Rhega Gordon has been appointed deputy of the Office of the Chief Financial Officer at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
Named to the position in June 2013, Gordon assists the chief financial officer in overseeing implementation and administration of all integrated Marshall Center and NASA financial management systems, including all aspects of planning, programming, budget processes and guidelines for distribution of financial resources.
“Rhega brings with her a strong, diverse background in engineering, project leadership and financial management, and a proven reputation for leadership and collaboration,” said William Hicks, chief financial officer at the Marshall Center. “She is cool under pressure, values teamwork and possesses an intense focus on achieving objectives that benefit Marshall and NASA.”
From 2011 to 2013, Gordon was manager of the Planning and Control Office in the Marshall Center’s Flight Programs and Partnerships Office, planning and executing fiscal resources in support of the organization’s role in human exploration projects and tasks; flight mission programs and projects; International Space Station hardware integration and operations; and external partnerships.
Gordon was manager of the Science and Mission Systems Program Planning and Control Office from 2010 to 2011. She planned and executed fiscal resources in support of the development of proposals for science research, primary mirror segment assembly tests at Marshall for the James Webb Space Telescope — the NASA deep-space imager set to launch in 2018 — and delivery of key components for next-generation environmental control and life-support systems, now in development for future human missions in space.
She managed the Instrument & Payload Systems Department Resources Group, part of Marshall’s Engineering Directorate, from 2006 to 2010. She led the design and development of mechanical and electrical flight hardware and software for a variety of NASA space systems, and also guided the fabrication, assembly and integrated testing of flight hardware.
From 2005 to 2006, Gordon was manager of the Engineering Directorate’s Payload and Technology Business Office and Space Systems Payloads and Project Offices. She was a team lead in Marshall’s Flight Projects Directorate from 2004 to 2005. There she supported, among other missions, oversight of payload and science operations on the International Space Station and the continued imaging research on orbit of NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory — the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope, launched in 1999 to study the behavior of stars, black holes and other phenomena across the cosmos.
Gordon began her NASA career in 1991 as an engineer in the Ground Systems Department of the Mission Operations Laboratory at Marshall, which developed mission operations requirements for the International Space Station and led flight and ground operations during missions. She rose to the position of resource manager for the organization, continuing in that role until 2004.
A native of Athens, Ala., Gordon earned her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 1991. During her career at NASA, she has received a number of awards and honors, including a NASA Exceptional Service Medal in 2012 for outstanding leadership as manager of the Planning and Control Office in the Marshall Center’s Flight Programs and Partnerships Office; NASA Distinguished Performance Awards in 2011 and 2010 for successful execution of science and mission resources and for successful collaboration and integration of engineering organizations and facility resources, respectively; 12 special service awards and 10 group achievement awards. She was named a Space Flight Awareness Launch Honoree in 2002.
Gordon and her husband, Orlando “Fritz” Gordon, live in Madison, Ala., with their two children.
