 |
| 2010 Outstanding Alumnus Nicole Stott and Alumni Association Executive Director Paul Hanna. |
Nicole Passonno Stott, NASA astronaut, is St. Petersburg College's 2010 Outstanding Alumnus.
Stott's interest in aviation began in Clearwater, where her father built small experimental airplanes as a hobby.
Her interest grew at Clearwater High, then St. Petersburg College, where she began her college education and where she started to get a sense of where her life’s path might lead.
Her journey reached a pinnacle in 2009 at the Kennedy Space Center, when she and several fellow crew members boarded space shuttle Discovery and traveled to the International Space Station, where she lived and worked for three months.
Stott has worked for NASA since 1988, but was not selected for astronaut training until 2000. In fact, she seems a bit surprised to be where she is at age 46.
“I was not one of those people whose goal in life was to become an astronaut,” she said.
Stott was born in Albany, N.Y., and moved to Clearwater with her family when she was a year old. She attended Plumb and Palmetto elementary schools and then Oak Grove Middle School before graduating from Clearwater High School. At that point, she didn’t really know what she wanted to be, or where she wanted to study.
She decided to go to what was then known as St. Petersburg Junior College in part because she had a vague ambition to fly, and SPJC had an aviation-related program that interested her.
“When I got out of high school I knew I wanted to do something connected to flying, but I really didn’t know exactly what,” she said. “At Clearwater High they had an Introduction to Aviation course, and through that I learned about the degree program at SPJC.”
That program was an associate degree in aviation administration, and it captured Stott’s attention. An added benefit was an opportunity to earn her private pilot’s license.
“That led me there, knowing I wanted to do some flying,” she said. “I wanted my own license, and that program seemed perfect.”
Stott didn’t finish up her associate degree at SPJC. She moved on to Embry Riddle University to work on an aeronautical engineering degree. But she did manage to earn her pilot’s license first.
“I got my private pilot’s license at Air World at the St. Petersburg/Clearwater Airport, and while I was doing that I was taking college classes,” she said. “It fed nicely into the engineering degree program at Embry.
“The two places I consider pivotal in my life were St. Petersburg College and Embry Riddle. The classes at SPJC were well-organized and as professionally done as anything I saw later at the university levels.”
By the time she graduated from Embry Riddle, Stott was beginning to dream about the space program. But her dreams involved operations work, not the astronaut program. She took a job with Pratt & Whitney, a NASA subcontractor, and learned that she really enjoyed the hands-on aspect of operations work. A few years later, she moved to a shuttle operations job at NASA. Still, the astronaut program was not on her mind.
“Growing up, I watched the moon landing on TV and thought it was cool, and my dad built airplanes and I watched that up close,” she said. “I grew up thinking all those things were cool, but it never crossed my mind that it would be me.”
After working at Kennedy for several years, Stott did allow herself some astronaut dreams, but she didn’t apply for the program immediately.
“I didn’t trust myself enough to apply,” she said. She changed her mind later, after fellow NASA workers urged her to do so.
She applied in 1998. Her application was rejected, but she was offered a new job at the NASA facility in Houston, where she gained even more experience. Later, she got the word that she had been accepted into the astronaut program’s Class of 2000.
“Then we had the Columbia accident, which delayed things,” she said. “We normally have a two-to-five-year delay before the first flight, but that accident resulted in an eight-to-10-year delay.”
Stott delivered the commencement address on Saturday, May 8 at SPC's 112th Commencement Ceremony at Tropicanna Field, sharing her inspiring story with a record 852 new graduates.
Stott joins a long list of award recipients dating back to 1984.
The St. Petersburg College Alumni Association annually presents the Outstanding Alumnus Award to honor alumni who, through their accomplishments, have made meaningful contributions to their professional fields and their communities.
They are persons who exemplify how best to use and develop the education gained while at SPC and who, as a result, are outstanding representatives among our alumni.
