“I frequently thank my parents for sending me to Pine Crest. Pine Crest got me where I am today — I have a STEM career without a STEM background. Pine Crest gave me the foundation to do anything.”
Science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM, is not an area Second Lieutenant Kristine Kovacs ’05, Space Officer, imagined for her career. After spending three semesters at the University of Pennsylvania, Kristine returned home to help care for her mother who had fallen ill.
“At one point, my mother said that I needed to go out and live my life. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do at that point,” said Kristine. “I was talking to my uncle who had spent 30 years in the Army and he said to join the Air Force, so I did.”
In 2009, Kristine enlisted and went to basic training. She knew she wanted to go into the intelligence field and that is what she spent the next 10 years doing.
“I worked in South Korea, England, and then Maryland, and that is when I entered the space realm,” said Kristine. “We worked on space and satellites, nothing I had ever worked with in my life, fields like rocket science and orbital mechanics — I fell in love with space.”
Luckily for Kristine, the establishment of the Space Force as an independent branch of the military brought a new opportunity for her career in space.
“I finished my degree, again not in a STEM field but in Management, and decided to apply for Officer Training School,” said Kristine. “I graduated in December 2019 and then moved to Vandenberg Air Force Base for Officer Undergraduate Space Training school.”
Those joining the Space Force are primarily transitioning from the Air Force while the program develops. The training includes learning orbital mechanics, “how a satellite gets into orbit and stays in orbit, the history of space, and doctrine of where the United States and the rest of the world has been and plans to go.”
“I hope people will understand this new branch,” said Kristine. “Unlike NASA, the Space Force has a holistic approach to space. We are making sure that the USA maintains superiority in the domain. We are focused on security and operations, areas like intelligence and cyber security.”
As a new branch, much is still developing with seemingly small decisions still to be made.
“We are being included in many discussions that are helping to define the heritage and culture of this young service,” said Kristine. “We get emails asking what we would like to be called, uniform styles and fit — we get to discuss new doctrine and policy with leadership.”
When asked about the most exciting thing she has been a part of so far, Kristine said being sworn into the Space Force has been the highlight of her career.
“I was in the Air Force for almost 11 years, and I never thought I’d be in anything but the Air Force,” said Kristine. “Instead I have this great opportunity to be one of the first people to transition into this brand new service, in the field that I have come to love.”
