This story was updated Jan. 14 at 10:39 a.m. EST.
WASHINGTON -
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has asked retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott
Gration, one of his top foreign policy and military advisers during his
campaign, to take the helm of NASA, according to a source informed of the
selection.
An
announcement is expected as soon as Wednesday. he would be the first NASA administrator in history to be announced before the inauguration of an incoming president.
Gration, a
decorated fighter pilot who held senior policy positions in the military prior
to his retirement, is a virtual unknown to the space community, but has some
experience with NASA. In 1982, as a captain and fighter pilot instructor
recently returned from Kenya, Gration spent a year as a White House Fellow
working for NASA's deputy administrator at the time, Hans Mark.
Gration's
lack of space experience should not preclude him from being qualified
for the job, said John Logsdon, a space policy expert here.
"There are lots of NASA administrators who have come from other areas
without a background in space," he said. "You want a guy who is a
leader and can manage
a large organization."
As
a pilot Gration logged more than 1,000 hours of combat missions, according to
the Air Force's Web site. He retired from active duty in October 2006. He went
on to campaign for Obama alongside former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig and
retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, former Air Force chief of staff, as part of
Obama's national security policy working group.
Gration led
the retired generals tribute during the National Democratic Convention in
August, telling the audience he is a former Republican who met then-Sen. Obama
in 2005 while serving as director of strategy, plans and policy at U.S.
European Command.
"That's
when I met a leader unlike any I had met before," he said. "He asked
tough questions, and he didn't settle for easy answers. It was this same way of
thinking that led him to get it right, when he opposed the war in Iraq, when he
warned of its consequences. That's the judgment of a leader."
After their
meeting in 2005, Gration accompanied Obama on a five-nation, 15-day tour of
Africa in 2006.
Gration,
the son of missionary parents, spent part of his childhood in the Congo and
speaks Swahili fluently, according to a Newsweek article published in August
2007. He joined the Air Force in 1974 through the Air Force Reserve Officer
Training Corps at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., where he earned a
bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. He earned a master's degree in
national security studies from Georgetown University in Washington in 1988.
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