WASHINGTON — Tommy Sanford, a government affairs associate in the Space Foundation’s Washington office, will become director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation effective Oct. 1.

Sanford will take the lead on government affairs for the federation under Eric Stallmer, who replaced former astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria as president in September, according to a Sept. 25 press release from the federation.

Sanford is the third and final piece in a Commercial Spaceflight Federation leadership transition that began during the summer when Lopez-Alegria and Sanford’s predecessor, former Capitol Hill staffer Alex Saltman, said they would leave the federation.

Also part of the transition was installing Space Florida President and Chief Executive Frank DiBello as chairman of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s board of directors. The federation announced Sept. 11 that DiBello had replaced Stuart Witt, chief executive of Mojave Air and Space Port in California, who had been chairman of the board for the past two years.

Dan Leone is a SpaceNews staff writer, covering NASA, NOAA and a growing number of entrepreneurial space companies. He earned a bachelor’s degree in public communications from the American University in Washington.