Killen, Ala., Native Jonathan Q. Pettus Named Director of NASA Marshall Center’s Office of the Chief Information Officer

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – Jonathan Q. Pettus has been named director of the Office of the Chief Information Officer at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Pettus will lead an organization of 140 civil service and more than 1,000 contractor personnel who provide support services and security for the Marshall Center’s expansive computer and communications networks.

From 2005 to 2007, Pettus served as director of Marshall’s Office of the Chief Information Officer, managing an integrated portfolio of information technology infrastructure and applications that supported NASA’s human spaceflight, scientific and aeronautical programs. He served in that position until his appointment in 2007 as agency chief information officer at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

From 2002 to 2005, he was director of the NASA Integrated Enterprise Management Program Competency Center, an organization that supports NASA business systems for improving fiscal and management accountability. He led a team of more than 300 business and information technology professionals tasked with the integration, development and operation of NASA’s enterprise-level business applications.

In 2000, Pettus was named manager of Marshall’s Integrated Enterprise Management Program, responsible for planning and directing integration of all program applications and deployment of the program’s overall technical architecture.

From 1997 to 2000, as implementation manager for the Integrated Financial Management Program, Pettus led planning, testing and implementation of the program’s electronic financial applications at the Marshall Center.

He also led the successful technical configuration and deployment of a new budgeting system used by NASA Headquarters to develop and submit the agency’s annual budget to Congress, which is still in use today.

Pettus joined NASA in 1991. He designed critical elements of desktop computing environments used Marshall-wide, and led development of Marshall’s first Internet Web site. From 1991 to 1997, he led a pilot program demonstrating the value of electronic commerce at NASA, showing how outside companies can conduct business with NASA in a computer-based environment. The program resulted in an operational procurement system later adopted as a government-wide solution.

Before joining the Marshall team, Pettus was a software developer at McDonnell Douglas Corp., in Huntsville. From 1989 to 1990, he provided classroom training and technical support to business software users of McCormack and Dodge Software, a financial software development company in Huntsville.

A native of Killen, Ala., Pettus earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and mathematics history in 1987 from the University of North Alabama in Florence and a master’s degree in computer science in 1995 from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

He has received numerous awards and special recognitions, including a Meritorious Presidential Rank award for exemplary federal service in 2008. In 2005, Federal Computer Week magazine named Pettus to its “Federal 100,” an annual list of individuals who turn innovative technology ideas into real-life solutions. He also has been awarded the NASA Medal for Outstanding Leadership in 2005, NASA’s Medal for Exceptional Service in 2001 and 2006, and NASA Special Service Awards in 1997 and 2001.

Pettus and his wife, the former Angela Jackson of Killen, live in Athens, Ala., with their two children.