| For release: Oct. 15, 1995
Catherine Watson
(804) 864-6122
RELEASE NO. 95-102
FINNERAN NAMED HEAD OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS AT NASA LANGLEY
Michael Finneran has been named head of the Office of Public
Affairs at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. In this
position, Finneran supervises all news media relations at the
4,500-employee aeronautics and space facility.
Finneran has worked in Langley’s public affairs office on
two separate occasions, initially from September 1991 to March 1993
and then from October 1994 to the present. In between, he served in
the public affairs office at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md.
Prior to joining NASA, Finneran was a daily newspaper
journalist, first as a reporter and then as an editor, and has won
several writing awards. He has worked at the Miami Herald; the
Virginian Pilot in Norfolk, Va.; the (Bergen) Record in Hackensack,
N.J.; and the Fitchburg Sentinel in Fitchburg, Mass.
Key projects he has been involved in at Langley include
spearheading publicity for the development of technology for a
next-generation supersonic passenger airliner, the transfer of NASA
technology to private industry, and the development of
advance-warning wind shear sensors for the airline industry. The
media campaign for Langley’s Airborne Wind Shear Sensors
Program won the Aviation/Space Writers Association 1993 Award of
Excellence for Government Public Affairs.
At Goddard, Finneran was responsible for space sciences public
affairs. He served as leader of that center’s Comet
Shoemaker-Levy public affairs campaign in July 1994, when the comet
smashed into Jupiter and Goddard served as the media’s
“Comet Central.” He was co-leader of public affairs
activities for the Goddard-managed Hubble Space Telescope First
Servicing Mission in December 1993.
Finneran has a bachelor of arts degree in English from the
University of Massachusetts in North Dartmouth, Mass., and lives in
Newport News, Va. He may be reached by phone at (804) 864-6121, fax
at (804) 864-6333, or by e-mail at: m.p.finneran@larc.nasa.gov
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