NASA Announces Leadership Changes at Glenn, Johnson

Announcing major leadership changes, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said that James Free would succeed Ramon (Ray) Lugo as Glenn's center director when Lugo retires in January and Ellen Ochoa would succeed Michael Coats as Johnson Space Center director when Coats retires at the end of the year. Free has served as Glenn's deputy director since January 2011 while Ochoa served as Johnson's deputy director since September 2007.

"Ellen and Jim are experienced, outstanding leaders who I know will continue to do great things as they take the helms of their field centers," Bolden said. "I also want to thank Mike and Ray for their years of leadership and dedicated service at NASA, most recently while guiding Johnson and Glenn through pivotal times for those centers. I am sad to see Mike leave, as he and I have been close friends and allies since coming together in the summer of 1964 as new plebes in the great Naval Academy class of 1968. I also want to thank Ray for his years of tireless work at NASA, for a long while on the team at the Kennedy Space Center and, most recently, while leading Glenn."

Free began his career in 1990 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. as a propulsion engineer and later as a systems engineer on NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellites. He joined Glenn in 1999 as the International Space Station liaison for the Fluids and Combustion Facility. His other NASA assignments have included director of Space Flight Systems at Glenn, Orion Service Module manager at Glenn and chief of the center's Orion Project Office. He also worked atJohnson as the Orion Test and Verification manager.

Ochoa is a four-time space shuttle astronaut who previously served as director and deputy director of flight crew operations at Johnson. She managed the Intelligent Systems Technology Branch at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., before being selected as an astronaut candidate in 1990. Ochoa flew on space shuttle missions STS-56 in 1993, STS-66 in 1994, STS-96 in 1999, and STS-110 in 2002, logging a total of 978 hours in space.