Dan Connor has devoted much of his life to science related to space travel and research. But as his career moved ever higher in the orbits of space-related research, he never untethered himself from his home at UAB.
This fall, Connor will retire as the senior research engineering manager at UAB’s Engineering and Innovative Technology Development (EITD) group after a career of more than 34 years at the university.
“Over the past three decades, Dan Connor has been an essential part of our research efforts,” said EITD Director Chad Duke. “His expertise as an engineer and project manager is matched by his institutional knowledge, not just of UAB, but of NASA and all the related entities that contribute to the Space Program. On a personal and professional level, I am especially appreciative of Dan’s mentorship that has guided my path throughout my career at UAB. He has provided this guidance to so many over the years and I know he considers this one of his greatest accomplishments. He will be missed by everyone at EITD and the broader NASA community associated with our projects.”
Connor came to UAB in 1991 as a subcontractor. He joined the staff full-time in 1997 as one of the first five people hired to provide engineering support for a Crystallography program started by Charles Buggs, Ph.D., in the 1980s.
The project was a natural fit for a young man who had grown up dreaming of space.
“I’ve always been interested in Manned Space Flight,” Connor said. “My father worked on the Apollo program, so growing up in Huntsville in the 60s and 70s probably had something to do with my interest in it. Seeing an Astronaut who walked on the moon in person was probably a factor to a seven-year old.”
Connor’s work as a project manager evolved as the Crystallography program grew into the Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering (CBSE) and later into EITD. As the organization changed, Connor’s expertise helped guide projects that moved away from protein crystallography and into various types of hardware—most notably the cold-stowage products EITD currently makes and maintains for the International Space Station.
In 2024, Connor received the Exceptional Public Service Medal from Johnson Space Center in recognition of “sustained performance that embodies multiple contributions on NASA projects, programs, or initiatives.”
“The EPS Medal was probably the most significant award of my career from an individual standpoint,” Connor said, “but I actually treasure all of the Group Achievement and Team awards (probably over 50 by now) that our organization have received over the years. From our early Protein Crystal Growth research years under Drs. Charlie Bugg and Larry DeLucas, to all our Cold Stowage programs under Dr. Lee Moradi and Chad Duke, these team awards are the special ones.”
The teamwork and commitment to excellence is not only what has made EITD so successful, it is also what has kept Connor at UAB when his expertise could have taken him to so many other places.
“There is nothing like working for months to get hardware and research systems ready for flight and then watching a Spaceship blast off into space carrying that equipment,” Connor said. “Sitting in our Remote Operations Control Center and talking directly to your boss orbiting the earth or other Astronauts operating and or carrying out your research was also very rewarding. But the most rewarding part of my career has definitely been the people who I worked with, both internally and externally. How does the saying go…some of the best people I have ever met in my life, I met through my job.”