Charles H. Scales has been appointed deputy director of the Office of Center Operations at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
A 32-year NASA veteran, Scales will help guide environmental engineering, logistics, facility management, protective services, occupational medicine and environmental health, and food services at the Marshall Center. He also will provide support for the Integrated Enterprise Management Program, the agency-wide transformation of NASA’s business systems and processes to improve fiscal and management accountability.
Scales is a new member of NASA’s Senior Executive Service, a personnel system covering most top managerial and policy positions in the executive branch of the federal government. He returns to the Marshall Center after serving as director of the Center Operations Directorate at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. There, he guided institutional services including human resources, procurement, logistics and security. From 1997 to 2004, Scales was director of Marshall’s Equal Opportunity Office.
A native of Livingston, Ala., Scales graduated from Alabama A&M University in Huntsville in 1975 with a bachelor’s degree in business. While at A&M, he enrolled in the Marshall Center’s Cooperative Education training program, which gives students an opportunity to combine academics with on-the-job experience and training at a NASA field center while completing their education.
After receiving his degree, Scales joined the Marshall Center’s Institutional and Program Support Directorate as a communications specialist. In 1976, he became a program analyst in Marshall’s Communications Division.
In 1986, he was appointed chief of the Program Control Office in Marshall’s Facilities Office. Two years later, he was appointed chief of the Information Systems Services Office’s Resources Management Branch.
In 1994, Scales was named director of the Business Management Office. He became deputy director of Marshall’s Equal Opportunity Office in 1996.
During his NASA career, Scales has earned a number of awards for outstanding leadership, including the Space Flight Leadership Award and the NASA Exceptional Service Medal. He also was honored in 1997 with a Silver Snoopy Award – the highest award bestowed by NASA’s astronauts for outstanding performance, contributions to flight safety and mission success.
A 2005 inductee into the Alabama A&M University Alumni Hall of Fame, Scales has completed the Carnegie Mellon University Senior Executive Seminar and the Federal Executive Institute’s Leadership for a Democratic Society course. He is a graduate of Leadership Huntsville and Leadership Alabama, non-profit community and state organizations that nurture civic participation.
Scales and his wife, the former Vernal “Bunnie” Roberson of Anniston, Ala., reside in Huntsville.
