NASA to Name New Administrator Tomorrow

Sean O’Keefe, Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), will be named as the next NASA Administrator within the next 24 hours. O’Keefe will be replacing Dan Goldin who served for just under 10 years at the helm of NASA. Goldin’s farewell speech will be carried live on NASA TV on Friday at 10:30 AM EST.

O’Keefe had been Deputy Director of OMB since March 1st. Prior to the current appointment, Mr. O’Keefe was the Louis A. Bantle Professor of Business and Government Policy, an endowed chair, at the Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He also served as the Director of National Security Studies, a partnership of Syracuse University and Johns Hopkins University for delivery of executive education programs for senior military and civilian Department of Defense managers. Appointed to these positions in 1996, he was previously Professor of Business Administration and Assistant to the Senior Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School at the Pennsylvania State University.

Prior to appointment as the Secretary of the Navy in July 1992 by President George Bush, he had served previously as Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer of the Department of Defense since 1989. Before joining Defense Secretary Dick Cheney’s Pentagon management team in these capacities, he served on the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations staff for eight years, and was Staff Director of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. His public service began in 1978 upon selection as a Presidential Management Intern.