WASHINGTON — Former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has been named chairman and chief executive of Schafer Corp., an Arlington, Va.-based science and engineering services contractor.
“We are excited to welcome Mike to Schafer Corporation,” Schafer board member John Gilligan, a former U.S. Air Force and Department of Energy chief information officer, said in an Aug. 14 statement announcing Griffin’s appointment. “His talents and expertise will complement an exceptional team and enhance the company’s continued ability to provide exceptional support and innovative technical solutions to our customers.”
In addition to the Air Force, Schafer’s customers include the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Homeland Security and NASA, which Griffin ran from 2005 to 2009.
Griffin told Space News that he will continue to live in Huntsville, Ala., where he has worked as a University of Alabama engineering professor since leaving NASA.
“I’ll have an office [in Arlington], but my permanent office will be at the Huntsville branch, so no, I am not moving,” Griffin said in an Aug. 14 email. “I’ll be travelling a lot, of course, but that isn’t new.”
Schafer is part of a Raytheon Technical Services team vying for an Air Force launch range modernization and support contract potentially worth $3 billion over 10 years.
Recent NASA business includes a contract awarded last year to work with Denver-based UP Aerospace to provide launch and payload integration services for up to eight NASA suborbital launches during 2012 and 2013.
Griffin said his post-NASA employment restrictions will not interfere with Schafer’s pursuit of new space agency business. “I cannot, however, EVER work on anything that was an on-going contract while I was there,” he said.
Griffin replaces Tony Frederickson, the former L-3 Titan Group president who joined Schafer as president and chief executive in late 2009.
