generated from the policy and legislation that happens on Capitol Hill. A great example was in 2004, you know, Congress passed and it was then signed into law, was commercial crew, which allowed for SpaceX and private companies to start to launch rockets on behalf of the government. Up until then, all launches and everything and rockets were done through the government. Now, they may have been done with United Launch Alliance or another provider, but they were all done through the government means, whether it was the U.S. Air Force or NASA. Now, commercial companies are able to launch and you're seeing SpaceX do a very successful business. I just saw Rocket Lab launch something for Antarctica and the Arctic Research. So now you're seeing commercial companies being able to provide a service. Now launches a service to the government. No longer is the government now overseeing that as a program, but now it's buying launches as a service. So the whole article was about their great opportunities. And we in the space industry know those, but we really have to be reaching out to the rest of the world and highlighting that awareness, the great opportunities for workforce, as well as how we can legislate and advocate to create a great robust space ecosystem. Yeah, and those points are all just so important. And I can't overstate it because it's all the conversations I have doing this job. It's like that thread comes out so clearly in all these conversations about everything you just mentioned. And the question that I always have is, why have we not been able to sort of break through that bubble so effectively? I think many of us or some of us know that this has been an issue, but we just can't seem to get through. Like even anecdotally, I think a lot of people in the general public still think NASA does everything. And that's just not that just saying it anymore. And why have we not been able to effectively communicate this? I think one of the challenges is we're not reaching the audience we want. So, you know, one of the things I do is I do 100 speeches a year, motivational speeches. And the first thing you do is you think about your audience. What do they need? How do you meet them where they're at? And so we have the government, a lot of times the government or space companies looking at things through their lens, how they came into the space industry. And what we really need to do is flip that and look at the workforce, the students, young professionals, even mid-career professionals, where they are and how do we create access points into the space industry. So a great way I'll illustrate this is I was talking to a university president and he told me, primarily he is a, his university is a Hispanic university. So it's underrepresented groups in the technology, in space, in innovation. And he had a government agency come and speak with him and say, how do we get more of your students to come into this government agency? And I don't want to name the government agency because I don't want to, you know, point fingers. And the president said, well, what's your process? And said, well, two years before they become an intern, they start the application process. And the president stopped them right there and said, my students are underrepresented groups. They don't even know what they're doing tomorrow. So, and the two people from this government agency kind of looked at each other and said, well, maybe we're a bit rigid. So I think what we have to do as a space industry is we need to step back and say, and this is where when I talk about space, it includes everybody. So this is an HR area, human resources. We need to take a step back and say, does everything require a STEM degree? Does everything require a four-year diploma? Does everything require this? You know, we create a lot of requirements that could be big hurdles for underrepresented groups in the space industry. And I'm not talking about women or minorities. Underrepresented groups certainly could be women and minorities, but they could be inner city or rural communities across America. And they don't see a pathway into the space industry. They only see space as rockets and astronauts. And as you and I know, every career field is in the space industry, but we're not doing a very good message of getting that message out about how there's opportunities for everyone and then how we're creating clean pathways into the space industry. I love the point that you just made about rockets and astronauts. That's exactly, that is exactly the perception that we deal with so much. And I can't blame people for that because that is a lot of still what captures the public imagination, but also it becomes like this self-perpetuating thing where people go, "It's completely irrelevant to me because I don't want to be an astronaut." And then we have an issue for people who are already in the space industry, who maybe are thinking they want to leave or they don't see any career growth or a pathway for them. And that's all retention is also an issue. Yeah, it's huge. And you know, right now we know that there's a workforce issue in the space industry. And it's only unfortunately doesn't seem to be quite turning around yet. Thoughts on what we can do to help people stay who are here already? Well, I think there's three big challenges in the United States primarily for our workforce in the space industry. It's that workforce shortage, a skills deficit and an innovation gap. So that workforce shortage is there's not enough people coming into the space industry as our workforce in the space industry is aging and looking at retirement. So we're not doing a very good campaign, reaching out again to citizens across the United States and helping them find pathways in. The second one is the skills deficit. So although there are openings in the space industry and there are probably people that are available to fill those jobs, they may not have the right skills. So how do we reskill and upskill them? You know, a great example is United, not for the space industry per se, but for the aviation industry because there's not enough pilots. We have a huge pilot shortage and a lot of the airlines used to wait until pilots would retire or leave the military and then they'd hire them. Well, what United said is we can't wait for that anymore and we're going to open our own school and we're going to train our own pilots. So United has found their own academy to create pilots. So I think we really have to find in the space industry pathways into this. One of the organizations I partner with is the SMEED organization, which is named after Mr. SMEED for CU Boulder. And what he's done in his foundation and his wife administers it with Michael is provide scholarships and funding for PhD candidates to come into the space industry. But what they're also doing is creating a network. So all these PhD candidates are in touch with each other, with faculty. And then this year, what was new is they created a selection committee that I was able to serve on that was made up of industry that helped the faculty select who would receive these special scholarships for PhD candidates. So what they're doing is they're meshing academia with real industry requirements so that we're helping those students. And I don't consider PhD students really the same as typical students. They're very different caliber, but really understand what industry needs for the next step. So I think there's a real good need for government industry and academia to work together, to create those pathways so that you're not just graduating from the university with a four-year degree in marketing. And now I'm going to go be a space expert. No, maybe there are some internships where the universities help you do intern programs at space companies or startup companies in space. So you get to learn about it. And so I think that's really important is creating that partnership with academia and industry or even community colleges, internships, fellowships, so students and that workforce. And they could be high school students. High school students could come right into the space workforce if they wanted to go work in manufacturing. And we have a huge need for workforce in the manufacturing sector, and we're not attracting them there either. So we have a challenge all the way from those astronauts and rocket scientists all the way into the manufacturing sector. It's true. The need is great everywhere, truly. And you mentioned also, we sort of touched on entrepreneurship a little bit. I've spoken to many entrepreneurs in the space industry, and I have so much admiration for them because this is a tough industry to be starting a business in. Very capital intensive, a lot of barriers. Again, like the people have this driving need, and I really admire that entrepreneurial spirit. Is this just my perception or is it extraordinarily hard to be an entrepreneur in the space industry? I think it's hard to be an entrepreneur, period. So I'm just going to start with that. You know, what are entrepreneurs? Entrepreneurs are people who are willing to trade an eight-hour day job, 40 hours a week, for working 100 hours a week nonstop, and you're always on the clock. So again, what did I do this year? I left the job to become an entrepreneur. You know, you're always busy. But I think what we need to think about is the space industry is a lot of things. It's upstream. So what are the jobs that we're looking at? Looking at orbital debris mitigation or satellite resurfacing and launches. So we've got the upstream, which is very challenging, like you said, could be very capital intensive. But then there's the downstream, the real applications where you don't necessarily have to have clearances and U.S. citizens and all of this that really relates to the upstream here in the United States. The downstream where space is an enabler. So you could look at, can you create a company using space technology for the next step? So a great place for entrepreneurs who may be looking at ideation is to go to the NASA Tech transfer site on the website, the NASA Tech transfer office. There are thousands of patents that are waiting to be commercialized. So one, you may already have an idea. Go look and see if that idea might be something NASA is already thinking about, or the Department of Energy or Air Force Research Lab. They all have patents that individuals can apply for that patent. Sometimes you can get a grant, a small business innovative research grant, that could help you mature that idea from milestone zero to milestone one, two, or three. And then you could look at additional Sibir, S-B-I-R, they call them, Sibir grants, to move that idea forward. So yes, it is challenging, definitely on the upstream. Very, you know, there's very challenging to compete with Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. You know, Rocket Lab's doing really good, but they're in a different niche market. But if you're looking at the downstream and how space technology could help us here on earth, agriculture, you know, communications, I mean, think about Airbnb and Uber, you know, all of these industries are built on the backbone of cyber and space. So telecommunications. So there's a lot of applications that don't require security clearance, that are human benefits, that are here on the downstream, I call it, which is, you know, taking care of people here on earth, you know, healthcare applications. And just to give your audience an idea, in 2023, according to the World Economic Forum, the global space business was $630 billion. And then again, projected to grow to 1.8 trillion by 2035, 90 nations are operating in space and many more want to operate in space. And again, on average, you're using 45 satellites daily. That doesn't mean necessarily I'm connecting to a satellite 45 times a day, although I do look at my phone a lot. So that could be a possibility. It could be. But it could also be how you're benefiting, you know, like all your logistics of fuel and food moving around the planet is coming based on GPS. So, you know, if you had some blueberries this morning in your breakfast cereal, those might have been on a transport that was using GPS technology. So probably 45 times a day, on average, you're using space technology in your everyday activities. So I think for entrepreneurs, it's always tough to be an entrepreneur. You're dedicated, you have a certain type of DNA, I'll call it. But at the end of the day, you know, entrepreneurs are problem solvers. They see a problem. They want to solve it and they want to make their solution the best solution. And they want to create a niche in the space industry. That upstream can be very labor intensive and capital intensive, but the downstream might not be. I've talked to some entrepreneurs who want to create an app that helps you during disaster relief. And so there's a lot of opportunities on that downstream that may be less capital intensive. That's a fantastic tip. And there's certainly so much opportunity there, which is just amazing to be living in this time to see all these amazing opportunities from space and how it can really affect us here on earth. It's just incredible. We'll be right back after this quick break. So, Shelly, tell me a bit about what you're working on right now because again, you're in your stage four of your career, which is amazing. Most of us don't even leave stage one. So yeah, tell me about what you're doing now. Well, I have a couple great projects I'm working on and we'll stay on that entrepreneurial theme for today. One of them is taking place June 2nd through the 4th and that's with Isesco. And Isesco is the Islamic World Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. And that's going to be taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan. And this is going to be their International Entrepreneurship Summit and Startup Grand Finale. And I'm fortunate to be one of the judges and speakers there. And this is more than just space. This is really technology business accelerators. And this is what I want to share with your audience. I mean, Isesco is doing an amazing event to help innovators come into the space industry. By creating these startups and finals and providing awards. But this is what entrepreneurs sometimes need, especially, you know, I'm looking at the list. I have it up on my computer. You know, some of these entrepreneurs are from Azerbaijan, obviously, but Africa, the Middle East, Indonesia. So I think, you know, when we think about entrepreneurship, you're thinking just in the U.S. But imagine how much more difficult it is for an entrepreneur or even more difficult it is for a female entrepreneur in another country when there's so much limited capital. Another great thing I'm working on is for Stardust. Stardust has launched in May in Dubai. They're going to be doing the Stardust Dubai Space Hub in Stardust City. Now, this is a long term plan to build an incubator for space in Dubai. Now, as you know, and your audience knows, we have two kind of space systems. If you're in the U.S. and you want to work with the government, you pretty much have to be a U.S. citizen. You have to be able to get clearances. And so that can be really challenging for our allies and like-minded governments and citizens around the world. Because even if you're part of NATO or something, it's still really, I mean, I knew somebody who's Canadian and could come to work in the space industry in the U.S. What Stardust wants to do, and their CEO, Jason Michoud, is create an incubator hub in Dubai. Then you have India, you have Middle East, you have North Africa, where entrepreneurs are able to come together to create innovation. And again, this is more on the downstream, the non-classified side that creates products and services that help humanity. But now this is a long-term project. They just kicked it off. So the next step for them will be to be holding a Stardust Dubai Space Expo in February 2025. So I hope that some of your audience that might be listening, that's in that region, might want to come check that out. And there'll be more details coming up. The third thing I'm working on is I'm a Senator for the World Business Angels Investment Forum. I represent the United States. And through this organization, which is affiliated with the G20, I also am a board member for the Global Women Leaders Committee. And so for this year's project, I am leading an Incubator Accelerator Partnership Committee, where I'm reaching out to bring together who are Incubators and Accelerators around the world. Because remember, way back when we started our talk, we talked about awareness as the biggest challenge for individuals to come into the space industry or be entrepreneurs. So what I'm doing through my role at the World Business Angels Investment Forum, Global Women Leaders Committee, that's a mouthful, is leading this group to come together and create some memorandums of agreement with Incubators and Accelerators around the globe so we can publish that list. And again, where these Incubators and Accelerators are open to men and women. But our goal is to really help women find those resources. Because what we found three years ago, I did a global survey for female entrepreneurs. And what we found were there were special challenges for women above and beyond being a normal entrepreneur. One was finding those mentors who can really help them as entrepreneurs. Finding those investors is really challenging for women. Men seem to be able to find some networks and network a lot faster. So we need to help women build those relationships into investments, creating those mentoring opportunities. And so building a network of these Accelerators and Incubators around the world that we can then publish through the WBAF, through the G20, will help more women and men become entrepreneurs and become more successful. That's the biggest thing. If we can create these opportunities through helping women network with mentors, finding those investors, creating those hands-on skills like maybe they need some assistance in financial planning or how do you do a pitch deck, we can help them become more successful. So those are just quick three activities I'm doing under that new umbrella of SB Global LLC. A lot of entrepreneurship opportunities. But as you know, I'm kind of a unicorn when it comes to space. I love talking about everything in space. And again, being that bridge to the rest of the world. It's so needed. I mean, I'm so glad you're doing that. When you were mentioning the amazing things you're working on right now, and then that's not all. I know you're working on a book. Are you working on books? I don't know how you do all this. It's incredible. I was wondering if there are lessons that we can take from the tech world and maybe that space could maybe apply or some sort of best practices that we're not doing, that tech is doing well. I'm just curious if you have any thoughts on that because I feel like there's got to be something there. Well, this is a perfect teaser for my upcoming book series I'm working on. So I'm working on a book series. The first one's going to be on Lessons Learn through my journey. And I'm going to cover 10 lessons learned. And this is both for companies because in each chapter, not only do I list the lesson learned and my experience, but I've interviewed 200 global thought leaders. And these thought leaders are both in space, not in space, in the US, around the world, men, women, diversity of ages. So I've harnessed their insights along with my own. But then each chapter also has a business experience that is also learned from that lesson learned. So that's the first book is on Lessons Learn. The second book is called An Interstellar Guide to Success. You know, how do we accomplish our goals? So it's about awareness, access, and action. And then the third book is on leadership, how to be an interstellar out of this world leader. And that's three big things we really have to look at for leaders today. And that's being inspirational, authentic, and having gratitude. In each of these things, you can talk about them in the personal sense. But as you said, it's a way of looking at as a company, you know, as a company, you want to be authentic. You want to be inspirational, right? You want to have gratitude and pay it forward and do volunteer work. So these lessons learned in each of the books, not only can connect with somebody one-on-one, but it could also be some good insights for companies. And then, of course, I can come do personal workshops and speeches, talks for these companies as well to help them in their workforce, retune if they want to refocus or repivot some of their culture. Amazing. Okay, that's fantastic. Again, that's all these things that you're working on. It's truly incredible. I'm glad that all these different industries are getting to benefit from your expertise as well. And certainly, all these entrepreneurs who are also getting to hear your feedback, that's just huge. Wow, I'm a little jealous. That's great. As you can imagine, it's time constrained too. But so these are all things I've been passionate about for a while. And I also am that out of this world leader. And so I really am at that point, that fourth chapter of my journey is about the gratitude. And part of gratitude is paying it forward and helping others and creating those access points. And that's why I transitioned and started SB Global LLC, because in this role, I'm able to now pay it back, pay it back to the space industry that's been so wonderful to me, but also pay it forward because I had amazing mentors and role models like my mother was an amazing mentor and role model. And now I want to pay it forward to help others find their pathways. So that's all been part of the inspiration for this series of books is how can I be a thought leader, but pay it forward in those activities. That's wonderful. I'm so glad that you're doing that. And I really look forward to reading those books when they come out. Do we have a date for those or can we tease that at all? We're working on the first one lessons learned. Hopefully we'll get some artwork done soon and we can share that so we can start promoting it. And our goal is to have it out before the end of the year. I don't want to tell you when I'm targeting just in case something comes up, but the goal is for that first one on lessons learned to be out before the end of the year. And then we'll work on getting two and three out next year. It all depends. People keep asking me to write, will you write a chapter in a book? And I'm writing these great Forbes columns as well for Forbes Technology Council. So every time I write a column, I'm like, oh, I learned so much. That's the great thing about writing. It's not about what I want to say. It's going through this process. I learned so much. And then I want to share what I've learned going through the process. Yeah. The Forbes pieces that you've written are really illuminating. So I'm really, I've enjoyed reading them very much and I look forward to the next ones that are coming out. I know you're working on some others. You've shared so much with me today. I was wondering if, I'm sure you have sort of parting thoughts that you tend to leave with people that you speak to. I don't know. I'm, there's, you have so much expertise here. I just would love to know what your thoughts are for a space focused audience. Well, I think a lot of times when we think about space, we think about the past 60 years ago, the Apollo era and how that worked and what were lessons learned. But you know, today we're in the Artemis generation. You know, Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo and we're in the Artemis generation. And this time we're going to the moon to stay and we're going to land the first woman and person of color on the moon. And then we're going on to Mars and your audience is creating the next 60 years for this space odyssey expedition. And what it's going to take is people like individuals, you know, if you're a business leader, can you do student field trips through your facility? Can you bring them in so they can see what your company does, what the career opportunities are? Can you be a mentor? Can you be a science fair judge? You know, if you're a parent or a family member, the great aunt, can you take not only your relatives, but maybe their friends to a science center, a museum? You could go out stargazing. You could go look at, you know, we just had a solar eclipse. There'll be another one in another year, but I think that's going to be over Iceland. So Iceland, get ready. And then, and then that third area is for teachers. You know, the future of space starts in a classroom and we need to help teachers bring space into the classroom to make it fun and engaging and that it's about career opportunities in the space industry, that it's not about memorizing planets or and it's not about the history. It's about where we're going. And those three groups, individual family members, community leaders and teachers, you're building the next 60 years of the space industry. That's it for T-minus deep space brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. You can email us at space@n2k.com or submit the survey in the show notes. Your feedback ensures we deliver the information that keeps you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. T-minus deep space is produced by Alice Caruth. Our associate producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iban. Our executive editor is Brandon Karp. Simone Petrella is our president. Peter Kilpie is our publisher. And I'm your host, Maria Varmasus. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. [Music] (gentle music)
