Starting from the bottom: Local man defies odds, soars in aerospace career

When then 11-year-old Tyrone Jacobs, Jr., wrote a letter to his uncle saying he wanted to become an astronaut, little did he know those words would put him on the path to becoming a successful aerospace engineer — working with NASA.

“The goal that I had was just to go to college, enroll, graduate and find a good job afterwards,” said Mr. Jacobs, 29. “Everything else just kind of happened.”

After persevering through many obstacles including poverty, domestic violence, gang violence, and depression while growing up on the north side of Toledo, Mr. Jacobs said: “I wanted better for myself.”

“Now I’m contracting for NASA through a company called Jacobs but all of the work that I’m doing is for NASA, with NASA, and in the NASA building,” he said of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

As a contractor for NASA through Jacobs Engineering Group, he works on various historic space missions and programs and his team works on hardware used for government and military space vehicles and applications.

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