ASK OCE — January 12, 2007 — Vol. 2, Issue 1

U.S News & World Report, in conjunction with the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government named Charles Elachi of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as one of “America’s Best Leaders” for 2006. Other honorees include Warren Buffet, Sandra Day O’Connor, Wynton Marsalis, and Michael Bloomberg.

Elachi was chosen for his bold leadership in turning around NASA’s Mars projects after the mission failures of the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander in the 1990s. The result of his efforts was the successful Mars Exploration Rover (MER) program, which included the Spirit and Opportunity rovers.

Elachi instituted the creation of an engineering master list for the program. At the outset of the mission, he instructed managers and team leaders to make a detailed list itemizing everything they could think of that would require testing and verification before launch. The list proved indispensable in ensuring that the JPL team had left no stone unturned.

The honorees were selected by a committee of government, community, and private-sector leaders convened by the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Read the U.S News & World Report article.