Page 7 - Florida Sentinel 8-24-18

Positive News
Vanessa Wyche Becomes First African-American Deputy Director Of NASA's Johnson Space Center
Vanessa Wyche, a nearly 30-year veteran of NASA, was tapped last Wednesday as the second in command at Houston's Johnson Space Center.
Wyche, 54, is the first African-American to hold the deputy director position at Johnson which had a budget of $4.5 billion in fiscal year 2017 and em- ploys about 10,000 civil service and contractor em- ployees.
She will help Mark Geyer, the center's director, run one of NASA's largest facilities, home to the na- tion's astronaut corps where human space flight re- search and training take place.
"I am incredibly humbled to take on this role at JSC, and also excited to assist Mark with leading the home of human spaceflight," Wyche said in a statement Wednesday of her appointment as center deputy director.
"I look forward to working with the talented em- ployees at JSC as we work toward our mission of taking humans farther into the solar system."
At HoustonChronicle. com: Houston's Johnson Space Center is still the undisputed leader in human spaceflight. Wyche, a South Carolina native, began working at Johnson Space Center in 1989 as a proj- ect engineer for space life sciences. Throughout her 29-year tenure at the center, Wyche has served as acting director of Human Exploration Development Support and assistant center director. She most re- cently was director of the center's Exploration Inte-
"Vanessa has a deep background at JSC with significant program experience in almost all of the human spaceflight programs that have been hosted here," Geyer said. "She is respected at NASA, has built agency-wide relationships throughout her nearly three-decade career and will serve JSC well as we continue to lead human space exploration in Houston."
Geyer took the helm of Johnson just three months ago, replacing veteran astronaut Ellen Ochoa, who held the director position for five years before retiring in May.
Wyche graduated from Clemson University with a bachelor's in engineering and, later, a mas- ter's in bioengineering. Before joining NASA in 1989, she worked for the Food and Drug Adminis- tration in Washington, D.C.
Vanessa Wyche, deputy director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Credits: NASA.
gration and Science Directorate, where she provided "guidance and direction" to allow for human and ro- botic exploration of deep space.
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