Adventures abound for Kirtland employee Published Jan. 23, 2014 By Lee Ross Nucleus editor KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. -- In a few months, Maryann Zelenak will pack up her 140-pound Newfoundland, Murphy, and embark on a new adventure. Zelenak, who is the supervisory branch chief for the Space Development and Test Directorate, Space Acquisition and Development Branch at Kirtland, was selected to attend a 10-month course, starting in August, at the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy. She will attend senior acquisition classes at the school, which is in Fort Lesley J. McNair on the National Defense University campus in Washington, D.C. The training will prepare her and other selected military and civilian personnel for strategic leadership and success in developing national security strategy and evaluating, marshaling and managing resources in the execution of that strategy, according to the school's website. Zelenak was the only government civilian at Kirtland selected to attend the school this year, and there were only seven government-employed civilians in the Air Force chosen to attend the course. "I look forward to the academic rigor this school provides and facing the challenges of future work assignments armed with that knowledge. I'm truly thankful for this opportunity," Zelenak said. She said her career goal is to get a senior leadership position in the Department of Defense. That may take some time, she said, due to a case of wanderlust. "Due to my expensive taste in travel, I may be working a couple decades more as I attain my career goal," she said. Zelenak has seen a large part of the world, she said. She has hiked in the Himalayan Mountains of Nepal and Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa; saw penguins and seals in Antarctica; polar bears and arctic hares in northern Canada; and visited Russia before the fall of communism in 1989. "After a trip to Japan this year, I hope to reach my seventh and final continent, Australia, within the decade," she said.