Kathleen Kelly Named Director of Satellite Operations at NOAA

Kathleen Kelly, who has worked for NOAA’s National Environmental
Satellite, Data, and Information Service since 1975, has
been named director of satellite
operations.

In this capacity, she is responsible for
the operation of NOAA’s environmental
satellites and satellites in the Defense
Meteorological Satellite Program. The managers of three facilities
report to her: the Satellite Operations Control Center in Suitland,
Md., and the Command and
Data Acquisition Stations at Fairbanks, Alaska, and Wallops,
Vahttp://www.oso.noaa.gov/operations/.
Her staff consists of 218 federal employees and 100 contract
personnel.

Kelly began her NESDIS career as part of
the first class of the Graduate Scientist Program, undertaking
post graduate studies in mathematics and computer science at
the University of Maryland.
She spent her early years in the Office
of Satellite Data Processing and Distribution and the Office of Satellite Operations.
She later worked on the early image navigation systems for the
Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES).
Kelly played a major role in the development of the GOES I-M
series Image Navigation and Registration system, leading the
NESDIS effort to bring this system into successful operation
with GOES-8 in 1994. She was promoted to manager of the Satellite
Operations Control Center in 1996.

Kelly was part of a team awarded the Department of Commerce Silver
Medal for GOES I-M ground system development. She was also awarded
the Department of Commerce Gold medal for her work in the procurement
effort for the GOES N-Q spacecraft. She has also received several
NASA awards for her work in GOES image navigation and for GOES
launch support.

Kelly is a senior fellow for the Council
for Excellence in Government and was selected to attend the
Leadership for a Democratic Society training program at the Federal
Executive Institute in Charlottesville, Va. She was graduated
magna cum laude from Millersville State University near Lancaster,
Pa., with a bachelors of arts degree in mathematics.

Kelly lives in Springfield, Va., with her
husband, Barry Bruce, data base manager for the Hubble
Space Telescope at Goddard
Space Flight Center, and son Michael, a freshman at Bishop
Ireton High School in Alexandria. She is an avid runner and tennis
player, and in the little spare time remaining ferries her son
to various sporting and social events.