NASA may be known for Moon missions, but HR leader Jerry Traster says its real achievement is creating a workplace employees rarely want to leave
Photo: Jerry Traster, director of the Human Capital Office at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio (Credit: NASA)
Jerry Traster was a kid visiting his grandfather in Orlando when he first heard it. A sonic boom from a Space Shuttle launch at the Kennedy Space Center nearby. He didn't know what it was at first, but he knew it was really cool. That feeling stayed with him all the way back home to Cleveland where he had a sudden realization.
"Wait, there's a NASA center right in my backyard," he said. So, he applied for an internship.
That was in 2007. He never left.
Today, Traster is the Director of the Human Capital Office at NASA's Glenn Research Center, working out of the same office where he started nearly two decades ago. He has moved through talent acquisition, employee relations, workforce planning, and now leads the HR function for one of NASA's most technically vital centers. He is, in the language of his own workplace, a “NASA lifer.”
And at NASA, that isn’t unusual at all.
Why nobody quits NASA
In an era when employee retention dominates the HR agenda, NASA's numbers are remarkable. Traster estimates Glenn's annual turnover rate sits somewhere between 2 and 5%, and the majority of that is retirements. Voluntary departures are rare enough to barely register.
"We have so many NASA lifers," he said. "I think historically you're looking at like a 2 to 5% turnover rate and a majority of those are retirements, which is very minuscule."
Photo: Jerry Traster, director of the Human Capital Office at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio (Credit: NASA)
According to Mercer's 2025 Workforce Turnover Survey, the average voluntary turnover rate across U.S. industries sits at 13.5%. In technology and engineering, it runs higher still. NASA, by comparison, is operating in a different world entirely, competing for highly specialized talent against well-funded private aerospace companies that can offer salaries the federal pay structure simply cannot match. And yet people stay.
The question worth asking is why.
Mission first, people always
Traster doesn't hesitate when asked about NASA's retention secret. It comes down to culture, and at Glenn, culture has a tagline.
"We have a tagline, it's: mission first, people always. And we really live by that," he said. "I think people here feel like they're heard. They feel like they have a say in what happens on the day to day."
NASA's own internal surveys back that up. Employees consistently rate their first line supervisors highly, according to Traster, who says that reflects something genuine about the culture.
NASA invests deliberately in leadership development programs designed to build not just technical competence in managers, but emotional intelligence.
"We have a lot of leadership programs in place to make sure that people have not just smart supervisors, but they have that emotional intelligence side as well," he said.
Photo: Jerry Traster, director of the Human Capital Office at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio (Credit: NASA)
The work at NASA is demanding and the stakes are about as high as they get. But when Traster talks about why people stay, he keeps coming back to the same thing: the people.
"People come here, they enjoy the work because it's so unique. They enjoy their supervisors. The supervisors really do care about the people and our leadership cares about the people," he said. "When you add all those things together, it's rare that people are interested in leaving."
Protecting knowledge before it retires
Low turnover brings its own challenges. When a workforce stays for decades and then retires in waves, the institutional knowledge that leaves with them can be devastating. At NASA, where some of what engineers know was learned through decades of trial, error, and occasional failure, that risk is particularly acute.
"Some things that happen at NASA aren't necessarily taught in a book," Traster said. "It's lessons learned over time, sometimes through failure, sometimes through trial and error. And we want to make sure that whatever was learned through those different events is transferred on to the early career workforce."
To manage that handoff, NASA uses a phased retirement program that allows experienced employees to transition out gradually. As part of the arrangement, participants spend 25% of their time mentoring early career staff before they fully step away.
"It's a way for them to have one foot out the door, but one foot in the door," Traster said. "To make sure that expertise isn't leaving without providing that knowledge transfer to the earlier career workforce."
And Traster says the engineers wouldn't have it any other way.
"Our engineers love teaching the early career hires. I mean they love that. There's passion around that."
Build something worth staying for
Not every organization can offer the chance to work on a moon mission. That part is uniquely NASA's. But Traster's approach to retention isn't built on rocket launches alone.
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The deliberate investment in emotionally intelligent leadership, the emphasis on making employees feel heard, the structured approach to knowledge transfer, and the genuine care for development at every career stage are all choices any organization can make. NASA just happens to do them against the backdrop of one of the most extraordinary workplaces on earth.
Traster's own story makes the case better than any statistic. He joined NASA as an intern, found something worth staying for, and today leads the very office that hired him nearly two decades ago.
Photo: Jerry Traster, director of the Human Capital Office at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio (Credit: NASA)
"It really raised me," he said of NASA. "Not just professionally, but personally."
The formula, it turns out, is simpler than rocket science. Build something worth staying for and then take care of the people who stay.
