For Release: Dec. 11, 1997

Tim Tyson
Media Services Branch
(205) 544-0034
tim.tyson@msfc.nasa.gov

Release: 97-278

Three key personnel appointments have been announced at the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Sidney P. Saucier III has been named associate director of the Marshall Center; William E. Taylor has been appointed director of the Center’s Science and Engineering Directorate; and Charles H. Scales will assume duties as director of Marshall’s Equal Opportunity Office.

All the appointments will be effective Dec. 21, said Marshall Center Director Dr. Wayne Littles.

Saucier, director of the Center’s Propulsion Laboratory, will replace Susan McGuire Smith, who is retiring from NASA. His responsibilities will include providing executive leadership to the institutional management of the Center, as well as serving as its liaison with Huntsville and surrounding communities.

Saucier joined Marshall in 1962 as a propulsion and power engineer, and has held engineering and technical management positions of increasing responsibility. He was project engineer for the RL-10 hydrogen/oxygen engine in the Center’s former Propulsion and Vehicle Engineering Laboratory. He later transferred to Marshall’s Program Development Directorate, where he had overall responsibility for engineering planning and analyses as Marshall worked to efine advanced space transportation and exploration systems. In 1980, Saucier was named deputy manager of the Inertial Upper Stage Project, and was appointed manager in 1982 with added responsibility of the Transfer Orbit Stage Project. In 1986, he became deputy manager of the Science and Applications Projects Office, and was named its manager in 1987, with responsibilities for the Inertial Upper Stage, the Automated Rendezvous and Capture Project, the Earth and Space Sciences Projects, the Microgravity Research Projects and the Global Hydrology and Climate Center. Saucier was appointed director of the Propulsion Laboratory in 1996.

A graduate of Mississippi State University, he also attended the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Among his numerous awards are two NASA Exceptional Service Medals for exemplary leadership and successful management. Active in professional and civic work, he served on the Huntsville City Council from 1972-76. He is past chairman of the Huntsville-Madison County Airport Authority board of directors and past president of the Marshall Management Association. Saucier, who has three children, is married to Gloria Carr.

Taylor will assume the duties of director of the Science and Engineering Directorate – the largest organization at Marshall Center. He will supervise the work of nearly 1,800 persons engaged in a wide variety of scientific and engineering programs. Taylor has served as deputy director of Science and Engineering since March 1997. He replaces Grady Sherman Jobe, who is retiring from NASA.

Taylor joined the Marshall Center in 1964, and held various positions in the Systems Analysis and Integration Laboratory. In 1977, he was appointed branch chief of its Ground Operations Engineering Branch, and in 1983 was named branch chief of the laboratory’s Ground Systems Analysis Branch. In 1984, he became deputy division chief of the Space Telescope Systems Division. He served as manager of the Hubble Space Telescope Systems Engineering Office in 1986, and chief engineer for the Hubble and Advanced X-ray Astrophysics projects in 1988. In 1992, Taylor was ppointed project manager for the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility. The following year he became project manager of the Space Station Furnace Facility. In 1996, he was appointed deputy chief engineer at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Taylor, who graduated from Purdue University and obtained a master’s degree from Florida State University, is the recipient of the NASA Medal for Outstanding Leadership and two Marshall Center Director’s Commendations. He is married to the former Ellen Boyett, and has three children and two step-children.

Charles Scales, as director of Marshall’s Equal Opportunity Office, will be responsible for all equal opportunity matters at the Center. As deputy director of the office, he has conducted its day-to-day operations since January 1997.

Scales worked at Marshall’s Management Services Office as a cooperative education student in 1973 while obtaining his degree from Alabama A&M University. He joined the Center in 1975 as a telecommunications specialist and became a program analyst. In 1986, he was named chief of the Program Control Office of the Institutional and Program Support Directorate. Scales was appointed chief of the Resources Management Branch in 1988, and director of the Business Management Office in 1994.

Among his awards are the NASA Exceptional Service Medal and the Astronaut’s Silver Snoopy Award. Scales’ community activities include the Alabama A&M University Athletics Community Support Group. He is married to the former Vernal "Bunnie" Roberson, and they have two children.