United Launch Alliance (ULA) announced today that Mark Bitterman has joined the company as the Vice President of Washington D.C. Operations.

“Mark brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the ULA team,” said Michael Gass, ULA’s president and CEO. “His background interacting with key Washington D.C. customer communities, including Congress, White House Staff, NASA, and the Departments of Defense, Commerce and Transportation will be instrumental in shaping critical policies and decisions related to ULA business. Under Mark’s leadership, ULA will increase our permanent employee presence in the Washington D.C. area in response to customer leadership assignments and additional business opportunities.”

Prior to joining ULA, Bitterman had a distinguished career with Orbital Sciences Corporation where he served as Senior Vice President, Government and External Relations for 19 years. During this time he was responsible for strategy development and liaison with federal, state and local governments. He represented Orbital’s interests in national policy development and was involved with multiple industry advisory committees to multiple U.S. Government Departments and Agencies.

“I am very pleased to bring my 25 years of government relations experience to ULA, the nation’s leader in national security and civil space launch,” said Bitterman. “I look forward to helping guide the company’s important customer relationships that are located in Washington.”

Bitterman holds a Bachelor of Science degree in political science from Rutgers University and a Masters of International Affairs from Columbia University.

ULA program management, engineering, test and mission support functions are headquartered in Denver, Colo. Manufacturing, assembly and integration operations are located at Decatur, Ala., Harlingen, Texas, San Diego, Calif. Launch operations are located at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., and Vandenberg AFB, Calif.

For more information on ULA, visit the ULA Web site at www.ulalaunch.com, or call the ULA Launch Hotline at 1-877-ULA-4321 (852-4321).