PMFORUM Breaking News

The April 3, 2008 edition of "ask the academy", the monthly eNewsletter of the NASA Academy of Project/Program and Engineering Leadership (APPEL), included a roundup of the NASA Project Management Challenge 2008 Conference. The NASA PM Challenge 2008 was held during 26-27 February 2008 at the Hilton Oceanfront Hotel in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA.


According to the article, more than 1200 civil servants, contractors, and members of the aerospace community attended PM Challenge 2008. This fifth annual conference featured over ninety workshop presentations as well as eight general session speakers. Several NASA senior leaders addressed the conference, including Associate Administrator Chris Scolese, Chief Engineer Mike Ryschkewitsch, Chief Safety and Mission Assurance Officer Bryan O’Connor, Associate Administrator of Space Operations William Gerstenmaier, and Kennedy Space Center Director William Parsons. Other keynote speakers included Jonathan Firth of Virgin Galactic and former Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden.

Bryan O’Connor and Mike Ryschkewitsch also presented the George M. Low Awards, NASA’s highest honor for quality and technical performance in its contractor community, to four organizations:

• Lockheed Martin Mission Services of Houston, nominated by NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, received the award for the large business service category.


• Sierra Lobo Inc. of Milan, Ohio, nominated by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., won the small business service category.


• Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne Inc. of Canoga Park, Calif., also nominated by Marshall, won the award for large business product.


• ASRC Aerospace Corporation of Cape Canaveral, Fla., nominated by NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, won the small business product award.

NASA also recognized four Low Award finalists: Boeing Space Operations Company, Cape Canaveral; Oceaneering International Inc., Houston; Space Systems Division at Jacobs Engineering, Huntsville; and the National Institutes of Aerospace, Hampton, Va.

Copies of papers and presentations from the 2008 PM Challenge can be found at http://pmchallenge.gsfc.nasa.gov/presentations2008.htm. NASA’s PM Challenge 2009 will be held February 24-25, 2009 at the same Daytona Beach location.

Under NASA’s Office of the Chief Engineer, the Academy of Program/Project & Engineering Leadership (APPEL) provides leadership, advice, direction, and support for the development and learning of the NASA program/project management and engineering community. APPEL trains the technical workforce through a competency-based and experiential development process; promotes continuous learning through a blended learning model, which leverages the expertise of university and private industry partners; offers performance support to project teams through assessment, workshops, expert consulting, rapid deployment training, coaching, and mentoring; and facilitates the dissemination of lessons learned through online resources and communities of practice. The Director of APPEL at NASA is Dr. Edward Hoffman. For more information, visit http://appel.nasa.gov/.

Created in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is America’s focal point for research, development and exploration of outer space. In 2005, the US President and Congress committed the United States to exploring the solar system and beyond: completing assembly of the International Space Station, flying the new Crew Exploration Vehicle no later than 2014, returning astronauts to the moon by the end of the next decade, and sending human missions to Mars and beyond. For over 50 years, NASA has been leading the world in the development and usage of advanced program and project management. Additional information about NASA can be found at www.nasa.gov.