John E. Gruener - Senior Engineer

John Gruener
Born 1961 in Houston, Texas

Education: B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and M.S. in Physical Sciences

Favorite School Subjects: science, history

Favorite Teacher: Mrs. Oeding, my high school mathematics teacher. She made mathematics fun -- even geometry with all of those theorems and proofs.

What is your current title? I am a Senior Engineer for Hernandez Engineering, Inc.

What do you do? I help develop a plant growth substrate that can be used in space to provide all of the essential nutrients for growing plants. Kind of like a slow release fertilizer. I conduct lots of plant growth experiments to see how the substrate is working and make changes to it when things don't work as well as we hoped.

What is the best thing about your job? Getting to eat some of the food I grow.