Steven J. Wofford Named Deputy Director of NASA Marshall Center’s Safety & Mission Assurance Directorate

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Steven J. Wofford, a longtime resident of Huntsville, Ala., recently was appointed deputy director of the Safety & Mission Assurance Directorate at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

Appointed to the position in August, he is responsible for assuring safety and mission assurance for the full range of center programs, projects and institutional services. He provides the focus for an integrated safety program in the areas of system and industrial safety within the center, as well as component Marshall Center and contractor facilities.

Prior to his current appointment, he was business manager of Marshall’s Safety & Mission Assurance Directorate and directed planning, programming and budgeting activities. From 2009 to 2011, Wofford was deputy manager for the Space Shuttle Main Engine Project Office, assisting the manager in directing the efforts of all civil service and contract employees and managing day-to-day activities.

From 2006 to 2009, he served as the chief safety officer of the Safety & Mission Assurance Directorate. He was responsible for formulating and communicating flight rationale, and the Marshall Center Safety Technical Authority’s position on a wide variety of propulsion technical issues. He was lead of the RS-68 engine component design and development for the Ares V launch vehicle in 2006 and lead of the RS-25 engine manufacturing and production for the Ares I launch vehicle in 2005.

He was appointed lead of space shuttle main engine manufacturing in 2004. In 2000, he began his NASA career as a subsystem manager in Marshall’s Space Shuttle Main Engine Project Office.

Wofford has led numerous failure investigations critical to flight safety. He served as safety and technical advisor to the Space Shuttle Mission Management Team from 2006 to 2009 and as a fully certified Space Shuttle Mission Management Team member from 2009 to 2011.

He has more than 25 years of safety, reliability and quality assurance experience, and program/project oversight. Prior to joining NASA, he was in private industry for more than 13 years as a space shuttle main engine assessment engineer and space shuttle main engine project integration engineer.

Wofford earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1986 from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, and a master’s degree in aerospace engineering in 1991 from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

He has earned several NASA awards throughout his career, including the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal in 2009 for leadership in the definition, implementation and execution of safety and mission assurance technical authority for the Space Shuttle Program. In 1998, he received a NASA Silver Snoopy Award — awarded to outstanding civil service and contractor employees who have significantly contributed to the human spaceflight program — and a Space Flight Awareness Award in 1992.

Wofford and his wife, the former Marisa Stanley of Gadsden, Ala., and their two sons live in Huntsville.