Eugene T. “Trip” Healey III

Eugene “Trip” Healey is the deputy director of the Safety and Mission Assurance directorate at NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a role he has held since February of 2023. In this role, Healey shares responsibility with Safety and Mission Assurance Director Ronnie Rodriguez in managing the large team of civil service and contractor engineers and specialists implementing safety policies for all programs and the center. The Safety and Mission Assurance directorate promotes the safety of the public, the astronauts, the workforce, and other critical NASA resources.

Experience

Prior to his current assignment, Healey served in the Commercial Crew Program for more than a decade in a number of budgeting, contracting, and technical leadership positions, including office manager of the Program Control and Integration Office, deputy office manager of the Systems Engineering and Integration Office, mission manager for Boeing’s first ever uncrewed flight test of the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, and contracting officer representative and business analyst on the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contracts.

Before joining the Commercial Crew Program Office in 2010, Healey served in Kennedy’s Project Engineering Integration Office as the lead project engineer for the successful flight of the Ares I-X Flight Test Project and, prior to that, held a number of key engineering positions within the former Shuttle Processing Directorate, including external tank and solid rocket booster project engineer, ground systems project engineer, and solid rocket booster systems engineer.

Before joining America’s space agency, Healey worked in the private aerospace sector as a design engineer with United Space Alliance at Kennedy. In this role, he developed innovative specialty-tooling solutions used during the assembly and integration of the space shuttle, external tank, and solid rocket boosters to ensure damage to flight hardware did not occur and assembly processes could be simplified. Following his design work, Healey served as a systems engineer on the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters.

Healey began his aerospace career in the United States Marine Corps in December of 1992 and received his Naval Air Crew wings while assigned to Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 263, Marine Corps Air Station New River North Carolina. Healey managed the squadron’s ordnance shop operations that included overseeing all facets of the weapons systems for the aircraft assigned to the squadron, including the AH-1W Cobra, the CH-46E Sea Knight, and the CH-53E Super Stallion airframes. Healey served this unit in the United States and the Mediterranean theater and obtained more than 550 flight hours during his tour of duty.

Awards

Healey has received numerous awards and special honors from NASA, including a Silver Achievement Medal, an Exceptional Achievement Medal, a KSC Certificate of Appreciation, multiple Group Achievement Awards, a Space Flight Awareness Award, and NASA’s Superior Accomplishment Award.

Education

Healey received a Bachelor of Science in aerospace engineering in 2003, and a Master of Science in technical management in 2007, both from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Personal

Healey’s hometown is Olney, Maryland. He resides in Port Orange, Florida, with his wife and two sons and enjoys spending time at the baseball fields, boating, and fishing.

Biography last updated May 2023