page_title: Bill Anders
section_title: Post-NASA career
hierarchical_section_title: Bill Anders / Post-NASA career
caption_attribution_description: Bill Anders at Bergen Air Show
context_page_description: William Alison Anders is a retired United States Air Force major general, former electrical engineer, nuclear engineer, NASA astronaut, and businessman. In December 1968, as a crew member of Apollo 8, he was one of the first three people to leave low Earth orbit and travel to the Moon. Along with fellow astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, Anders circled the Moon ten times, and broadcast live images and commentary back to Earth. During one of the mission's lunar orbits he photographed the iconic image Earthrise.
  Apart from his professional and military careers, Anders was the U.S. Ambassador to Norway from 1976 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford.
context_section_description: From 1969 to 1973, Anders served as Executive Secretary for the National Aeronautics and Space Council, which was responsible to the President, Vice President and Cabinet-level members of the Council for developing policy options concerning research, development, operations and planning of aeronautical and space systems.
  On August 6, 1973, he was appointed to the five-member Atomic Energy Commission, where he was lead commissioner for nuclear and non-nuclear power research and development. He was also named as U.S. Chairman of the joint U.S./USSR technology exchange program for fission and fusion power.
  Following the reorganization of national nuclear regulatory and developmental activities on January 19, 1975, he was named by President Ford to become the first chairman of the newly established Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is responsible for nuclear safety and environmental compatibility. At the completion of his term as NRC chairman, he was appointed Ambassador to Norway and held that position until 1977. He then ended his career with the federal government after 26 years and began work in the private sector.
  He served briefly as a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, then joined General Electric (GE) in September 1977. As Vice President and General Manager of GE's Nuclear Products Division in San Jose, California, he was responsible for the manufacture of nuclear fuel, reactor internal equipment, and control and instrumentation for GE boiling-water reactors at facilities located in San Jose and Wilmington, North Carolina. He also oversaw GE's partnership with Chicago Bridge and Iron for making large steel pressure vessels in Memphis, Tennessee. In August 1979, he attended Harvard Business School's six-week Advanced Management Program. On the first day of 1980, he was appointed General Manager of the GE Aircraft Equipment Division. Headquartered in Utica, New York, the division included more than 8,500 employees in five locations in the northeastern U.S. Its products included aircraft flight and weapon control systems, cockpit instruments, aircraft electrical generating systems, airborne radars and data processing systems, electronic countermeasures, space command systems, and aircraft/surface multi-barrel armament systems.
  In 1984, he left GE to join Textron as Executive Vice President for aerospace, and two years later became Senior Executive Vice President for operations. In 1990, he became Vice Chairman of General Dynamics, and on January 1, 1991, its chairman and Chief Executive Officer. He retired in 1993, but remained Chairman until May 1994.
  Anders was a consultant to the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, and was a member of the Defense Science Board and the NASA Advisory Council. He is a retired Major General in the USAF Reserve.
  He established the William A. Anders Foundation, a philanthropic organization dedicated to supporting educational and environmental issues.  The foundation also founded the Heritage Flight Museum in 1996 in Bellingham, Washington. The museum moved to Skagit Regional Airport in Burlington, Washington in 2014; he serves as its President and until 2008 was an active participant in its air shows.
  The Anders crater on the Moon is named in his honor.
  In 2011, he spoke at the first Starmus Festival in the Canary Islands, delivering a lecture on the early American space program. His talk was published in the book Starmus: 50 Years of Man in Space.
caption: Anders taxiing a P-51 Mustang at Bergen Air Show in 2005
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