Miguel Rodríguez (born 1952) is the Chief of the Integration Office of the Cape Canaveral Spaceport Management Office.

Early years

Rodríguez was born in

Santurce, Puerto Rico Santurce (, from the Basque ''Santurtzi'' which means Saint George) is a barrio or district in the municipality of San Juan. Its population in 2020 was 69,469. It is also the biggest and most populated of all the barrios in the capital city wit ...

, a section of the city of

San Juan, Puerto Rico San Juan (, , ; Spanish for "Saint John") is the capital city and most populous municipality in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2020 census, it is the 57th-largest city under the juri ...

where he received both his primary and secondary education. In 1969, he along with millions of other people around the world, witnessed the historical moment when Neil Armstrong from the Apollo mission stepped on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

's surface. Like so many other young men at the time, Rodríguez felt inspired to consider a career in the Space program of the United States known as

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

.Behind the Scenes
/ref> After Rodríguez graduated from Colegio Espiritu Santo high school in Hato Rey, in 1971, he enrolled in the

University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez The University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus (UPRM) or Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez (RUM) in Spanish (also referred to as Colegio and CAAM in allusion to its former name), is a public land-grant university in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. UPRM ...

, where the Engineering College is located. Rodríguez earned his Mechanical Engineer Degree in 1976, however he had applied for a job with NASA in 1975, a year before his graduation. After graduating, he was called for an interview and offered a job in NASA. He became a mechanical engineer, designing parts for the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program ...

, at Marshall Space Flight Center in

Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is a city in Madison County, Limestone County, and Morgan County, Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Madison County. Located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, Huntsville is the most populous city in ...

.Rodríguez
/ref>

Career in NASA

In 1979, Rodríguez was transferred to the

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968 ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

where he was responsible for the activation and validation of facilities for processing Space Shuttle payloads and experiments. He rose through the engineering ranks and was promoted to the position of Payload Integration Engineer responsible for the STS-31

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most vers ...

payload processing, testing and launch activities. He started his management career in 1990 supervising a group of engineers responsible for integrating experiments in the Spacelab Module. He later was assigned the position of Division Chief for the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...

Resupply and Return, where he was responsible for managing the development and delivery of the first Italian built Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM), Leonardo. In 1999, Rodríguez was requested to serve as the Chief of the Integration Office at Cape Canaveral Spaceport Management Office at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. He also led a team which developed a tool for capturing employee competencies and skills in support of the Agency Core Capabilities Assessment.Miguel Rodríguez
/ref> In 2002, Rodríguez moved to Mississippi and to the NASA Stennis Space Center as the Director of Center Operations and as a member of the Senior Executive Service where he managed facility construction, security and other programs for 4,500 Stennis personnel. After a year, he was assigned to the position of Director of the Propulsion Directorate at Stennis Space Center located in

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

responsible for providing the leadership and the safe operation of one of a kind national test facilities valued at over $2 billion, including the operations of several rocket engine propulsion test programs such as Space Shuttle Main Engine acceptance testing and the testing and evaluation of the next generation propulsion systems. His team worked on the STS-114 engines which were installed on the Discovery Space Shuttle launched in August 2005. In 2006, he returned to Kennedy Space Center, FL, as the Director of Operational Systems Engineering responsible for implementing operational technical authority across the KSC Programs and Projects. He also provided program and project Chief Engineers to lead the engineering support activities and was instrumental in the formation of the matrixed Engineering Directorate, a first at KSC, by successfully implementing the Agency's Governance Model in the Chief Engineering teams. In 2008, he became the Deputy Director for the Management, Engineering and Technology Directorate, responsible for a 590 employee organization providing workforce and business services for operational engineering, processing, launch, and landing support for Shuttle Transition & Retirement, International Space Stations, Launch Services, Commercial Crew and 21st Century Ground Systems programs/projects. In December 2011, Rodríguez retired from NASA to start his own consulting business.

Awards and recognitions

Among his awards and recognitions from NASA are: *NASA Certificate of Commendation for leadership efforts after Hurricane Katrina *Two

NASA Exceptional Service Medal The NASA Exceptional Service Medal is an award granted to U.S. government employees for significant sustained performance characterized by unusual initiative or creative ability that clearly demonstrates substantial improvement in engineering, ae ...

s *KSC Leadership Award *NASA

Silver Snoopy award The Silver Snoopy award is a special honor awarded to NASA employees and contractors for outstanding achievements related to human flight safety or mission success. The award certificate states that it is "In Appreciation" "For professionalism, d ...

Currently

Miguel Rodríguez lives Satellite Beach, Florida with his wife. He is currently working as a Senior Program Manager for ASRC Federal managing the Wallops Engineering Services Contract located in NASA Wallops Flight Facility, Va.

References

External links