Kathleen Pollard, a native of Manassas, Virginia, has been named manager of the Program, Planning and Control Office for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) Program at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. SLS will be the most powerful rocket ever built for deep space missions, including to an asteroid and ultimately to Mars.
As part of her new position, Pollard will be responsible for formulating and implementing all SLS resource plans and an annual budget of $1.6 billion. She also serves as liaison among the SLS Program, Marshall Center and agency to develop resource requirements and implement strict budget and schedule controls in order to deliver a launch vehicle that will fulfill NASA’s performance requirements within the target schedule and budget.
“I am excited and honored to have the opportunity to be part of the team that’s working to launch a safe, sustainable vehicle like SLS to missions unlike we’ve ever done,” Pollard said.
Pollard has more than 29 years of experience in aerospace program control and operations — with a heavy focus on government financial management and program/project planning and control.
Before accepting her current position, Pollard was business manager of the Marshall Center’s Engineering Directorate. She was responsible for all aspects of the directorate’s resources management, including financial, human capital, and information technology budgetary formulation and execution.
From 2011 to 2013, she was associate chief financial officer and finance deputy chief financial officer at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. In those roles, she supported Johnson’s chief financial officer in managing all aspects of the organization, and financial and accounting operations.
In 2007, Pollard served as deputy director, acting director and director of the Program Planning and Control Office for NASA’s Constellation Program. She was selected in 2005 as manager for Project Control for the Ares Projects Office at the Marshall Center.
Pollard was assistant manager for NASA’s Program Control for the Next Generation Launch Technology Program (NGLT) from 2002 to 2005. She was responsible for the development, formulation and integration of all NGLT program control activities.
Pollard began her NASA career in 1985. Between 1985 and 1999, she served in progressively responsible roles in program control and business management for the Space Shuttle Main Engine Project and the Solid Rocket Booster Project Office at Marshall, culminating as the business manager for the Solid Rocket Booster Project Office.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting in 1978 at Morehead State University in Morehead, Kentucky. Pollard received her master’s degree in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 1998.
The first flight test of the SLS will feature a configuration for a 70-metric-ton (77-ton) lift capacity and carry an uncrewed Orion spacecraft beyond low-Earth orbit to test the performance of the integrated system. As the SLS evolves, it will provide an unprecedented lift capability of 130-metric-tons (143-tons) to enable missions even farther into our solar system.
For more information on SLS, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/sls
Media Contact:
Kim Henry
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034