NASA shuffles management pack

by Chris Bergin

NASA has made several moves within their management structure official today, with Bill Parsons, Richard Gilbrech and G. Scott Hubbard all assuming new roles with the agency.

Parsons, a former Space Shuttle manager, has moved from being the director of the Stennis Space Center, back to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), to become deputy center director at KSC.

Parsons joined NASA in 1990 after leaving the Marine Corps. He has served in several senior leadership positions within the human space flight program. After the Columbia tragedy, Parsons was selected to direct NASA’s return to flight efforts as space shuttle program manager, and he directed last summer’s successful flight of Discovery during STS-114.
 
He led NASA’s recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina and became Stennis director in September, 2005. He has a bachelor’s in engineering from the University of Mississippi, Oxford, Miss., and a master’s degree in engineering from the University of Central Florida, Orlando.

Gilbrech will take over Parsons’ vacated position as Stennis director. He has served as deputy director of the agency’s Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., and deputy director of NASA’s Engineering Safety Center. 
 
Gilbrech started his career at Stennis in 1991, and has worked at the agency’s Johnson Space Flight Center’s (JSC) White Sands Facility, N.M., Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., and Glenn Research Center, Cleveland. He earned a bachelor’s in aerospace engineering from Mississippi State University, Starkville, Miss.; master’s and doctoral degrees from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
 
Hubbard, center director at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., has accepted a position at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, Mountain View, Calif. He assumes the Carl Sagan Chair for the Study of Life in the Universe on Feb. 15. 

‘My new position at the SETI Institute allows me to return to the research arena and pursue a lifelong interest in the search for life in the universe and its origins on Earth,’ he was quoted as saying to the AP.
 
Hubbard began his career at Ames in 1987 and has served as center director since 2002. He served on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, helping to determine the cause for the loss of the shuttle Columbia. He also served as the first director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute. Marv Christensen has been named acting Ames director.

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