WASHINGTON -- Civilian space chief Daniel Goldin is a man of constant vision. As a post-Cold War warrior for change, the NASA administrator has chalked up an impressive suite of agency successes, but also faltered in several key areas.

A new report, Transforming Government: Dan Goldin and the Remaking of NASA, critiques his legacy of leadership skills and crisis management practices, while pointing out lessons learned for those bureaucrats willing to take NASAs helm in the future.

The case study was done for The PricewaterhouseCoopers Endowment for the Business of Government, one of a series of reports on government leaders and their abilities to improve public sector effectiveness.

Author of the report, W. Henry Lambright is a professor of political science and public administration, as well as a director of the Center for Environmental Policy and Administration at Syracuse Universitys Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in New York.

Goldin is the longest-running space agency administrator in history and has the scars to prove it. Appointed in April 1992 by President George H.W. Bush, he continues to serve under President George W. Bush in 2001.

Throughout this period of time -- now a nine-year reign and still running -- Goldin has turned crisis into opportunity, altering the course of several important NASA projects while constantly leading change throughout his tenure. While overseeing successes, Goldin has encountered failure too, Lambright reported in his study.

"Im more positive than negative about Goldin," Lambright told SPACE.com. "Take away Goldin and I think NASA would be in much, much worse shape," he said.

Goldins record as a "change agent" at NASA is mixed, but decidedly positive, Lambright said. While there were many players, Goldin was central to saving the International Space Station (ISS), he said.

"Although ISS is controversial, it lies at the heart of NASA in the early 21^st century. Without it, there would be little to NASAs core mission. ISS keeps manned spaceflight alive and gives NASA a chance someday to build on this program with a humans-to-Mars mission Goldins dream," Lambright said.

Another legacy for Goldin, said the political science professor, was his revamping of agencys unmanned space science program. For fixing an out-of-focus Hubble, as well as turning the $1 billion Mars Observer failure in 1993 into a trigger for adopting a faster, better, cheaper philosophy for space exploration, the report gave Goldin high marks.

Goldin took on an organization that was considered bloated and bureaucratic. He streamlined the agency in a manner that solidly linked NASA to the Clinton administrations hunger for "reinventing" government. Despite the agencys static budget, Goldins dynamic drive, forceful personality, visibility and outright space salesmanship gave "NASA a measure of control over its destiny" while installing his vision of a "new NASA," Lambright noted in his report.