July 14, 2003

Glenn Mahone/Bob Jacobs
Headquarters, Washington 
(Phone: 202/358-1898/1600)

Jerry Berg
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
(Phone: 256/544-0034) 

RELEASE: 03-237

GEVEDEN NAMED MARSHALL DEPUTY DIRECTOR

William F. Readdy, Associate Administrator for Space Flight at NASA 
Headquarters in Washington, today named Rex D. Geveden as the new 
Deputy Director of the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) 
in Huntsville, Ala. Geveden will succeed David King, who became 
Center Director on June 15.

"I'm very pleased Rex Geveden is joining NASA's senior leadership 
team," said NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe. "Selecting the right 
people to lead NASA into the future is essential. Rex has proven his 
capability by successfully taking on the management of tough programs 
like the Gravity Probe-B and meeting all challenges. In fact, the 
spacecraft was shipped last week to the launch site." 

As Program Manager for Gravity Probe B (GP-B) since 1996, Geveden led 
a government, industry and university team in developing a 
sophisticated payload designed to test two features of Einstein's 
General Relativity theory.

Geveden has been serving as Deputy Director of the Science Directorate 
at Marshall where he leads 600 government, industry and university 
employees in scientifically diverse research and development projects 
in space science, materials science, biotechnology, earth science and 
space optics. 

"Rex's record of accomplishments and the fact that he is held in high 
esteem by his peers and customers in industry, academia, NASA 
Headquarters, and Marshall make him an excellent choice for the 
position of Deputy Center Director," added Readdy. "Marshall has an 
important role in the agency's science missions and Rex's science 
background adds the science dimension to the Center Deputy role." 

Geveden was the first NASA employee to achieve the highest level of 
certification in the Agency's Project Management Development Process.

Geveden also was Project Manager for the Lightning Imaging Sensor 
(LIS) and Optical Transient Detector (OTD) flight experiments. The 
OTD was delivered as a completed instrument in only nine months and 
operated successfully on orbit for five years, producing the first 
global database that included cloud-to-cloud lightning events. 
Geveden also was Chief Engineer for the Waves in Space Plasmas (WISP) 
and the Laser Atmospheric Wind Sounder (LAWS) experiments.

"As a trusted and respected member of the Marshall senior management 
team, I look forward to working closely with Rex in his new capacity 
to build a great future for Marshall and NASA," said Dave King, 
Marshall Center Director. "Rex is a proven leader and motivator of 
people whose personal character and program management capability 
exemplify the highest ideals of NASA." 

Geveden served as Manager of the Microgravity Science and Applications 
Department at MSFC, where he led a team of 350 scientists, engineers 
and project managers in a national space research program in 
materials science and biotechnology. His organization delivered the 
first and many of the early payloads to the International Space 
Station.

Geveden joined NASA in 1990. He earned a bachelor's degree in 
Engineering Physics and a master's degree in Physics from Murray 
State University in Kentucky, and is currently pursuing doctoral 
studies in Materials Engineering at Auburn University in Alabama. He 
has received many awards throughout his NASA career, including the 
NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal and the Silver Snoopy Award. 

Additional information about NASA and Marshall is available on the 
Internet at: 

http://www.nasa.gov 



http://www.msfc.nasa.gov

	
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