November 12, 2024 GRAA Luncheon
American Legion Post #136
6900 Greenbelt Road
Greenbelt, MD
The speaker for the November 12, 2024 luncheon will be David F. Mitchell, the Agency Chief Program Management Officer at NASA Headquarters, reporting to Associate Administrator Jim Free.
Mitchell began his career in 1984 with the U.S. Navy (as a civil servant) working as a rocket test engineer. He joined NASA Goddard in 1987, working on transportation systems for instruments and spacecraft. Starting in 1990, Mitchell worked on the Delta II, Scout, and Pegasus launch vehicle programs. Between 1997 and 2005, he worked on the GOES Program and then went on detail assignments to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and NASA Headquarters. In 2006, he worked as a NASA Congressional Fellow supporting United States Senator Bill Nelson, focusing on space and science issues.
In late 2006 he returned to Goddard and worked in Earth Science while concurrently serving as the project manager for the MAVEN proposal effort. Upon MAVEN’s selection in 2008 for development, he served as project manager through the mission’s Mars Orbit Insertion in 2014.
From 2015 to January 2021, Mitchell was the director of Goddard’s Flight Projects Directorate. During this time, he also served as the formulation project manager for a comet sample return mission (CAESAR). In 2021, Mitchell became director of Goddard’s Engineering & Technology Directorate until his transfer to NASA Headquarters in 2022. From January 2023 to April 2023, he returned to Goddard to be the acting Center Director.
Between 2015 to 2022, Mitchell served as the senior champion for Goddard’s African American Advisory Committee, for which he was awarded NASA’s Equal Employment Opportunity Medal. He was also awarded NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal twice and the Presidential Rank Award twice.
In recent years Mitchell led or served on the following NASA boards: Acquisition & Program/Project Management Tiger Team; Psyche Independent Review Board; Risk Management Tiger Team; Mars Sample Return IRB Response Team; NASA 2040 Process Workstream.
Mitchell graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1984 and a master’s degree in engineering administration from the George Washington University in 1989. He completed the Council for Excellence in Government program in 2002, is a 2004 graduate of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government Senior Executive Fellows program and graduated from NASA’s Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program in 2006.
Last updated: October 19, 2024