Gutierrez was a member of the National Collegiate Championship Air Force Academy Parachute Team with over 550 jumps and a Master Parachutist rating.

After graduation from the Academy, he completed Undergraduate Pilot Training at Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio, Texas.

In 1978 Gutierrez was assigned to the 7th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Holloman Air Force Base, Alamogordo, New Mexico, where he flew the F-15 Eagle.

Following the Shuttle Challenger accident he served as an action officer for the Associate Administrator for Space Flight at NASA Headquarters.

In 1992 he became the Astronaut Office Branch Chief for Operations Development, overseeing ascent, entry, abort, software, rendezvous, Shuttle systems, main engines, solid rocket boosters, external tank, and landing and rollout issues.

In September 1994, Gutierrez retired from the U.S. Air Force and NASA, returned to his native home of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and joined Sandia National Laboratories.

SLS-1 was a nine-day mission during which the crew performed experiments that explored how humans, animals, and cells respond to microgravity and re-adapt to Earth's gravity on return.

Following 146 orbits of the Earth, Columbia and her crew returned to land at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on June 14, 1991.

The two primary payloads were the Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR), and Measurement of Air Pollution from Space (MAPS).

Gutierrez retired from the Air Force and NASA in 1994 and joined Sandia National Laboratories, where he served in various senior leadership positions.