Curator's Comments Jim Gooding NASA/JSC

After the Furlough . . . Back into Quadrant 2

Did you miss your Lunar News in January 1996? If so, consider it another casualty of the two successive shutdowns of the U. S. government that froze workers out of their offices in NASA and many other agencies in November-December 1995. In keeping with our established schedule for two issues of Lunar News per calendar year, the current issue should have appeared in January. But the staff was not available to produce it. Instead, we focused our very limited resources with the few people who were allowed to enter JSC on physically protecting our facilities and, to the extent possible, maintaining shipments of previously prepared samples to our research and education customers. By the time our NASA staff was allowed to return to work, we were so far behind with customer support that we elected to postpone this issue of Lunar News until we had caught up with more critical duties. So here it is, at last.

This issue announces Ms. Andrea Mosie as the new managing editor for Lunar News. Given Andrea's youthful appearance, it should not be surprising that she has maintained her vigor and enthusiasm through many years of devoted service to lunar sample curation, including much behind- the-scenes work for Lunar News. Now I am delighted that she agreed to accept the duties required to organize and publish Lunar News with quality and reliability. Even though, as Lunar Sample Curator, I remain responsible for the activities of my office, I greatly welcome Andrea's more visible role in making this additional train run on time.

With Andrea taking over Lunar News, I am rededicated to spending more effort on assuring the health and vigor of planetary sample curation for the future. Subscribers to Stephen Covey (Principle Centered Leadership; The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) will appreciate that thoughtful, long-term planning, and attention to maintaining capacity for important work, should receive more attention than urgent, but unimportant, administrative busy-work such as exemplified by the debacles of recovering from personnel furloughs. In short-hand notation, we want to spend more time in Covey's Quadrant 2 where organizational health is preserved and strengthened. With that in mind, I hope that you will enjoy my report, co-authored with Claire Dardano, elsewhere in this issue on our plans and progress for improved customer service through better use of electronic data systems. As always, your comments are welcome.