Coordinating Multi-Volume NASA Proposals at JPL

Over several years supporting Jet Propulsion Laboratory, I worked on proposals ranging from $15M Earth Venture instruments to $500M Discovery-class missions.

The proposals

The portfolio included Psyche (a $450M mission to a metal asteroid, which won), Lunar Trailblazer (a $55.8M SIMPLEx mission, which won), Delta-X, AREX, Trident, Proteus, OCO-neXt, and the $242M SPHEREx site visit.

For OCO-neXt, I served as lead graphic designer, desktop publisher, and production lead for all volumes submitted under the Earth System Explorers AO. I researched all 300 references cited in the proposal, built a shared EndNote library for every author, and linked citations across science, management, and cost volumes using IEEE format.

Compliance under pressure

Each proposal had its own compliance requirements, volume limits, font rules, and submission format. NASA proposals are unforgiving on compliance: a misformatted page or a missing section header can disqualify a submission. My role was making sure the final product was compliant, visually clear, and submitted on time.

Boeing and beyond

At Boeing Global Services, I coordinated multiple proposal efforts, managing the production pipeline from kickoff through submission. The work involved stripping RFPs, building compliance matrices, creating outlines, running status calls, coordinating graphics and writers, managing color team reviews, and handling final production.

The pattern across all of this work was the same: take complex technical content from engineers and scientists, organize it against the evaluation criteria, make the win themes visible, and produce a compliant, professional submission under deadline pressure.