NASA Associate Administrator Rex Geveden announced
Wednesday that he will leave the agency at the end of July to join
Teledyne Technologies as the president of Teledyne Brown Engineering,
Huntsville, Ala. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has selected
Christopher Scolese to succeed Geveden as associate administrator,
the No. 3 position in the agency.

Geveden joined NASA in 1990 and has served since July 2005 as
associate administrator, a position not filled in several decades but
re-established by Griffin to integrate the technical and programmatic
elements of the agency. During that time, Geveden made major
contributions to the success of agency missions and operations.

Earlier in his NASA career, Geveden held several positions, including
agency chief engineer, deputy director of the Marshall Space Flight
Center in Huntsville, Ala., and program manager for the Gravity Probe
B mission.

“In the course of my 36 years in the aerospace business, I have yet to
work with a finer individual than Rex Geveden,” Griffin said. “He
possesses one of the most agile minds I have encountered and combines
it with a big-picture view that has been invaluable. Combined with
his comprehensive knowledge of NASA, a sure sense of both
institutional and program management, the ability to put others at
ease in almost any situation, a sense of humor that is always ‘on,’
and an imperturbable moral compass, Rex has set a standard for
performance at NASA that will not easily be bettered. I will miss his
steady hand in helping to guide the agency.”

Scolese, who currently serves as NASA’s chief engineer, joined the
space agency in 1987. He also has served as deputy director of the
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and deputy associate
administrator in the Office of Space Science, where he directed
NASA’s space science flight program, mission studies, technology
development and overall contract management of the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Scolese also served as the Earth Observing System program manager and
the deputy director of flight programs and projects for Earth science
at Goddard. In this position, Scolese was responsible for the
operation and development of all Earth science missions assigned to
Goddard. At Goddard, he also served as the Earth Observing System
Terra project manager, responsible for the development of
instruments, spacecraft, interface with the Earth Science Data and
Information System, integration and launch. In addition, he was the
systems manager responsible for the Earth Observing System
architecture.

“If anyone can replace Rex Geveden as NASA associate administrator
without breaking stride in the progress we have made over the last
two years, it is Chris Scolese,” Griffin said of Scolese’s elevation
to the No. 3 position in the agency. “A veteran of both the U.S. Navy
and NASA, experienced in both institutional and program management,
Chris is the kind of person I have in mind when I talk about how, at
NASA, I serve with the best people this country has to offer.”