Rae Ann Meyer has been named associate director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Meyer will lead development of the center’s business operations, guide daily business decisions, and oversee center operational policy and processes. In addition, she will be a senior adviser in advancing the direction of the center’s future.
Meyer will help manage the center’s 7,000 on- and near-site civil service and contract employees and help oversee an annual budget of approximately $3.6 billion. Meyer will provide executive leadership across Marshall’s mission support areas as well as the center’s diverse portfolio of human spaceflight, science, and technology efforts, which touch nearly every mission NASA pursues.
“With more than two decades of government operations and management experience, Rae Ann is well prepared for her new position on the center’s leadership team,” said Marshall Center Director Jody Singer. “The leadership skills she has displayed while working with Marshall’s Science and Technology Office and other NASA programs has been, and will continue to be, invaluable to Marshall and the nation’s space exploration efforts.”
The Chattanooga, Tennessee, native most recently served as deputy manager of Marshall’s Science and Technology Office. Named to the senior executive service position in May 2019, she assisted in leading the organization responsible for planning, developing, and executing a broad range of science and technology investigations, programs, projects, and activities in support of NASA’s science, technology, and exploration goals.
Meyer helped oversee an annual budget of more than $475 million and managed a diverse, highly technical workforce of approximately 300 civil service and contractor employees.
Among Meyer’s other roles over the years, she was manager of Marshall’s Science and Technology Partnerships and Formulation Office from 2017 to 2019, worked a detail as technical adviser in 2016 for the Office of Strategy and Plans at NASA Headquarters in Washington, and was chief of key Engineering Directorate structure and flight analysis divisions at Marshall from 2007 to 2017.
Meyer was manager of the Constellation Support Office from 2006 to 2007 – roles supporting launch vehicle development that would inform and directly contribute to NASA’s Space Launch System, its next flagship rocket to the Moon and Mars. She led Marshall’s In-Space Propulsion Technology Office from 2004 to 2006 and was assistant manager of the Space Transfer Technology Project from 2000 to 2002, managing in-space technology program funding at NASA centers nationwide.
Meyer began her NASA career in 1989 as a control mechanisms engineer in Marshall’s Propulsion Laboratory.
Among her achievements and awards, Meyer received a NASA Silver Achievement Medal in 2019; the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal in 2012 for leading development of strategies for pursuing new program/project opportunities; a NASA Certificate of Appreciation in 2001 for leading formulation efforts to augment in-space propulsion technology budgets across NASA; and Marshall Director’s Commendations in 2004 and 2009, honoring her work on advanced technology development efforts supporting future science missions and major product development for the Ares Project Preliminary Design Review, respectively.
Meyer earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 1989. Meyer, her husband, David, also a Marshall employee, and their children reside in Madison, Alabama.
For more information about Marshall, visit: www.nasa.gov/marshall
