NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe today named Rex Geveden as the agency’s
chief engineer and director of the independent technical authority, effective
Nov. 1, 2004.

Geveden succeeds Theron Bradley, Jr., who announced his retirement Oct. 4 after a
distinguished career as a senior manager and nuclear engineer with the U.S Navy’s
nuclear propulsion community. Bradley had been chief engineer at NASA since June
2002.

A native of Mayfield, Ky., Geveden was deputy director of NASA’s Marshall Space
Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. since July 2003. As chief engineer he is
responsible directly to Administrator O’Keefe for the overall review and
technical readiness of all NASA programs. The Office of the Chief Engineer
assures that the development efforts and missions operations are being planned
and conducted on a sound engineering basis with proper controls and management of
technical risks.

“Rex is a proven leader in NASA’s engineering and safety assessment community. I
am sure he will continue to build on the tremendous progress made by his
predecessor Theron Bradley in bringing a comprehensive, agency wide approach to
engineering standards, practices and independent technical reviews,” said
Administrator O’Keefe. “Rex’s experience and thorough knowledge of NASA programs
will be a driving force helping the agency safely return to flight as we
implement the Vision for Space Exploration. I know we can depend on him to help
ensure development efforts and mission operations are planned and conducted on a
sound engineering basis.”

At Marshall, Geveden shared responsibility for one of NASA’s largest field
installations, which has more than 6,500 civil service and contract employees and
a $2.3 billion annual budget. He previously served as deputy director of
Marshall’s Science Directorate, leading research and development projects in
space science, materials science, biotechnology, Earth science and space optics.

He also led NASA’s Gravity Probe B (GP-B) program, steering development of
sophisticated hardware designed to test two features of Albert Einstein’s Theory
of General Relativity. The GP-B spacecraft was successfully launched earlier this
year from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

Geveden also was project manager for several other successful efforts, including
the Optical Transient Detector and Lightning Imaging Sensor Earth-orbiting
satellites, which produced data for the world’s first global map of lightning.

He served as chief engineer for the Waves in Space Plasmas project, a study that
involved the measurement of the characteristic frequencies of plasma, the form of
matter that comprises more than 99 percent of the visible universe.

As manager of the Microgravity Science and Applications Department at Marshall,
Geveden led a team of 350 scientists to develop safer and more cost-effective
materials for future missions and investigations into the reaction of chemicals
in a microgravity environment. His organization delivered many of the early
payloads to the International Space Station.

Geveden joined NASA in 1990. He has received numerous awards, including the NASA
Outstanding Leadership Medal, awarded annually for notably outstanding leadership
having a pronounced effect on NASA technical or administrative programs and the
Silver Snoopy Award presented for outstanding performance contributing to flight
safety and mission success. This year Geveden received the Holgor Tofty Award for
outstanding technical leadership from the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics.

Geveden, a graduate of Murray State University in Murray, Ky., earned his
bachelor’s degree in physics in 1983 and his master’s degree in physics in 1984.
Murray State University’s Alumni Association presented its 2004 Distinguished
Alumnus Award to Geveden last spring.

In September, the Kentucky Advocates for Higher Education named him an
Outstanding Alumnus of Kentucky. The “OAK” award is given biannually to graduates
of Kentucky colleges who have achieved national stature and who have made
significant contributions to their alma maters. Geveden is also a graduate of the
Program Management School at the Defense Systems Management College in Fort
Belvoir, Va. He is married and has two children attending college.

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