FROM THE FIELDS TO THE STARS

Geoffrey L Yoder

ISBN 13: 9798997429805

Published by Gytec Publishing, 2026

About this Item

nach der Bestellung gedruckt Neuware - Printed after ordering - This memoir brings together and substantially expands the stories first told in my three earlier memoirs -Under the Midnight Sky, I followed a Different Star, and Tree Time: Living on Nature's Clock-reimagining them as one unified story of a life shaped by curiosity, faith, service, and the people who helped along the way. Readers who encountered those books will find familiar ground here, expanded and reframed with substantial new material and presented through two complementary voices for the first time.What This Book Is Really AboutA high school teacher once told Geoffrey Yoder that because he grew up on a small Pennsylvania dairy farm, he would never become more than a farmer.He retired as Acting Associate Administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate - overseeing 114 missions and the James Webb Space Telescope program.But From the Fields to the Stars is not the story of an unlikely journey to NASA.It is the story of the ordinary people whose quiet acts of faith, generosity, encouragement, and compassion transformed one life - and the responsibility that comes with passing those gifts forward.From Farm Fields.Imagine growing up on a small dairy farm where mornings began before sunrise and evenings ended beneath some of the darkest skies in America.Those fields became the classroom where perseverance, responsibility, and faith first took root.To the StarsThose same lessons eventually carried Geoffrey Yoder into a thirty-two-year engineering career in private industry and at NASA, helping lead some of America's most ambitious space science programs and ultimately serving in NASA leadership.Yet the greatest discoveries were not found among the stars.They were found in the people encountered along the way.Two Voices. One Life.From the Fields to the Stars is told in two registers.The Memoir Voice moves forward through time, inside each event as it unfolds - the child at the fence line, the community college classroom, the first day at Johnson Space Center, the Columbia Space Shuttle, the James Webb Space Telescope program directorship.The Tree Time Voice speaks from retirement, looking back at what the rings mean - what was given, what it cost, what was carried forward, and what it means to become someone else's aquifer.The governing image is the tree. You cannot count the rings from the outside. You have to go in to find them.This book goes in.To hear is to be heard.

Seller Inventory # 9798997429805

Bibliographic Details

• Title: FROM THE FIELDS TO THE STARS
• Publisher: Gytec Publishing
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798997429805
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 229W x 152H x 14D millimeters 229 millimeters width by 152 millimeters height by 14 millimeters depth
• Weight: 390 grams

About this title

Synopsis

This memoir brings together and substantially expands the stories first told in my three earlier memoirs - Under the Midnight Sky, I followed a Different Star, and Tree Time: Living on Nature’s Clock - reimagining them as one unified story of a life shaped by curiosity, faith, service, and the people who helped along the way. Readers who encountered those books will find familiar ground here, expanded and reframed with substantial new material and presented through two complementary voices for the first time.

What This Book Is Really About
A high school teacher once told Geoffrey Yoder that because he grew up on a small Pennsylvania dairy farm, he would always be a farmer.

He retired as Acting Associate Administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate — overseeing 114 missions and the James Webb Space Telescope program.

But From the Fields to the Stars is not the story of an unlikely journey to NASA.

It is the story of the ordinary people whose quiet acts of faith, generosity, encouragement, and compassion transformed one life — and the responsibility that comes with passing those gifts forward.

A Vietnam veteran who enrolled in a community college class he did not need to take, because he understood that presence is the whole of what mentorship is. A neighbor who brought groceries to the door and said he had extra. A faith chosen at thirteen — not inherited but decided — that carried a farm boy through a brother's terminal illness, a best friend's murder, a blood clot from hip to ankle, and thirty-two years of public service.

The Pillars of Creation are 6,500 light-years away. The light reaching the James Webb Space Telescope left those structures before the pyramids were built. The farm boy who grew up beneath the dark skies of western Pennsylvania helped build the instrument that received it.

To hear is to be heard.

About the Author

Mr. Yoder retired from NASA in 2016 after a distinguished career spanning leadership roles in both engineering and science. He served as Acting Associate Administrator and Deputy Associate Administrator in the Science Mission Directorate, overseeing a portfolio of over 100 missions, including the groundbreaking James Webb Space Telescope. His work touched every corner of NASA's mission-from the Constellation and Commercial Crew programs to iconic observatories like Hubble and Chandra. A lifelong advocate for curiosity and exploration, Mr. Yoder now shares his journey with students, inspiring the next generation to keep asking questions and never stop wondering.