James L. Crawford Named NASA Kennedy Space Center Director of Safety and MIssion Assurance

NASA Kennedy Space Center Director James W. Kennedy announced today that James. L. “Larry” Crawford was named as the Director of the newly created Safety and Mission Assurance organization at KSC.

Crawford will be responsible for the nearly 250 professionals assigned to ensure KSC is a safe workplace and mission success is accomplished.

Prior to his selection for the KSC post, he served as the Deputy Director for Safety at the NASA Engineering and Safety Center at the Langley Research Center in Virginia.

“I’m extremely excited to have a person with Larry’s diverse background, including his numerous years of experience in the Safety and Mission Assurance arena, join the NASA KSC team,” said Kennedy. “He brings exceptional credibility and leadership to this position and is ideally suited to lead our new S&MA Directorate.”

The new S&MA Directorate at KSC is being created to centralize the safety and mission assurance mission into one organization.

The new directorate will help address recommendations documented in the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report released in August 2003. This change will tremendously strengthen KSC’s safety reporting structure within the Space Shuttle Program and in all areas at the Center.

Crawford began his NASA career in 1980 as NASA Director of Safety and has served in various positions, including program engineering manager for the International Space Station, technical assistant to the Director of Shuttle engineering at KSC, Director of System Engineering at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., X-34 Project Manager and Director of Research Engineering at Dryden Flight Research Center, in Edwards, Calif.

He brings 33 years of engineering, project management and safety experience to KSC. In addition to his NASA service, Crawford has held key safety positions at three U.S. Army field sites and was named Chief of the Safety Office for the Army Material Command.

Crawford holds a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from Mississippi State University and a master’s degree in industrial engineering from Texas A&M. He is a graduate of the Army’s two-year safety engineering intern program.