James L Crawford
Named KSC Director of Safety and Mission Assurance
(16 April 2004) NASA Kennedy
Space Center Director James W. Kennedy has announced that James. L.
“Larry” Crawford was named as the Director of the newly created
Safety and Mission Assurance organization at KSC.
Crawford will be responsible for the nearly 250 professionals assigned to
ensure KSC is a safe workplace and mission success is accomplished.
Prior to his selection for the KSC post, he served as the Deputy Director for
Safety at the NASA Engineering and Safety Center at the Langley Research Center
in Virginia.
The new S&MA Directorate at KSC is being created to
centralise the safety and mission assurance mission into one organisation.
The new directorate will help address recommendations documented in the
Columbia Accident Investigation Board report released in August 2003. This
change will strengthen KSC’s safety reporting structure within the Space
Shuttle Program and in all areas at the Center.
Crawford began his
NASA career in 1980 as NASA Director of Safety and has served in various
positions, including program engineering manager for the International Space
Station, technical assistant to the Director of Shuttle engineering at KSC,
Director of System Engineering at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC, X-34
Project Manager and Director of Research Engineering at Dryden Flight Research
Center, in Edwards, California.
He brings 33 years of engineering,
project management and safety experience to KSC. In addition to his NASA
service, Crawford has held key safety positions at three US Army field sites
and was named Chief of the Safety Office for the Army Material Command.
Crawford holds a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from
Mississippi State University and a master’s degree in industrial
engineering from Texas A&M. He is a graduate of the Army’s two-year
safety engineering intern program.
(source: NASA)