"It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”

NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Jennifer (Cannon) Kunz heard those words from her mother many times while growing up in Fort Walton Beach.

As with other important lessons from her parents, who still live in Fort Walton Beach, she has carried them with her throughout her 30-year-career at America’s multi-user spaceport.

The most recent stop on that efficacious journey: Kennedy’s associate director, technical. In that role, she oversees all of the technical work at the Florida spaceport, serving under Kennedy Director Janet Petro and Deputy Director Kelvin Manning.

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Kunz was recently promoted from director of Safety and Mission Assurance, where she provided Kennedy’s final endorsement that NASA’s launches would be safe and successful. She helped establish the Commercial Crew Program, was instrumental in transitioning Exploration Ground Systems to serve the multi-user spaceport and worked to ensure the success of NASA’s Launch Services, Orion, and the International Space Station programs.

She also made significant impacts to the space shuttle and Constellation programs.

Kunz works hard, but smart. She is nice, but don’t expect her to back down from a challenge.

“My parents are folks who don’t quit. ‘Let’s stick it out; let’s see how we can make it better’ — and that’s what I use a lot in my work environment to this day,” Kunz said. “Things get hard and you don’t just give up; you figure out a different way to do it.”

Kunz’s father is a retired electrical engineer and graduate of Auburn University, where Kunz earned a Bachelor of Science in industrial engineering. But she had plenty of visits to the campus before that, boasting, “I’ve been going to Auburn football games since I was in the womb.”

Kunz later earned a Master of Science in engineering management from the University of Central Florida.

A retired high school science teacher, Kunz’s mother has been equally influential in her life, encouraging her as a student to “spread her wings” toward a STEM career, which was at the time non-traditional for women.

“I think I was doubly blessed because I grew up loving science and math,” Kunz said. “At times I was the only girl in my engineering classes. But I was raised by parents who didn’t put boundaries on me. There was a lot of encouragement — and confidence that I could do anything.”

Kunz spent her entire childhood in Fort Walton Beach and graduated from Choctawhatchee High School. She has visited every Christmas except last year due to COVID-19.

“It’s funny, when I talk about going home … even though I have lived (in Merritt Island, Florida) longer than I lived there, that is still home to me,” she said.

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Kunz’s husband, who also works at Kennedy, knew he wanted to be a part of NASA from a young age. That wasn’t the case with Kunz, who didn’t think about NASA as an employment option until she was fresh out of college.

That’s when a contact forwarded her résumé to a manager at Kennedy. She received a call, made the eight-hour drive to Florida’s Space Coast for an interview, and admittedly was intimidated upon arriving at the center, expecting to see “Ph.D.s in lab coats.”

“But what I found was the most collaborative group of people who love the space business and gave their heart and soul to it,” she said. “I saw that over 30 years ago, and still to this day.”

Kunz attributes a big part of her success to mentorship from John “Tip” Talone, a retired Kennedy employee and former flow director in the shuttle program who helped her understand the importance of developing and diversifying her experiences.

“He believed in me. He would push me out of my comfort zone all of the time,” she said.

Kunz has earned several prestigious honors, including the Center Director’s Strategic Leadership Award, NASA’s Distinguished Service Medal, and most recently the Presidential Rank Award-Meritorious Executive.

“People around you having confidence in you, recognizing and appreciating your efforts, is one of the most important things we can do for people,” Kunz said. “So that is very meaningful for me.”

Kunz is one of eight senior executives at Kennedy who comprise “Leadership for the Future,” a group focused on building leaders on all levels at the center. The goal is to appreciate, reward and prepare leaders for NASA’s future. Sometimes those leaders don’t even know they are leaders yet; they just need a little encouragement.

“If that’s something I can give back in my career … someday, when I’m ready to retire, that’s going to be one of my greatest accomplishments,” she said.

Kunz and her husband have two grown children who — not surprisingly — grew up unafraid of the unknown. Kunz recalls a time when her daughter announced she was trying out for a sport she had never played.

“I remember looking at her thinking how thankful I was that she was fearless, because if you fear failure, you’ll fear trying new things,” Kunz said. “Instilling that in your kids is really important. I think I passed that down to my kids from my parents, and that makes me proud.”

Today, Kunz’s daughter and son are successful, high-character people, who, like their mom, are doing quite well away from “home.”

“Now they’re on their own and they’re thriving,” she said. “As a parent, that’s the greatest thing that you can imagine.”

That sentiment would be proudly echoed from Fort Walton Beach.