Eyes on Earth Episode 119 – Kristi Kline: EROS Career Reflections

KRISTI KLINE:
We were getting ready obviously for the Landsat 7 launch, and the system that was going to process the Landsat data was a silicon graphics system. It was an entire rack full of equipment and it could process a whole whopping 100 scenes per day. Today we process that in minutes in the cloud. That would be a really good comparison of what technology was like at the time.

TOM ADAMSON:
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Eyes on Earth, a podcast produced at the USGS EROS Center. Our podcast focuses on our ever-changing planet and on the people here at EROS and across the globe who use remote sensing to monitor and study the health of Earth. My name is Tom Adamson.

Today we’re talking with Kristi Kline, who is retiring from EROS at the end of May. We talked about the nearly three decades of changes to the way we handle data that have taken place at EROS during her time here, along with some of the fun memories.

Kristi’s current job title is the New Missions Branch Chief. But Kristi, what was your first job at EROS, and how did you get started here?

KLINE:
I actually spent eight years in the Air Force and got out of the Air Force because my dad had passed away and a couple months later my mom’s house flooded. So I came back to South Dakota with my daughter, who was only two at the time, and after we got things squared away a little bit, I started looking for jobs and applied at EROS.

And when I applied at EROS, I don’t believe there were any government jobs open at the time. So I actually got a job with Hughes STX. That was the technical services contractor at the time and my first job was working for the DAAC. It wasn’t called the LP DAAC at the time, but it, you know, it was the DAAC. Still the same functions.

ADAMSON:
That’s D-A-A-C. What does that stand for?

KLINE:
Right. The Digital Active Archive Center. And that is a project paid for through NASA. And at the time that I started, they were getting ready for the launch of Landsat and Terra, and then eventually Aqua. The plan was initially that Landsat data would all just reside in the DAAC. The system, however, didn’t work well for Landsat, partly because we were charging for data at the time. So we ended up building mostly our own systems, many of which are still the systems that we are running today.

So that was my first job. Now I was only a contractor for a couple of years. And a government job came open, actually still working in the DAAC as the deputy for the project manager and I applied for that job and that was my first government job.

ADAMSON:
When was that? When did you start working as a contractor here?

KLINE:
1997.

ADAMSON:
What was computer technology like in 1997?

KLINE:
Yeah, that was—that’s interesting. So actually one little story there too. I actually started at EROS like less than a month after the massive hailstorm went through and destroyed the antenna and the atrium.

ADAMSON:
That’s right. That was July 1997.

KLINE:
Yeah, yeah. I got to see some of the aftermath of that. So computer technology, you know, I actually have been working in IT most of my career in one form or another. At the time, we mostly had desktop systems on our desks at work. I actually had a laptop. I was one of the few who had a laptop, and of course now you seldom see a desktop anywhere.

ADAMSON:
That’s right.

KLINE:
So that was that was one thing. Obviously there was no cloud, so everything was done on prem, and been through like 3 different email systems while I’ve been here. But the one thing I can tell you is you know, just a few tidbits, we were getting ready obviously for the Landsat 7 launch, and the system that was going to process the Landsat data was a silicon graphics system. It was an entire rack full of equipment and it could process a whole whopping 100 scenes per day of Landsat 7 data.

So you know, I mean, today we process that in minutes in the cloud. So you know that would be a really good comparison of what technology was like at the time.

ADAMSON:
Yeah, that shows you just how much more data we have to deal with and how much faster we just need to deal with it now.

KLINE:
Yes. And I will say though that the one thing that has stayed consistent over time is that the real bottleneck really for most systems is moving the data around the network or the backbone basically of the architecture. That that still seems to be one of the key things that restricts how much we can do.

ADAMSON:
What do you mean by the backbone?

KLINE:
Just basically the ability to move data around and get it from say a hard drive to a processor. Those things are have always been a bottleneck, and certainly were back when I started working networks when I started in the Air Force. I mean the internet was still really just a fledgling thing. So, you know, that was just beginning. I have a really awesome book in my office, and it’s from 1998, I believe. And it’s called What’s on the Internet, and it’s less than an inch thick. So imagine trying to do an inventory of what’s on the internet today and how big that would be.

ADAMSON:
No, you couldn’t do it in print.

KLINE:
No, that’s for sure.

ADAMSON:
That’s really cool. How did what you did at the Air Force help prepare you for working at EROS?

KLINE:
You know, like I said, I really got involved in computer technology early on. My degrees in electrical engineering and my first job was at a biomedical research lab. And they got their first shipment of 286 desktop computers and they all came in pieces. They had added extra hard drives and this and that. Nothing came installed. So being the only one who’d ever touched a computer like that before, it was my job to deal with those things. So I got into computer technology and IT pretty early on in the Air Force, and again, like I said, it was, it was at the beginning of that era really. So I think that in particular helped me. My last job in the Air Force I worked for intel and dealt with satellite data, including Landsat, actually didn’t know it at the time. That’s what I would be end up doing. But yeah, I actually ended up doing work with satellite data.

ADAMSON:
What are the biggest advancements or evolutions that you have seen in the last, let’s see, that would be 27 years?

KLINE:
You know, well, we’ve been through so many things. Early on in computer technology, there were limitations with how big a packet could be, for example. And I mean even sizes of hard drive and again just like I said before about moving data around how fast we can move data today compared to when I started, technology has grown in leaps and bounds.

ADAMSON:
How about remote sensing tools? How have they evolved in your time here?

KLINE:
I think we’re still doing many of the same things we’ve always done. It’s just how we do them has changed. One of the biggest things that I’ve seen, and it has to do with technology advancements really, when I first started, people would come in and get a couple of Landsat scenes, either because A) they couldn’t afford any more—we were charging for data at the time—or B) because you know their system couldn’t handle any more than that. So I think really technology drivers have also driven where tools have gone. It’s become more mainstream to use remote sensing tools. One story I have is just before we started to put data out for free, Google came to us and they basically asked us for a copy of all of the data over the globe. The best copy of all the data over the globe basically. So they wanted like hundreds of thousands of Landsat scenes, and we had no way to process that many in a timely fashion. We ended up entering into a cooperative research and development agreement. And they brought equipment to us so that we could process that data in a timely fashion. All of that data ended up being the first version of Google Earth. You know, to me it’s advancements like that that have really taken remote sensing into the mainstream.

ADAMSON:
Right. Everybody’s got access to Google Earth in the palm of their hand now.

KLINE:
And they’re looking at satellite data. That was never the case before.

ADAMSON:
How has data management evolved in your time here?

KLINE:
It’s had to evolve just because of the volumes of data. So you know, and we’ve been through a lot of transitions. We’ve always managed our data with some sort of a database. But at the same time, we’ve had metadata within products, for example, and that has evolved over time as well. You know, as you take a mission like Landsat 1 and look at the technology at the time. If you were to look at the metadata that we were holding, either in the product or in the database at the time, it was very cryptic and there was a reason why. Because we were space limited and technology limited. So I’ll give you an example. The way that we used to depict cloud cover in our database was not a zero through 100%. It was a zero through 9. And that’s because that was only one character, and that’s less space that you needed in the database or on a hard drive. So a lot of cryptic things that were in how we did data management at that time. As technology has grown, we have of course changed that.

And along with that, a lot of our metadata and how we manage things have changed. Again, very much a technology driver. Today I think you know the way that we’re managing our data will probably change again based on technology drivers and the volume of data. You look at you know Landsat Next and the volume of data that we’re going to be getting in a much shorter period of time, we will have to evolve again.

ADAMSON:
In the last few years, there’s been generally a more conscious effort to promote science and engineering careers for girls. Kristi, can you tell us what your experience was like?

KLINE:
Well, when I went through electrical engineering at SDSU, I think there was three of us in my class. One of them was my roommate. The other one was a gal that I went through ROTC with. So and to tell you the truth, I don’t think that’s changed.

ADAMSON:
Is that right? Wow.

KLINE:
It at least not here in South Dakota, and I don’t know about the rest of the country, but getting girls into high technology fields like that is still an issue that we have, you know, yet to crack. And to tell you the truth, I think that impacts how many women we’re seeing at EROS in those fields as well, in those technology fields. So I do think that we’ve maybe made a little bit of progress, but it’s been pretty minimal.

ADAMSON:
Is there anything in your experience that might inform us on why that is?

KLINE:
You know, that’s a really good question. I think, I’m not sure I have a good answer for it. You know, maybe women are drawn to different career fields in general, might be one of the things, but you know, to some degree I do think that it’s maybe a societal thing in general. It’s really hard to understand why more women don’t take up careers in science and engineering.

ADAMSON:
Were there any particular challenges for you?

KLINE:
You know, being the only woman in the room a lot of times can be uncomfortable. I do remember one time I had a commander in the Air Force and we were doing some sort of a group thing, and he asked me to go make the coffee. I was the only woman in the room. And I said OK, I’ve never made coffee before. I mean, I was young. Well, that was the last time he asked me to make coffee. But it dawned on me afterwards. He asked me to make the coffee because I was the woman. So yes, there were occasions like that and it takes a bit of patience to, you know, get through those things. But I do think some of that has changed, by the way. But it yes, that those some of those instances were challenging, yes.

ADAMSON:
What are your hopes for EROS over the next several years?

KLINE:
Ohh, that you get all kinds of budget and the Landsat Next mission goes off successfully. I think, you know, EROS is here because of Landsat primarily and you know, I mean, there’s always going to be an evolution of the kinds of things EROS does. But I do think that, you know, what we do with satellite data is a foundation for what we do at EROS. So I really hope that that continues and that, you know, that like I said, Landsat Next is very successful.

ADAMSON:
How has EROS been a benefit for the local community?

KLINE:
You know, I think at the time EROS started, there was not a lot of high technology kind of jobs in the area. And I think that that has definitely been a draw for the area. You’re seeing many more companies today that are bringing in engineers and IT people. And I do think that EROS was a huge benefit for the community, especially early on in its mission, and I still believe that it is today, you know, we are quite a few employees for this area and, you know, making sure that even our colleges have landing places for graduates is a big deal. And it’s one of the reasons why I left South Dakota and went into the Air Force. I didn’t really see at that time, you know, where I would potentially even work after college in an electrical engineering job. Unless it was in the power industry, there was really no place for me in South Dakota. So I do think that bringing some of those jobs back into the state is a really big deal.

ADAMSON:
Talk about some of the benefits that have developed for society because of Landsat and EROS, and how have those benefits evolved over the course of your time at EROS.

KLINE:
Yeah, I tell you the one thing that I think really changed Landsat and how it benefited the community was making that data free. And this is a story I don’t know how many times I’ve told and put in writing. When we launched Landsat 7, of course, we knew it was going to be very successful. We sold a lot of Landsat data, brought in a lot of money from that data. Believe it or not, the highest year of sales for Landsat 7 and the other data which was, you know, much more minor in quantity, was 25,000 scenes. That’s how many scenes it took for us to be successful at selling data at the price we were selling it. The first year that we put that data out for free, we distributed over a million scenes.

ADAMSON:
Right away it was that big of an increase, and that was 2008, right? When the when that was made available for free.

KLINE:
Yes, yes, 2009, 2008. Yeah, in that time frame. So you can imagine the benefit that scientists had from going to that free model, being able to use more data than they’ve ever been able to use prior to that, doing much bigger studies. Being able to do climate change research, for example, and use data for activities that we had never imagined it would be used for. So I think that making that data free was a game changer for scientists and as a huge benefit for everybody using that data.

The biggest highlights of my career, the two big things that I think are game changers that I worked on were making Landsat data free and taking Landsat data to the cloud. So those are probably the biggest highlights of my career. Those really what were you know I would call cliffhanger kind of changes, major shifts in how we do things. Change is really hard for a lot of people. That’s one thing that I’ve always embraced change and been OK with maybe taking a little more risk, which is probably why I was involved in those projects, but, yeah, they were not easy projects to implement. And they involved a huge amount of change, and that’s always a difficult thing to embrace.

ADAMSON:
Well, this might be a little bit more of a difficult question, what will you miss the most about EROS?

KLINE:
Oh, definitely the people. You know and everybody’s asked me about that. Aren’t you gonna miss the work? Well, you know, I mean, do I really miss work? I will have other fun things to do, like golf. But it’s definitely the people that I will miss and, you know, to tell you the truth, a lot of the cohort that I worked with for many, many years have already retired as well, so you know you already miss those people. So yeah, I think I definitely think it’s going to be the people. It’ll be nice to come back and visit once in a while.

ADAMSON:
I’ve only been at EROS coming up on 17 years now and this is definitely not the first time that I’ve heard that the people are the best thing about EROS.

KLINE:
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that is absolutely true. And you know, I mean, working at a place like this, you don’t work someplace like this for 25 years without it, you know, really being about what the mission is and what we do.

ADAMSON:
Oh, yeah, yeah, it’s definitely people really being on board with believing in the mission and what we do, that’s true.

KLINE:
Yeah, absolutely.

ADAMSON:
What else is there about the people at EROS?

KLINE:
Well, I mean, you know, first off, we’re all a bunch of geeks. So you know, you feel very comfortable—

ADAMSON:
In a good way.

KLINE:
Yes, in a good way. You feel comfortable with your own kind. That definitely is the case. So you know, I definitely think there’s a camaraderie there that, you know, we all are very keen on the mission that EROS does and what we’re doing on a daily basis and I really do feel that that’s why I’ve certainly stayed for 25 years is because you know where else can you do something that’s so cool? So I’m sure there’s really great jobs all over the place, but this is one of them.

ADAMSON:
Any favorite memories that you’d like to share?

KLINE:
Oh, many.

ADAMSON:
I’ll let you pick.

KLINE:
You know, so I have lots of maybe non work memories that I guess would be favorites. I mean everything from, for those new people out there, the employee parking lot, the big employee parking lot used to be a softball field. We used to have softball leagues at EROS and we used to every I think it was Wednesdays or Thursdays. We would play softball after work out in the field, so lots of fun memories like that. I have a lot of fun, maybe they’re horror stories, travel stories, traveling all over the world with various of my coworkers. But probably I guess I would say if I had to pick a favorite memory, if I had to pick only one, it would probably be the Landsat 8 launch. I was actually at Vandenberg for that.

ADAMSON:
They launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

KLINE:
Yep. And, you know, standing out there watching and it was a beautiful day, by the way. But standing out there with so many Landsat colleagues, not just EROS USGS people, but you know, science team members, contractors that were working on the mission. And you know, just the camaraderie again. And watching that mission get launched and everybody’s excitement to see it get launched. That was probably one of my favorite memories.

ADAMSON:
Thank you, Kristi, for joining us on this episode of Eyes on Earth. We all wish you well in retirement, enjoying golf and hopefully keeping an eye on us here at EROS.

And thank you listeners, check out our social media accounts to watch for our newest episodes. You can also subscribe to us on Apple and YouTube podcasts.

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