Spring Break
Aggie voice reaches millions and beyond
By: Calli Turner
Issue date: 10/3/08 Section: News
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Byerly grew up in Tyler and went to a 2A high school in Winona.
"Going to A&M was a very big change," he said. "But College Station will always be my surrogate home."
But he wasn't always Aggieland-bound.
"I was going to go to UT - the whole time I was growing up it was UT or Baylor. One Sunday morning my junior year in high school, my parents woke up and said they were taking a trip to A&M," he said.
"It really sealed the deal for me," he said.
Byerly was pre-med his freshman and sophomore year but realized it was not right for him.
"I talked to my adviser and said this is not fun," he said.
His adviser said if he did not want to take his upper-level classes, he should reconsider. Byerly graduated from A&M with a bachelor of science in journalism.
He said once he started working at KBTX-TV, Channel 3, it began the fall of the dominoes and he knew he made the right switch.
"Don't plan things out too much because you never know where your road will go," he said.
During his senior year, Byerly took 21 hours of class and worked full time.
"It was not fun but I got out in four years," Byerly said.
Out of college, Byerly continued to work at KBTX as a producer.
He covered the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum opening, the Jasper dragging trial and the Bonfire fall.
"I worked during a very exciting time. Not everybody that goes to KBTX will be able to cover the kind of things I did," he said. "You get to wear a different hat every day in terms of what you cover."
Then he made the switch to public relations.
"Basically money sucks," Byerly said about news reporting.
"Everything kind of aligned itself, I was recruited by a public relations firm in Dallas," he said.
Byerly was interested in the firm because it hired strictly reporters, not marketing or public relation students. While with the firm, he was able to work with companies like Texas Instruments and Centex Homes.
He said the switch from journalism to public relations was not hard and the difference was the audience. After working in the pace of a newsroom, Byerly said any other work environment would be manageable.
"It's all the same thing," he said. "It's all telling a story."
While working in public relations, Byerly decided to return to A&M for his master's of business administration.
His company gave him one and a half years to complete a three-year MBA program, while he worked full-time. He said he slept three to four hours a night.
"I think I'm done with school," Byerly said.
Then NASA came calling.
"I've always kept close tabs on NASA. I've been a space geek since I was a kid," he said. "They had a position open in exactly what I wanted to do at exactly the right time."
Byerly serves as the public affairs officer for NASA based at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. He said this is the first time his work hasn't felt like a job.
"You get to witness history being made every day," he said. "It's a lot of pressure but it's something I'm honored to do."
Byerly said it helps to have a working knowledge of what NASA is.
"You learn really quickly because you're immersed in it," he said. "It's like learning a foreign language in a different country. You just have to go in there and do it."
Byerlysits in mission control and provides real-time commentary. During a shuttle mission he is in mission control 24 hours a day.
"It's my job to listen to what's going on in control and relay that to the public and the media," he said. "Every word I say and everything that I'm quoted on will go down in history," he said.
Michele Berube, who worked with Byerly, said it's exciting for her family to know that her friend is the voice of NASA.
"We find ourselves listening to the NASA channel so often now that Josh is there," she said.
He will always be a part of one of her family's favorite memories, Berube said.
"Josh called us and told us to look for the shuttle and the ATV which will be making its way across the night horizon. It was a majestic sight to see them with such brilliance travel among the stars," she said.
"You couldn't help but look up at the night sky with such wonder and awe. When our 3- year-old son, Jack Ryan, who enjoyed staying up past his bed time, saw them, he waved excitedly and said, 'I see the astronauts,'" Berube said.
In addition to mission control, Byerly is assigned to the Constellation program.
"We're retiring the shuttles, and constructing a new shuttle to return to the moon to live and work," he said.
Every day is a different thing, Byerly said, and he does everything from answering media inquiries to playing with the equipment.
"We've got some really cool toys," he said. "I get to play with space shuttles and moon rocks."
Byerly's favorite memory was announcing that Mike Fossum, astronaut and Class of 1980, had the 12th most extra-vehicular (space walk) activity time. It was an Aggie announcing that another Aggie moved up to spot 12, he said.
Byerly said the most interesting person he has met is Buzz Aldrin, who was one of the first humans to set foot on the moon along side Neal Armstrong as part of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.
"I had one of those out of body experiences," he said. "The first time I got to the lunar lab with the moon rocks, I got to go in with Aldrin."
Aldrin showed Byerly the rocks brought back from Apollo 11.
"How did Josh Byerly from Tyler, Texas, end up here?" he said.
Leigh Harrison, who worked with Byerly at Flowserve Corp., said Byerly's most prized possession was a framed A&M flag in his office.
"He is very proud of his Texas A&M heritage and education," she said.
Harrison said Byerly was particular about where things were located in his office, so when he was out, they would move his things - including the flag - around.
"Never did a day go by that he wasn't razzed about that flag," Harrison said.
Byerly said his support for Aggieland will never end.
"I had a lot of support when I went to school there, so I take that very seriously to people who are there now," he said.
Even though he spends his days with men and women that have traveled to space and back, there's one place, situated in the middle of Texas, Byerly calls home.
"Every now and then," he said, "if you look really close you can spot me in the Dixie Chicken."
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