Kathleen Kelly, who has worked for NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service since 1975, has been named director of satellite operations.

In this capacity, she is responsible for the operation of NOAA's environmental satellites and satellites in the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. The managers of three facilities report to her: the Satellite Operations Control Center in Suitland, Md., and the Command and Data Acquisition Stations at Fairbanks, Alaska, and Wallops, Vahttp://www.oso.noaa.gov/operations/. Her staff consists of 218 federal employees and 100 contract personnel.

Kelly began her NESDIS career as part of the first class of the Graduate Scientist Program, undertaking post graduate studies in mathematics and computer science at the University of Maryland. She spent her early years in the Office of Satellite Data Processing and Distribution and the Office of Satellite Operations. She later worked on the early image navigation systems for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES). Kelly played a major role in the development of the GOES I-M series Image Navigation and Registration system, leading the NESDIS effort to bring this system into successful operation with GOES-8 in 1994. She was promoted to manager of the Satellite Operations Control Center in 1996.

Kelly was part of a team awarded the Department of Commerce Silver Medal for GOES I-M ground system development. She was also awarded the Department of Commerce Gold medal for her work in the procurement effort for the GOES N-Q spacecraft. She has also received several NASA awards for her work in GOES image navigation and for GOES launch support.

Kelly is a senior fellow for the Council for Excellence in Government and was selected to attend the Leadership for a Democratic Society training program at the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, Va. She was graduated magna cum laude from Millersville State University near Lancaster, Pa., with a bachelors of arts degree in mathematics.

Kelly lives in Springfield, Va., with her husband, Barry Bruce, data base manager for the Hubble Space Telescope at Goddard Space Flight Center, and son Michael, a freshman at Bishop Ireton High School in Alexandria. She is an avid runner and tennis player, and in the little spare time remaining ferries her son to various sporting and social events.