Roy W. Malone Jr., deputy director of the Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., has been appointed to the federal government’s Senior Executive Service – the personnel system that covers most of the top managerial, supervisory and policy positions in the executive branch of the federal government.
Malone has a key management role in planning, directing and coordinating safety, quality assurance and reliability activities for Marshall Center programs and projects. From June 2003 to February 2004, he served in a temporary assignment at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., where he helped create and implement the new NASA Engineering and Safety Center. Chartered in November 2004, the organization serves as an independent technical resource for NASA managers and employees.
From 1998 to 2002, Malone was manager of the Marshall Center’s Logistics Services Department in the Center Operations Directorate. He was responsible for planning and directing logistics, technical and institutional support for Marshall research, development and program management activities.
Malone began his NASA career in 1994 as a senior technical advisor in the Safety and Mission Assurance Shuttle Integration Office. In 1997, Malone was responsible for implementing, managing and reporting on the Marshall Center’s internal quality audit system. Prior to joining NASA, he was a senior quality engineer with PRC, Inc., of Huntsville, where he provided quality assurance engineering services for the Marshall Center’s Safety and Mission Assurance Program.
Prior to his civilian career, Malone was on active duty with the U.S. Navy for 11 years, serving in operation Desert Storm as combat systems officer aboard the destroyer USS Caron. Additionally, he served two years in the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and in the
Office of the Chief of Naval Operations at the Pentagon in Washington. He retired from the U.S. Naval Reserve as a commander in 2002.
Malone has received numerous awards during his career, including a Space Flight Awareness Honoree Leadership Award in 2001 and a Manned Flight Awareness Honoree Award in 1993. During his Navy career, he received a Joint Services Commendation Medal in 2002; five Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals, from 1984 to1994, one with Combat Distinguishing Device; a Joint Service Achievement Medal in 1998; and a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal in 1987.
Malone earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta in 1980. In 2001, at the Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Mass., he completed the Program for Management Development course, a comprehensive study that prepares high-potential functional managers and other specialists for successful career transition into general management roles.
He has authored numerous technical papers and magazine articles on leadership.
Malone, a native of Virginia Beach, Va., resides in Huntsville with his wife, the former June Spenner of Hoyleton, Ill., and their son and daughter, Wil and Madison.
