Janna Lewis

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Written By Third Boxcar LLC

01:04:24
 

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Show Notes

As part of our continuing series on Space Law, Janna Lewis, Senior Vice President of Policy and General Counsel of Astroscale U.S., Inc. joins the podcast to chat with host M.C. Sungaila about her career journey from planning to become a medical doctor to attending law school, becoming a patent litigator and government contracts lawyer in private practice, and then moving inhouse within the space industry. Janna shares what it's like to lead the legal department at a cutting-edge space company pioneering space sustainability and orbital debris removal, how she serves as a thoughtful collaborator in her client's innovation, and one of her favorite mottos: "Be true to your future." This is an engaging and inspiring episode that should not be missed.

 
 

About Janna Lewis

Senior Vice President of Policy and General Counsel

Astroscale U.S., Inc

Janna joined Astroscale U.S. in May 2024 as Senior Vice President of Policy and General Counsel to provide strategic policy and legal direction to support the company’s growth and compliance with evolving regulations. She also serves as Secretary of the Astroscale U.S. Board of Directors. Prior to joining Astroscale, she was a senior attorney and technology strategist with BAE Systems, Inc., focused on legal and policy matters in national defense, intelligence, and commercial space. She has unique, cross-sector expertise in advising programs and technology development for U.S. government and commercial initiatives, including launch services, satellite integration, on-orbit communications and sensing, microelectronics, and cybersecurity.

Janna began her career in private legal practice, where she served as counsel to U.S. and international clients in the aerospace and defense, commercial space, and telecommunications industries. She then worked for Facebook, where she helped frame industry partnerships to catalyze the delivery of space based and high-altitude global connectivity solutions. From there, she facilitated innovation and strategic collaborations for Northrop Grumman’s Missions Systems Sector before joining BAE Systems. Janna is a volunteer with the Space Foundation, served on the Defense Innovation Board’s Space Advisory Committee, and is a registered patent attorney. She is also a member of the International Institute of Space Lawyers and the AIA Intellectual Property Committee. Passionate about strategic space policy, Janna frequently speaks publicly about the rapidly evolving laws and policies affecting defense and commercial space. She is committed to increasing diversity in the space industry, and she is a strong advocate for new space professionals.

 

Transcript

On this episode, I'm pleased to continue our space focused series of the show with amazing General Counsel Janna Lewis, who is Senior Vice President of Policy and General Counsel of Astroscale US. Welcome, Janna.

Thank you so much. I am so happy to be here. I’m looking forward to the conversation.

From Aspiring Doctor To Space Law Career Path

I generally start with, how did you get into law? What drew you to law school initially? What did you think you would be doing? I'm thinking probably not in Space Law, but that's just part of the journey.

It's part of the journey for a lot of us who are working in space, whether it's general counsel or some adjacent role. Not a lot of it turns out planned on that, and that's certainly true for me. I grew up in a family in the West, where the plan was that I was going to become a doctor. That's probably a theme you also hear for a lot of people. I lived in a remote area with humble beginnings, we like to say.

The community that I lived in is one where a lot of women and girls were expected to go to school. That was not true in my family. My grandmother, my grandfather, and my father's side were teachers. My father and my mother were adamant that their kids would get an education and, in my case, I was going to become a doctor.

My entire life, going through school from high school into college, the plan was to become a doctor, and that's great. It was something I was excited for. My father was passionate about it. Education again being the crux and the essence of what we needed to do and what we were capable of doing. That was always the message, “The kids, the girls can go. We can do anything.”

I remember that, too. My father was the same way, and I would say as a first-generation American that was unusual for him coming from Lithuanian immigrants. Unusual even within his family. The other brothers didn't have the same view about their girl children, shall we say. He was always very encouraging of that. That makes such a difference in terms of how you view what's possible for yourself.

Agreed, and it’s interesting, too, and I'm curious if this is for you, too. I didn't know girls weren't supposed to do stuff. I hate even saying it that way, but rode motorcycles. There was not this gender-based from a small child perspective of going to schools what I was going to do. I wasn't tuned into the environment around me, where it turns out, women didn't. Women stayed at home. Women had kids. That was the expectation in the roadmap.

I was completely blind to all of that until later in life when I got to middle school and high school. I’m looking around like, “My plan, my path that I'm on is a little bit different from everybody else's, isn’t it?” That ended up being true in so many respects. Again, those differences and the ability to march and progress through an environment where one's life choices are radically different from the norm. It's a different character building.

I'm very grateful for that now, but then getting into college, again marching forward and doing this with due diligence. There was this one day and I remember this day very clearly. It was in chemistry lab in my undergrad. It had been long. We were doing all kinds. The stuff you do as an undergrad and I came out of this this lab and it was bright. I didn't even know what time of day it was, but the sun was shining and it’s in my eyes.

I looked around and said, “I do not want to do this anymore. I don't want to be a doctor.” I can't tell you, MC, why. To this day, I'm wondering, was it that made that moment to snap from me that I'm not going to do it? I don't want to be a doctor anymore. It raises the question, now what? It turned out at, in these serendipities, I was in the honors program at that point of the university. One of my honors professors, it was my mathematics professor, which is ironic because I was horrible in math. I love it. It was great, but I didn't have the passion for it. He put me in for a scholarship to go to Cambridge University as an exchange student.

I thought, “I'm going to go study literature for a couple of semesters, summer time at Cambridge University.” It was a wonderful period of time. It was a break from the science and all of the pressures I had been feeling to get into medical schools. All the things you got to do to get into medical school. I studied romantic literature and the history of sciences and in the historical context as opposed to go forward and understand all those formulas and equations.

While I was there, that space gave me time to think, “I've got all of this background in science. I love science and technology. What can I do with that?” I decided that public service is a important part of our family. It's a lot of what we talked about doing, doing right by society, and doing public service work. I'm going to become a forensic scientist. This is back in the ‘90s. This is before like CSI and all the movies. This is going to makes a whole lot of sense to me.

I enrolled in another class in a different college, where for the Mountain West, it housed then. The forensic science is lap for all of the Mountain West estates there that would see all their evidence in there. I changed my major to Criminal Justice with an emphasis on Forensic Science. That was going to be the plan. I’m very happy with that, then I meet a friend who was leading LSAT courses. This friends are like, “Come on. It's fine. Sit in. They're fun.” I was like, “I'll sit in.”

I took the prep courses, then I ended up, “Why not? I'll take the LSAT.” I ended up getting scholarships to a couple of universities and here we are again, why not? I never imagined I would go to law school, but why not? This seems like an interesting thing to do. I get to law school and discover the again all the science course I had taken, I was eligible to become a patent attorney. I focused my practice on Intellectual Property. Who knew there was something called that? I didn't, but intellectual property and international law.

I focused on that and ended up getting a role as a litigator doing intellectual property and patent litigation. I loved it. It was great. It was wonderful. The skills that you learn as a litigator from the writing, the briefing, and the ability to present to stand up right in front of court, in front of a judge and quite literally present your case. There's a lot that one can draw from that and it relates to other aspects of practice. Whether you're a lawyer or not.

They're very transferable skills.

In the midst of all of that, in that time growing up, in a place in the West, in the Northern Mojave Desert, I grew up with a night sky. Family loved the light sky. We would lay out and on blankets. My grandmother, the school teacher, would tell a story about the stars. My father was hugely into aerospace and space. We visited NASA when we could we take the family camper on the back of pickup truck, and drive cross-country camping all the way to come out to NASA and visit.

I've always had a passion for it, but I never once thought that I could be a part of the Space Community. It never occurred to me. One day, as I was driving home late at night after document review, whatever a young associate do is as litigators. I had one of those flip phones back then and I had signed up for service that would tell me what the International Space Station overhead. I get the alert, “Space station is overhead. Turn along.” I’m like, “International Space Station, that’s not something that's treating base. It's not just one country. It's a whole bunch of countries coming together. How and why? There must have been a contract for that. Who writes contracts? Lawyers can do space.”

It's like the light bulb went off. I realized it was something that I could do and be involved in. From that point on, I pivoted away from litigation. I started focusing on government contracting because I learned that, at that point in time, this is before SpaceX was doing all this stuff. Before we’ve seen the commercial like US government or any government, if you're going to do space, you had to know government contracting.

I became a government contract lawyer with a specialist in data rights and intellectual property, then comes the start of what we're now seeing is our commercials space, the world that we live in. Now, where I am at Astroscale US, we are thriving. It's a little bit of a random process. It wasn't something that was planned. I didn't start out expecting to be here, but goodness, am I glad that I was open to those opportunities and was able to make those changes to be here now.

Navigating Career Changes And Trusting Intuition

I also think just listening to your stories the commonalities from your decision to shall we say pivot from the being a doctor to finding out what the next option might be after that to the same sense of something is ringing true to you and terms of, “I can contribute. There is a way for me to contribute to Aerospace. Let me find ways to do that.”

Both of those are being open to things and attuned to your own interests in a way. Being tied into your intuition in making those decisions, then trusting that intuition. Especially the changing from doctor, when that's something that you had in mind the whole time and you're like, “No, not that.” There's always like, “If not that, then what?” That fear of, then what, is why people will still stick with the original plan thinking, “At least I know this.” If that it's not where you're meant to go, you have to have the courage to pursue what is.

You're so right about that, and there's so many aspects to that, especially when I talk to young professionals. There's that concern. I don't want to call it fear because it sounds like I'm putting them into a box. They’re still afraid to do something, but it's a concern and a worry. Those worries can get in the way of opportunity. I was very fortunate in that my family, my mother, and my father were always there for me. I know there's some people, whereas the oldest child, we high expectations. “You will go do this.”

“The plan is X. What do you mean you're not doing plan X? What?”

When I told my father I wasn't going to go to medical school, he had this way where he would look down and raise one eyebrow and I’d get the look right. With that was also the implicit support that I'm going to do what's right and continue to pursue an education. I'm not just stopping. I'm going to go explore, and that was always fundamentally what education is supposed to be about, exploration, growth, public good, public service, and being true to yourself.

You're right, there's an element of courage to that, no doubt. That trust in yourself and trust in being open to opportunity is also essential. That's hard sometimes for young professionals. Is trusting that you're going to make that next step? It is there. It may not be what you're expecting. It may not be on this this predetermined path that you maybe have set for yourself or maybe others have said for you. Know that each of those steps that you take are going to take you someplace if you're true to what it is you are wanting to do.

That sounds weird to say that because I didn't know I was going to be here. I was open to the opportunities and was willing to push forward. You said this earlier about curiosity. That there’s this idea of fundamentally being curious about what the future holds. Curious about where it's going to take you. Being open to the opportunity. Knowing that if you're going to go this way and take that step, it turns out you can also go that way if you want to. Those zigs and zags are pretty good for you. It creates a robust experience. A robust person who can bring to those future states and that future career. Tremendous amount of knowledge and understanding that does make a stronger.

There's this extra layer of concern as you said in the law school realm because in law school, often, you're told there's a particular path that equals success. Somehow, if you get off that path, you haven’t achieved your potential, but it's not that rigid as it turns out. Also, everywhere you go is skill building as you were saying about being litigator. Recognizing there's some great skills that you get from that being good at public speaking, critical analysis, being persuasive, and advocating.

All of those things are helpful and can be used in different settings and in different ways down the line. Even if you end up zigging ang zagging, you're accumulating skills along the way. It may be that unique constellation of skills that you have that make you the right person for a particular role you never knew existed.

I like how you said that, unique constellation of skills. That's so true. Also, to your point about law school, I went to law school with no expectations. Many of the people around me in law school, who was like, “I’m going to be a lawyer. I'm going to be in a big law firm.” They had goals. I didn't know. I was there for the learning or maybe the inspiration of what to do next. I didn't feel the pressures in the way that some do. I don't want to play that.

People feel a lot and tremendous amount of pressure. I found, as a talk to my fellow law students, they felt like, “I have to do this. I need to go to big law. I've got to go these particular steps that are pre-ordained in terms of getting to this perceived notion of success.” I remember one professor I went to. I was worried. I had a B in his class and I asked him. I said, “What does this mean? I just don't know what this means.” He goes, “Sorry, it's probably not going to be good for you. Your chances of becoming in-house counsel is probably close to zero.”

There's this preconceived notion, these ideas and even the professors. In my experience, some of them said that was their belief that must be the path that I'm on. If not that path, I want to be on or should be on. I came away from that conversation. First, I was mad like, “Who are you to tell me I want or where I'm supposed to be?” Also, why? What is he saying to other people? Is that the message that the student should be hearing? I ended up being like you, “I'm going to show you.”

Everybody has a different response to that or reaction to that. I love yours. That's often the people who are successful and think outside the box are like, “Whatever, but I'll show you.” It can be super daunting to someone who didn't have that same attitude that you did to be like, “I shouldn't even consider this.”

Who knows? I don't even know that I still do. The good takeaway for that for maybe some of your young professional readers is that, set your own path. Use some things as guides. Take that path and see how far you want to go. Particularly we're talking about being a lawyer and the skills that you can extract from that and the opportunities that can be available. They may not look the same way, year to year or person to person and that is okay. It is okay to follow your instincts in that.

You can set your own path. Use some things as guides. Take that path and see how far you want to go.

Exactly, and trusting them.

Also, exploring. For many of the young professionals, this is the best time. This is the time where you should be exploring. Go try some stuff out. This is perfect time to go do that.

Instead of being quite so concerned about, “I need to be on this perfect path.” Whatever it is. There's time, but I wish I had thought about that when I was starting out in my practice. That's something you get from a little more experience, too. Hopefully, by sharing this with others who might be newer in practice or in law school, they'll get a running start on that attitude and trust in themselves.

Exploring Unexpected Career Paths In Space Law

Also, I think about there's so many paths that are some clear paths and others that may come along later. If you talk to someone about your coming with scientific or medical background, people would say, “That’s exactly what where you went first.” Which we would think, what a great patent layer because you need to have a good understanding of that in writing patents and litigating about them so you have a great start on that practice.

At some point, that's a great fit but then there's also ways in which you can use that understanding of science now in your role in space. That's not something that would be obvious. People go, “You have this background patent. There might be other things that you haven't considered, or maybe, as you said, haven't developed in the way just the industry is developing. There are different ways, different opportunities, and different kinds of things that are valued as the industry itself develops, which is what's unique about space.

You're exactly right. Part of it you find this with so many people who are in this industry looking to help it grow or mature. When I say industry, I'm talking both with respect to the government side and also commercial space side. There's tremendous change in growth and also an overlap. This is not an intersection anymore. There's this increasing overlap between the two. To your point, coming to it, I'm not assigned. I don't have a technical degree but I studied a lot.

I happen to be of the mindset where I absorb very quickly, and I'm fortunate for that. I can leverage those learnings in different ways. It doesn't have to be a patent. I ended up trying to prosecute being the one who writes the patents themselves, but that doesn't work for me. I like to litigate the patent and it's a personality thing.

With that and the skills that I apply now and in prior legal roles where it's either focused on intellectual property or government contracting. The ability to parse the language or parse the problem and the ability to extract seemingly random elements and facts and bring them together in a way that is compelling or tells us a story or ends up doing something good for the client and advancing the case. These come from, again, these disparate lessons that one learns so that I've earned over time.

It does come from having something of a scientific approach to things but also allowing that to morph given the correct circumstances in the right ways. It's an agility with information. That's something that a lot of lawyers bring forward. We can take information. Our minds can treat it in an agile way and help not shape the facts. I don't say change anything, but organized and orient the facts in a way that can tell a compelling story.

That's true. This is an interesting way to think about what you do and what lawyers do in different settings. When you were talking about that, what we're good at when we're well trained and we have experience with it, is we are good at boiling down a lot of information. Whether it's facts or cases or whatever and distilling it to its essence, then starting to have some critical analysis of that.

That's something I don't realize as something unique to us as lawyers, especially as litigators. When I'm sitting on a board and the lawyers, if there's one or two of us, we naturally go, “Here's the problem. Here are the questions that we need to work out. Here's the information that we need.” We automatically outline it into the two or three points.

Everybody looks at you in astonishment. Even people who are CEOs or quite accomplished people. This is just not something they do on a regular basis. You think about those skills and being able to use them. They could be helpful in so many different settings. I do think a particularly being a quick study is a good skill to have, if you have that, and able to pick up on things quickly in trends.

I feel like litigators have to be good at that because we're moving between the different cases. We have to learn everything about that case and put it in context. The added thing, as an appellate lawyer, I do now is putting it not only in the factual context of this case, but a larger industry, larger development of the law, and telling that story in all of that.

The Power Of Collaboration And Innovation In Space Law

I agree with you completely. It's interesting what you just said about sitting in a boardroom and being able to quickly frame the issues. One of the things that I found also can be a potential downside learning from experience is being so quick is sometimes not always so good. One of the things that I've learned and so much that Astroscale, but in other settings is sometimes, as lawyers, we want to get to the problem solving.

We want to get there. “Here's this. I found this, and this is how I'm going to do it in this particular way. Now let's discuss and result.” Being aware of the environment in the setting is important. These are the soft skills. To be a successful, you start to developing. It’s understanding, why are you there and what's the purpose? Where do we need to be in this setting, in a conference room, whether it's board or some other meeting. How do we help people get there together? I have made the mistake myself in the past where I go in and I try to solve too fast.

Doing that too soon without having buy-in or discussion or whatever, because you automatically do that. Your brain has already done that like, “We're here. Let's get that problem solved.”

It's important to understand that everybody often needs to be heard in the right way. What I've done is try to train myself and get better in those room. Even though I've got this idea of where it needs to go, what needs to be said and getting other people to say it as we move along. Helping people that their views have been expressed and have been factored in. Never mind that they might already have been in my quiet mind.

It’s important to understand that everybody needs to be heard in the right way.

My mind is very quiet at all, but in my mind, I've maybe done that. Helping people understand that in those settings that they are heard, being factored in, and those considerations or not. Those conversations often need to happen in his social way. Lawyers are very capable of bringing forward those skills as well, in my case, as long as I remember.

Don't go straight to the problem solving. Let's look at this because also, having those discussions and having people are their concerned. Sometimes people will say they're concerned is X, but when you listen to them that's just a representation of other underlying concerns. Maybe there's a way to accommodate those without saying, “We have to have this particular outcome to solve the problem.” There's listening skills. That's something you develop over time. It's so important to the in-house role, too.

Even when I was in private practice, giving people the opportunity to say what they need to say in the way they want to say it or inclined to say it is important. As lawyers, we take that. We don't change it. We translate it and help bring some commonalities in understanding. That's just again, one of the essential roles that we play. The other advantage to that is again is like, “I don't have all the answers. I know this. I have this idea of what the issue is, and what needs to be said. I've got to step back and hear other people.”

It turns out that one of my favorite parts of the job is sitting in a room with my calls. I'll bring forward what might be the issues, the topics, but asking the question and finding out, what I thought isn't true. The way somebody expressed it maybe needs a little more flushing out, but then the ideas come. For a company like Astroscale, for example. The ideas that come forward from people who are in this industry as a commercial space company and with the goals that we have for what we want to do in orbit and what we want to do for humanity. It opens the door.

Space industry does this for a lot of reasons, why a lot of us are here. This opportunity to think, collaborate, and come up with ideas that truly can be expressed and considered. Not dismissed out of hand. From my perspective, both as a policy lead and then also as general counsel, this thoughtful innovation, this type of collaborative innovation on where we want to take things is the best part of the job that's part.

I was going to say I do think that's a similarity between how we would work a problem on appeal as an appellate lawyer. We’re brainstorming, having the team thinking about this, and collaborating and have an innovative way of approaching a question if it's a new point of law. That is the similarity of what I appreciate about the space law environment, too. There's that similar approach to like, “Let's find the best way forward.”

It doesn't have to be. That’s this idea, there's no one path. Maybe we decide to take a particular approach. Maybe we move somewhere the other. You can't just dither. You move forward. We come back to the same principle. You want to make a change, make a step. Take a step forward, and see where you end up. Have a goal, but be open to opportunity along the way.

There’s no one path, but if you want to make a change, take a step forward and see where you end up.

Input and collaboration is one of the beautiful things about this industry and about the people in this industry. There are so many smart and passionate people in the space industry. It truly is energizing to be able to be in this environment and watch the incredible accomplishments of not just my company but across the board. All the things that we're seeing. Firefly just landed.

I know. Wasn’t that so exciting? That was amazing.

There’s so much that is happening. It's so much to be proud of as an industry. I’m very excited for what's coming.

Understanding Astroscale's Role In Space Law

It is exciting. Yes, I was up at some ungodly hour watching the landing of Blue Ghost. It's just so neat. It's exciting for the companies, but it's exciting for humanity and that's what's so amazing. As you said, there's this collaborative nature and collegiality that exists in space. That is part of this common effort to move things forward for humanity at large that underlies all of that and contributes to that. Let's talk about Astroscale, for those who don't know. What is Astroscale doing? What problem are you trying to solve?

Astroscale is an on-orbit servicing entity. The company was founded by our CEO, Nobu Okada in Japan. Headquarters are in Japan. As we're talking, we have affiliates in the UK, France, and the United States, and then we have subsidiary in Israel. Astroscale is here to help with on-orbit servicing and sustainability. Sustainability being the end goal for the services that we provide, but the services themselves are things like orbital debris and remediation services.

I'm going to use general terminology. If you have a satellite that needs to be moved or let's say, you can't talk to it anymore or tumbling or out of control or moved out of its orbital slot or it's run out of fuel. Yes, satellites have fuel. A lot of people are like, “I didn't realize that.” Our spacecraft can go up and it can refuel and reposition. If something is moving in the way of an actual degree object, we are developing technologies to capture and/or redirect that.

We help companies expand or extend the life of their satellites that are up there. If it's up in, let's say geo, so geosynchronous orbit. If you don't want to take it down, companies suspense millions or billions of dollars to get those assets up there in place. Bringing it down or replacing it is very expensive. If paying for a company go up and help refuel reposition can be a very important step to that additional type of sustainability in life extension. It's so exciting.

The interesting thing too is the work that we do and the commercial nature of it and the activities themselves weren't contemplated by the regulatory authorities way back when. That's the policy side of what I do, is myself and predecessors before me who held this role and did an incredible job helped shape the policies that will then allow for an enable and facilitate that work on/or servicing at the different orbitals regimes. It's incredibly engaging and exciting work.

As it turns out, in my space law class at Loyola Law School, we were talking about orbital debris. The students were asking, “How do we solve this problem?” I said, “Interestingly enough, there is a company that's focused on some of these questions.” There's a need. There's a company that's trying to fill that need, a growing need, which also fits in, I don't want to say neatly, but it is, in terms of policy questions, international law questions, and the question of space sustainability, and orbital debris. All of these being good stewards and having a plan of what you're going to do with what you launch when it's useful life ends.

All of that is part of a much broader and somewhat urgent. Policy discussion at the national and international level alongside this other aspect of your company’s business in terms of the in-orbit servicing. Whether it's manufacturing and all of that in the ESOM category. You're working to put those regulations or policies in place around that behavior in space. It’s an interesting intersection of a lot of different issues.

It's domestic, meaning nation-based and then the international side of it. There's a lot of coordination that is happening and needs to continue to happen at the UN and other regulatory bodies. It's fascinating because people don't disagree that it's something that's needed. The question is how, who, when, and the how much. Those are the things that end up being covered and that's to be expected.

Those all end up being interesting conversations working together because there has to be a degree of continuity. I hesitate to call it commonality because we don't need it to be the same solution. Having some degree of diversity, how we immediate, how we address these and how we provide servicing. There's a benefit to others as well, but we need our regulatory authorities that allow for that.

I have little foreign issues, too I get it. I got some honey in the tea. All that good stuff.

I do. How did you know?

I have it, too. I have my tea cup also with my honey. An old fashioned tried and true approach to this.

I know it's hard to talk about it.

The Role Of In-House Counsel In Innovative Companies

I like the way you said how, who, how much, and all that. All the details as they say, even if there's a common will to say we have to work this out. I do think there's something, and maybe you can test this out for me because I do have this theory particularly in-house or in companies that are doing things that are pushing the limits where there are regulations haven't been done yet. We're doing new things that haven't been done previously. That might be a little different in-house counsel role or counseling role for that company than others. As far as I see even your title, Senior Vice President of Policy in general counsel. Policy is very important for the company.

For a company like this, yes. It's interesting that you asked the question that way, because even though I wear these multiple hats, there's a very strong relationship between the two. Doing policy work, I get back to this idea. I leveraged a lot of the skills that I have built over time as a lawyer. To your point about, do we think about things? Is it different? Do I advise differently? The answer is not so much, because my end goal is my client.

I always operate in the best interest of my client, and that is always the North Star, so to speak. What is in the best interest of the company? When I look at how I advise or counseling client, whether it's working through the policy side or strictly the legal site. If there's a difference, it's the degree of creativity that comes into this because what we have to do, let's say it hypothetical. We have a customer we're going to provide our services.

We don't have exactly a regulatory scheme that speaks directly to that. We have to identify and acknowledge that there are certain gaps in its spectrum, allocations, management, or the liability aspect of it. We need to get creative on that. One of my favorite parts too is thinking through. We want to close those gaps. We want to remedy this or get some solutions on the policy side. We can't just stand still. We're not just going to wait for that to happen. How do we address that?

There are different ways. One of them being working with that perspective customer to contract around that, to allocate and address who's going to do what, given where we are from a policy standpoint? Who's going to be responsible for this particular authorization at this particular point in time? When do we do check-ins? Depending on the length of time that this particular service would be available. Things are going to change, so we do some check-ins during that. As best we can working with my counterpart, with the customer, getting the best arrangement we can and knowing that maybe there will be surprises but we do the best we can.

That's the creativity. That's the problem-solving side of it that we can bring forward to that. When those sorts of arrangements can be made, we can think, “This is going to work. This is going to get us move everybody forward.” Instead of saying around going, “I don't know. I don't know what to do.” We don't have a rule that speaks to that. We help create an environment where it will work and it can work in the right way.

In some cases, in this boundary or pushing boundaries or setting companies. Often, I've found the executive side, the CEO, or the board or whatnot, they're very aware of this and the law in a different way than some other executives because they're building a whole industry in business off-roading. They’re aware of where the road has gone so far. You can conversations with them in a different way. They have an understanding of the law as it exists in a much different way. They have to understand that so they know what risks they're taking on as a business.

It's true. For Astroscale US, my president is incredibly well versed. Our executive vice president, the way that they have the mental acknowledge, the technical knowledge, and the legal and regulatory knowledge is just amazing. Also, the ability to understand that we are advancing these. It's a risk calculus in some cases and you're exactly right, it leads to very gratifying conversations, if I'm going to say that way. Educate, yes but at the same time, it's more discussed, what could be and how do we? As opposed to, “There happens to be this entity called the FCC.”

They don't have to go to that level. Taking it back a little forward going broader to our headquarters, owner, Nobu Okada and Astroscale Holdings. Nobu, at the time that he set up the company, he set it up under three pillars. One of those foundational pillars for what the company would be was Policy. With that thought and the ability to understand years ago that in order for this company to be successful, Policy would have to be a focus. You don't see that very often, especially for startups that recognize the importance of Policy thought leadership in shaping in order to see the successes. It's been phenomenal.

That's so interesting. I hadn't realized that as a pillar but it has to be a pillar to build out the company. I have seen that in space, but in any other some drone companies are like that too, where the founder or the chief executive understand. You can talk to them about like a supreme court decision because they're paying attention to that.

They're like, “Yes, we recognize that problem. We can't, because it's still uncertain and have a clear legal plan around that but we've adjusted our technologies.” That problem for our product doesn't present itself. You're just like, “This is so fascinating,” to have those conversations. As you said, to have it like it's satisfying. You could have these conversations about this, how does that impact your company or industry writ large? They're thinking about it.

It's an amazing group. Again, you see this throughout the industry. People who are truly outstanding professionals, both in what they do and what they bring to the community. Back to this idea of passion, this willingness to hear new novel things and play with the idea and see where it's going to go. It makes for an incredibly and unique environment. I've been in different environments as outside counsel, but I don't know that I want to go experiment.

I'm happy with what we got going on here. I do believe that the degree of ingenuity and the type of people who are drawn to this tend to be people who have that interest skill set and the willingness to take those steps. Going back to what we were talking about, knowing not everything sorted. You're not going to sit back and wait for everything to be 100%, sorted out, and final before moving forward. No one would make it. It's that willingness to take those steps knowing that fairly clear, but we're going to absolutely be tuned in to all the data points. All the inputs that are coming in. It will refactor if we need to but we will make progress.

You can't just sit back and wait for everything to be 100% sorted out before moving forward. No one would make it if they did.

The way you make progresses is by doing it. If you're doing things in the real world then you won't know what you need next regulation-wise or whatnot. You can't imagine all of the things that people could be doing in this environment until they're doing it.

We've got so many companies and people who are doing that and just Astroscale. It's a community. It is truly a community working on this.

How Moving In-House Became A Career Decision

How did you come to thinking or moving in-house? How did that come about?

Once again, it could be a theme here. I didn't plan it, despite what that professor thought. I was very happy with the litigation role as outside counsel and working with various customers/clients who are themselves space companies. It's interesting because at that point, I was doing some litigation. I was litigating in the court of federal claims. I was also doing US government contract for these space companies.

I got a little of both and I thought, “This is a great balance, where I can still go stand in front of a judge, do all the last minute briefing, and all of the fun.” As an appellate attorney, you know just to push to get to the end and get something in then the rush that comes from that. It very keeps you very much in the moment. I was working with a law firm at that point in time and I got a phone call from a recruiter for Facebook. It’s Meta now.

The recruiter said, “We hear you're good at what you do in space and the like. We'd like you to come and join our team.” At that point in time, we were planning for our second child. Number one, I don't even have a Facebook account, so this is a joke. Number two, this is not the right time for me. Months later, they called to get and they said, “We are putting together a team called Connectivity Lab and we want to bring Connectivity through space-based platforms to communities that do not have the internet.” The goal then was to bring internet through these platforms because doing it through wired was just working in some of these worlds. At that point, I'm like, that's interesting.

The role that I took was not legal role exactly. I moved into this weird hybrid role and I thought at the time, “That's alright.” I don't have to sit with the legal department. It turned out to be fascinating experience because I was embedded with the teams at Facebook. They had pulled people from all over industry different roles from government and all of the main big primes, as we call them, that do the space work to come together and work on this problem of delivering the internet to communities that did not have access at that point.

It's something I was passionate about, people having access to the internet, doing it at a place that is truly a very low cost of those barriers from a financial statement where that was behind that mission. It was a tremendous learning. It's one of those things where I did one of those zigs. I stepped away from exactly immersed in the law. I was with the business teams at that time and I learned a lot about how business is done.

I learned a lot about those thought process that happens when the designated lawyer is not in the room. It ended up being very educational. Ultimately, it was very much the Wild West on it and I couldn't stop being a lawyer. There's a point where it’s like, “This is probably not quite the right place for me.” About that point in time, I got a call from Northrop Grumman to then join one of their teams here now in the East.

One of those moments where I said to my husband, “Should we? This means moving to the East Coast. I've never lived on the East Coast.” We decided to do that. We packed up two kids and moved from Menlo Park in California. We came out to Maryland and joined Northrop Grumman. At that point, at Northrop Grumman, I was focused on intellectual property. I was working with some amazing teams and groups, doing a lot of work for government customers in programs that were fascinating. Fascinating work, then pandemic hits.

I thought one of these reflection moments, like, “I want to do more. I want to do more that expands my skillset even more.” BAE Systems had called at that point. I left Northrop and joined BAE during the pandemic. For almost three years, I never met my own boss. You need a strong team for those things to work, especially as a new employee. Now, by then, I'm far enough along my career. I know how to move myself forward and what's expected to me in those situations.

I know, for younger professionals, who had to do that. It's a very different thing joining and starting in a remote way. Younger professionals miss out on a lot of the mentorship and those opportunities. Here we are, hopefully, people are getting that remedy. I enjoyed BAE, but then we get out of pandemic and my good friends at Astroscale US said, “Would you like to come and be our first General Counsel?”

Honestly, opportunities like that had come previously. I wouldn't consider it, but for Astroscale, yes. I thought, this is the right time and this is the time to do this, to work with this amazing group of people and to do something that is not been done before and to help push this forward in a way that is meaningful to me and meaningful to the industry and everybody. Again, it's these opportunities. The zigs and the zags and being open to it.

Overall, that’s a good theme. From your story and your history of being open to those opportunities, that may sound different and leading to where you have a big impact. Not only on the company, but as you said, on the industry and on space with large both policy-wise. Also, what Astroscale is doing in terms of what becomes possible.

See where it goes. It's an amazing time.

Strangely enough, as you were saying at the outset about public interest in service and interest in public service, you might not think there would be rare times where there'd be an intersection between public good and working for commercial company. It is a unique intersection.

It is. Working for a commercial company in space, doing this work, and working with amazing people, I'm very fortunate in that sense. Also, having a family that supports. My husband is very supportive about it and being able to explore all of this. The public good that comes from at this point in time as well. The potential is there.

It's such a pivotal moment.

It truly is. There are times where it gets worse. I'm not going to sound like it's all rainbow and sparkly roses all the time. It's a hard job, but it's the job where every day, I know that I am in some way advancing something forward along those lines. I could I tell you the end goal for me. I couldn't, but I've never had to articulate that for myself.

Knowing that I'm moving forward towards something that I know is good itself is what pulls me forward and feeling like, in this case, I am truly doing right, both self, for my family and for the industry. I don't want to say for humanity. That sounds so trite, but doing something good for society in my little itsy-bitsy way is something that's important.

It’s that icky guy. The intersection of like, what you're good at, what the world needs, and all of that. That's the sweet spot.

I know exactly what you're talking about.

It sounds like that's a good one. It's very both freeing and practical in terms of how you were saying, “I'm making the next step. I don't have to have some long 25-year vision. I might, but maybe that'll change. I'm making the best decision at each juncture for myself and how I want to contribute to the world.” That takes a little bit of pressure off like, “Is this the absolute right decision? Is it isn't the right one now?” That's what I can know and then moving forward. That's a great perspective.

That's right, and work with what you got. It's interesting because part of my philosophy, if you want to call it that, is when I opted to leave a place. I try to leave it better than it was when you got there. I try to do that very much. In this industry relationships with people, it matters. In each case, I'm still in touch with people in my former role. We worked together in the sense that we support one another. That's a truism for this industry.

In DC, we've have satellite going on, the reception, and people getting together. It's a lot of people that you know, but you never know where they are in terms of their job because people do move around but they are the same people. It ends up being the conversation, what's going on now? What are you doing these days? People do move around, but within this industry, it ends up being itself a way of exploring and learning because everybody else is doing the same thing and sharing the knowledge.

Quick Fire Lightning Round Questions

Thank you so much for the advice, conversation, and looking at your journey so far. It's been neat. There's a lot of good takeaways. Usually, I end with a few lightning round questions. One would be, which talent would you most like to have but don't?

We're not talking like magical superpowers? This is what my kids always asks.

No. This is like a talent.

Patience. As I was telling you earlier, going into a room is like, I've already know what we need to do. The patience with myself, with the moment, and to watch and let things on fold and then move at the right time. I know that sounds hypocritical to what I said before, but there is an element of taking it in making the right choice based on what we know and giving myself a moment to think and others a moment to act, if they need to. We build more patience with myself and others.

We could always use more of that even if we have some. Also, pausing and having, whether you call it patients or just pausing to take in everything. That is what helps your intuition work and it allows you time to listen to that and what's needed next. It is helpful in problem-solving to do that and to allow you to listen to your own gut and follow it.

It's so important.

What is the trait you most deploy in yourself and others?

Can I say the flip side of that? I was going to say that I get impatient, but I'm going to give you something else so we’re not repetitive. That is that I tend to not do the self-care that I should. How do you make that a trait? I'm not entirely sure, but what I get upset with myself about is when I've set a goal and usually it's fitness and I don't do it. I need to be more diligent and committed to that self-care.

You wouldn't do that to someone else, but you do it to yourself.

That's exactly why, because I tend to put what I need down here and then, it's 11:00 at night and I'm sending an email. I'm like, “I'm too tired to do anything.” A trait in others is dishonesty. If I see somebody who is misleading or dishonest, that is something that gets to me. It’s something that I truly deploy in other people. I don't expect people to be all transparent all the time, but when it's deliberate dishonesty and deliberately misleading it, it's something that I tend to lose immediate respect for.

That's a different quality and beyond just not being transparent. Who is your hero in real life?

Meaning alive now?

Maybe somebody you know as opposed to somebody you've seen on the movie screen.

It's going to be my mom, my grandparents, and my father. My father is no longer with us, sadly, but it's family, which I know again sounds trite, but so much of who I am and the decisions I make. They're shaped by those people. They've come through a lot themselves. They have persevered in their own incredible ways with their own incredible stories. Knowing that and what they've literally gone through for the benefit of myself and my sister's is something that is inspirational every day and a hero.

Especially with our family. They tend to keep that a little quiet or close to the vest, and you don't discover that until later. That's one of the benefits of having a good relationship as an adult with your parents. You get to learn all of this like, “I never knew some of the things they did make them a hero.”

Your father is first generation. You said first generation from Lithuania.

Very true. Who are your favorite writers?

I read as much as I possibly can. Can you give me a genre?

You can choose your genre.

Science Fiction, Neil Stevenson and William Gibson. A few of those. I want to go the more classic literature, EM Forster. There are so many. If we're going to go with more pop stuff, Barbara Kingsolver. I’ve read Andy Weir in his Project Hail Mary, which is just fun. It's fun reading. I do like Japanese Literature like Ishiguro. I try to read as much as I can. Now, the caveat is, reading is audio.

I was going to say how much.

This is a luxury. Opening and holding a book is a luxury and a pleasure that I don't have as of the moment. My bed stand is stacked with books with the promised of, “I will read these tangible books.”

I know. I have so many and I have somewhere. I'm like, “I haven't read this one,” and I find the bookmark and I go, “I made it to page 25. Maybe that was like a year ago and I don't remember it anymore.” It's all new to me, but it's hard to start over until you find the bookmark. You realize, “I already run this part.” Given the choice of anyone in the world with us or not, and it could be more than one person. Who would you invite to a dinner party?

My husband and I do this a lot. We change up people depending on what we're watching. I have to have my husband there because that makes the good conversation, too. People that have come up, I would love to have Katharine Hepburn. She would be a lot of fun. Robin Williams and some of these comedians. It was Saturday Night Live and we're picking all the Saturday Night Live people who would mix them with and who would be somebody that could roll with that comedy.

I would love to have a dinner party like that, and do the mix and matching of actors, writers and people who don't necessarily have to be in the public eye, but people who have gone around the world. I have a friend who rode across the Atlantic Ocean. Sitting at a dinner party and talking about that experience and things that truly are enjoyable.

That unique combination of this person would be interesting and that some would be interesting. Those people in combination would be an interesting discussion, so it's fun to think about this.

Would they fight or would they shut each other down? Thinking through the unknowns, but at the same time, that would be a lot of fun.

I love that you've gone through this exercise before and thought about it. That's cool.

In the pandemic sort of way, these are the things we do. Who would be put there? Who would be sitting there? What would that conversation look like?

A little imagination about it.

Do you have people?

I end up changing it up a little bit. There always has to be either Sandra Day O'Connor or Ruth Bader Ginsburg being the appellate lawyer that I am and my mom. It’s so arranged, then some interesting historical figures as well. Whether you talk about Abraham Lincoln or mixing up different eras as well. I do like our authors, writers and things like that, too. Maybe some of my favorite poets and that thing.

One of the things that my husband, and I talk about is bringing someone who is an innovator, to your point about different eras. Someone who's an innovator like Galileo. How amazing would it be to have Galileo sitting at your table and then pick your incredible range of people that you have about who are doing the work from James Webb.

The conversation that could that happen, and the astonishment on one side. The ability to show and articulate the advancements on the other side are the things, whether it's astronomy or medicine. These pivotal figures who advance their respective fields. Having them early on and then somebody who's looking those advances now in that precision.

I like that idea. People from the more historical and would be like, “That happened?”

We thought it would be magic but it’s not magic. It's science.

You could also think about that from the perspective of this, as you are saying, from the Science Fiction genre. There are a lot of authors who are forward thinking. Think about like, what would Arthur C. Clarke say about what's going on now? A lot of things that they imagined are happening. That would be cool, too. Not just from the innovator but those who have the imagination about it, too.

The Machine Stops by EM Forster it’s a short story. There are aspects of what we're seeing not fully the machine stops, but aspects of that. Even if it's the movies that we're seeing, where there are people who have a series around called Paradise, where there's global crisis and people are moved into a community underground. You're living there and the parallels between that narrative and the Machine Stops narrative ends up being interesting to explore those.

I do think that sometimes there are ideas floating around in the universe and people can either take them on the stream of ideas and do something with them or not. Sometimes, different people pick up on them in different ways and sometimes at different times. That's where you see that convergence. This is a good one. I love that you've thought about this. I actually love that idea of the innovators at different times. That's cool.

There's so much to say.

Last question, what is your motto? If you have one.

I have a few depending on the circumstance, but the one that's come to mind as we've been talking is, be true to your future. It's something that my grandmother said to me. When you talk about being true to your future, it's not to say that future is fixed. It's not fixed. The point of this and the way that it speaks to me is it's being true to where I am in the moment and being willing to take those risks. Not holding myself back.

Be true to your future. It's not about a fixed future, but about being true to where you are in the moment and being willing to take those risks.

The questions that you alluded to and I can characterize as concerns. We all feel that. I make it sound like sometimes like, “I was just bullish. I was raging into things.” I had to take a minute in some of these times and think about it and remind myself that this is opportunity. If not now, when? This idea of being true to the future, being true to my future means being open to this future that we know is there. I might not be able to say what it looks like, but it's there and giving myself every opportunity to get to that place in the best way possible.

It tends to be inspirational in the sense that I got to get out of my own way sometimes. A lot of people maybe. We get in our own way, so often with that voice, that second guessing. That, “You’re not this. You’re not that. You can't make it.” Being true to that future and giving yourself that chance, and giving yourself, whatever that future looks like, is some of the best things we can do for ourselves.

It couldn't be a better way to conclude. That's beautiful and it covers a lot of the discussion that we've had in your own journey. Janna, thank you so much for being on the show and for being so open and sharing. It's been a fun adventure with you. Thank you so much.

Thank you, MC.

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Amanda Rutenberg