Experience
After graduation from high school, McCulley enlisted in the U.S. Navy and subsequently served on one diesel-powered and two nuclear-powered submarines. In 1965 he entered Purdue University, and in January 1970, received his Officer's commission in the Navy and bachelor and master of science degrees. Following flight training, he served tours of duty in A-4 Skyhawk and A-6 Intruder aircraft, and was selected to attend the Empire Test Pilots' School in Britain. He served in a variety of test pilots billets at the Naval Air Test Center, Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, before returning to sea duty on USS Saratoga and USS Nimitz.
He has flown over 50 aircraft types, logging over 5,000 flying hours, and has nearly 400 carrier landings from six aircraft carriers.
Selected by NASA in May 1984, McCulley completed a one-year training and evaluation program in June 1985, qualifying him for assignment as a pilot on future Space Shuttle flight crews. His technical assignments include: Astronaut Office weather coordinator; flight crew representative to the Shuttle Requirements Control Board; Technical Assistant to the Director of Flight Crew Operations; lead of the Astronaut Support Team at the Kennedy Space Center. He flew on STS-34 in 1989 and has logged a total of 119 hours and 41 minutes in space.
In October 1990, following his retirement from NASA and the Navy, McCulley was employed by Lockheed Martin Space Operations and served as Vice President and Deputy Launch Site Director for the Kennedy Space Center. He was promoted to Director in November 1995.
McCulley next served as Vice President and Associate Program Manager for USA's (United Space Alliance) Ground Operations at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Named to this position on June 1, 1996, he was responsible for directing the integration of all processing activities associated with America's Space Shuttle program to ensure safe and successful fulfillment of all company contractual commitments to NASA.
In November 1999, Mike McCulley was named Chief Operating Officer (COO) of United Space Alliance (USA). In this role he had primary responsibility for the day-to-day operations and overall management of USA, the Prime Contractor for the Space Shuttle Program. Prior to being named COO, McCulley was Vice President and Deputy Program Manager for the Space Flight Operations Contract (SFOC), where he assisted USA’s Vice President and Program manager in the management of the Space Shuttle Program.
On May 15, 2003, Mike McCulley was named President and Chief Executive Officer of United Space Alliance and is ultimately responsible for the direction, development and operations of the company.
On September 28, 2007, Mike McCulley retired from his position as CEO of United Space Alliance.
Read more about this topic: Michael J. McCulley
Famous quotes containing the word experience:
“Not the less does nature continue to fill the heart of youth with suggestions of his enthusiasm, and there are now men,—if indeed I can speak in the plural number,—more exactly, I will say, I have just been conversing with one man, to whom no weight of adverse experience will make it for a moment appear impossible, that thousands of human beings might exercise towards each other the grandest and simplest of sentiments, as well as a knot of friends, or a pair of lovers.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The earliest instinct of the child, and the ripest experience of age, unite in affirming simplicity to be the truest and profoundest part for man. Likewise this simplicity is so universal and all-containing as a rule for human life, that the subtlest bad man, and the purest good man, as well as the profoundest wise man, do all alike present it on that side which they socially turn to the inquisitive and unscrupulous world.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)