Sep 20 2022 56 mins
Imagine creating one of the most sophisticated instruments ever conceived, building it, and then successfully placing it one million miles from earth. Bill has “been there – done that.”
Bill has 40 years of experience in the aerospace industry. He has worked in both private industry and for NASA and is currently the Project Manager for the successful James Webb Space Telescope.
Bill received a B.S.E.E and M.S.E.E from Fairleigh Dickinson University and Masters in Operations Research from George Washington University. He began his career in 1979 with the Bendix Guidance Systems Division in Teterboro, N.J. as an electronics/software engineer, developing the flight software for the Hubble Space Telescope safing system.
In 1983, Bill transferred to Goddard Space Flight Center as a systems engineer for HST operations. In 1990, Bill joined NASA as the HST Operations Observatory Systems Manager. Bill has also served as the HST Deputy Operations Manager and the HST Operations Servicing Mission Manager.
In 1998, Bill became the Project Manager for the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) which was successfully launched in January of 2003. After SORCE, he was appointed the Project Manager for Landsat-8 and led the project through controversial period of various mission concepts from Data Buy, flying an instrument on a weather satellite, to the final mission implementation.
In December 2010, Bill was appointed the JWST Project Manager.
Bill has been the recipient of the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal, the Space Flight Awareness Honoree Award, various NASA Group Awards, NASA Honor Award for Outstanding Leadership Medal, and most recently the Robert H. Goddard Award for Outstanding Leadership.