Meet Regina Senegal, Acting Chief of Johnson’s Quality and Flight Equipment Division
Safety and quality management are an integral part of every program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center Houston and throughout the agency. This gives team members like Regina Senegal, Acting Chief of the Flight Quality and Equipment Division of the Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate (SMA), a unique opportunity to collaborate with diverse organizations and personnel.
“I am responsible for managing safety and quality teams for approximately 13 clients,” Senegal said, noting that these clients include the Orion and Gateway programs, the Human Landing System, and the Extravehicular Activities and Human Mobility on the Surface program. Senegal teams work at multiple levels to implement agency, program and center SMA requirements, in addition to helping monitor Johnson’s quality management system to identify concerns from SMA leadership.
Some teams operate at the program level, helping to write program requirements, establish assurance programs, and identify and characterize risks. Other teams work at the development level and work to ensure that a piece of hardware, software, and other components meet requirements and are safe. One team is dedicated to extravehicular operations, or EVA, ensuring crew members and equipment are prepared for safe and successful spacewalks. The Senegal division is also responsible for the calibration, safety and quality of government-furnished equipment at Johnson, quality purchasing and the receiving, inspection and testing facility.
“This division is probably the most diverse at Johnson because we do a multitude of things and have a multitude of disciplines,” Senegal said. “That’s why I enjoy it.”
Senegal was introduced to quality management as a manufacturing engineer for General Motors, where she worked for seven years before becoming a NASA contractor. She said her goal had always been to work at NASA, but there were no opportunities available at Johnson when she earned a degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Prairie View A&M University. “I kept applying for everything NASA-related, and then SAIC hired me,” she said. SAIC, or Science Applications International Corp., is a NASA contractor.
Senegal has been with Johnson for 28 years, becoming a civil servant in 2004. During that time, she participated in the development and implementation of space and life science experiments, the human research center, and crew exercise equipment, among other projects. She said her most memorable experience was working to transition crew health equipment from the Space Shuttle program to the International Space Station. Senegal explained that while the hardware worked well on shuttle missions, it needed to be redesigned to support longer missions and larger crews on station. She was not responsible for the redesign, but she had to make sure the equipment worked and was safe. “I really enjoyed it because it was a challenge and all these great ideas came from the engineers, doctors and crew,” she said. “We became a strong, united team. Everyone was there to try to achieve the same goal.”
His career at SMA touched nearly every Johnson program and agency-level initiative. Along the way, she has progressed from group leader to branch leader, deputy division leader and now division leader, a role she considers her most challenging to date.
“As a deputy, you manage certain parts of the company. As a leader, you own everything: mission results, security posture, budget, culture and external optics,” explains Senegal. Decisions once proposed as advice now carry his approval and reputation. This change involves setting direction, allocating resources, and making difficult decisions, even when each request seems mission critical. It also shapes how the division recruits, rotates and develops talent, while addressing challenges such as reskilling and consolidating succession in critical disciplines.
In today’s evolving risk environment, Senegal must balance mission risk with project, program and agency priorities, while respecting the program schedule. “The leader’s message must be clear, repeatable and shape behavior,” she says. Establishing rhythms such as synchronizing staff and reviewing risks keeps the team aligned with competing agendas.
Looking ahead, Senegal sees the team focusing on supporting NASA’s acquisition strategy and improving the speed and quality of organizational decision-making. “We need to define when issues are brought to the chief, deputy or department heads, and protect strategic time by saying ‘no’ when ‘yes’ is not the right answer. » His leadership philosophy centers on connection: “Know your team’s strengths and take care of them; even small gestures count,” she says. “When people know you care, it makes it easier to come to work.”
Senegal highlighted the importance of sharing lessons learned by SMA with early career team members and future agency employees. “They need to know the safety and quality policies, but they also need to understand why we have them in place,” she said. “If you teach them the story behind it, they’re less likely to repeat it, and it helps them understand how and when to accept risk.”
Senegal also encourages the next generation to ask people for their opinions. “Be honest if you don’t know something and say you want to know more. Never be afraid to speak up.”
