CFC opened new frontiers for NASA scientist

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Mark Haviland
  • Air Combat Command
Terry Morris was about 4 years old when his parents pushed him out the front door into the snow-covered streets of Chicago. They didn't want him to come back.

In that world, the Windy City's newest homeless child found towering drifts, more ash gray than white and more ice than snow, instead of the winter wonderland of childhood dreams. Instead of a bed, Terry slept on porches and in abandoned basements -- always keeping an eye out for housecat-sized rats that thrive on inner-city misery.

But Terry did come back home -- some would say he made a lifetime of coming back -- and his parents were not impressed.

Reluctantly allowed back in the household, the second oldest of the family's five children found minor indiscretions met with verbal and physical assaults. In Terry's nightmare existence, common items such as radiators and high-heeled shoes were instruments of terror. Nothing he did was ever good enough.

And then, after almost eight years of constant abuse, it stopped as abruptly as their brake lights along a darkened highway 600 miles from home. Once again, Terry's parents pushed him out into the world. Without a word, they closed the door, turned the car around and began the trip back to Chicago. It was the last time Terry saw any member of his biological family.

"I had terribly low self-esteem given that my biological mother always told me I was stupid, and I had no value or worth," he said. "As a child, I believed her and wanted nothing but suicide to end the constant abuse and neglect."

Instead of suicide, what he describes as a continuing "multi-decade transformation process" began at the Alpha House, a boys' home funded partially by Combined Federal Campaign and United Way donations. From there, Terry, then in his late teens, bounced from foster home to foster home before entering NASA's cooperative education program just days after graduating from high school in 1985.

The program, a combination of academics and on-the-job training, led to a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. He followed that with a master's degree in electrical engineering, a fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a doctorate from the University of Virginia -- an educational process he described as "becoming a productive member of society."

Today, Dr. Terry Morris, a systems engineer at the Langley Research Center here, is reluctant to consider himself a "success."

"I wanted to have a good life just like everyone else I know," he said. "The main difference was the Alpha House gave me the opportunity to have an education and provided a stable environment that helped raise my low self-esteem."

Dr. Morris credits many people with his development, including the people at Alpha House, high school faculty members, social workers, community leaders and "lay people who showed an interest in me.

"These are the people who gave me the strength to do something with my life, and to these people, I owe a debt of gratitude. I, in turn, attempt to give the same strength and encouragement to others," Dr. Morris said. 

While benefiting from programs supported by funds donated through CFC, Dr. Morris said he "gained a sense of hope and encouragement despite the hand of cards that life had dealt me." Since leaving the foster care system and joining NASA, he's been committed to being "part of the solution."

"Being part of the solution doesn't necessarily mean solving the problem completely," he said. "It simply means that all is not negative. There's a lot of good being manifested every day, and I choose to be a part of the positive and healthy."

That positive and healthy outlook, a quiet determination to make the most of any opportunity and an easy-going personality not only helped him survive an abusive and broken home, but also led to his selection as CFC national spokesperson for four separate campaigns.

During speaking engagements that included a variety of government agencies and the White House, Dr. Morris willingly shared the horrors of his childhood and remained an "honest broker" by focusing not on the agencies, but on the people and environmental causes supported by the donations. 

Dr. Morris doesn't believe there are any silver bullets in life and that problems will always exist. But from his perspective, each of us has to choose whether we want to be part of the problem or part of the solution.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the right answer.  

(Courtesy of ACC News Service)