The George Washington University

University of Maryland College Park

Senior Technology Manager at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, Maryland

- As a Senior Technology Manager within the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)’s Strategic Partnerships Office (SPO), I am responsible for helping to establish and shape the office’s policies and operating plan- ensuring alignment with Headquarters’, Goddard’s near and long term strategic goals and competencies.  I provide technical advice and consultation and make recommendations to the Chief of the Office with regards to budget and personnel planning, outreach opportunities, new business models, employee recognition, training and awards. On a broader scale I am responsible for many aspects of managing a diverse portfolio of advanced Aerospace technologies including: helping center personnel identify new technologies that have strategic value to NASA; assisting employees and contractors with documenting and reporting technologies to our office; assessing those technologies to determine their potential commercialization market strengths; and evaluating the technologies for Intellectual Property protection through patenting. I am also responsible for negotiating the business aspects of licensing NASA technologies to companies, including the terms and conditions relating to fees, royalties and other payments back to the government.  I also develop, write and work closely with the Center’s Chief General Counsel and Chief Patent Counsel, in structuring and negotiating mutually beneficial partnerships and/or Space Act Agreements (SAAs) between NASA GSFC and private industry, academia and/or other government agencies. 

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Senior Technology Manager

Prior to joining tech transfer, I spent 12 years as a Reliability Engineer in GSFC’s Office of Flight Assurance (OFA) where I served as the Parts Program Manager for several satellite flight projects including: Landsat 7 (LS7), Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) and X-Ray timing Explorer (XTE). While in OFA, I chaired the GSFC Non-Standard Parts Approval Request (NSPAR) Review Board for several years, influencing and providing quality assurance to most all of GSFC’s major flight project’s flight-parts programs.

I served on two project Source Evaluation Boards (SEBs) (TDRS and EOS), as the Technical Expert in Parts Engineering, in addition to developing the Parts Control Board (PCB) for NSPARs.  I led the evaluation and approval of GSFC’s first-ever in-space use of plastic encapsulated memory (PEMs)-DRAMS on the LS7’s solid-state recorder and the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) projects.


Ted Mecum