Space Studies Board Member Joe Hezir Nominated to be DOE's CFO
President Obama has nominated Joe Hezir to be the next Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the Department of Energy, replacing Steve Isakowitz who left in 2011 to join Virgin Galactic. Hezir is a member of the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Space Studies Board (SSB).
Hezir has extensive experience in the energy sector and is currently Executive Director of the Future of Solar Energy Study at MIT. His expertise also covers the space program, however, including more than a decade at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that included serving as Deputy Associate Director for Energy and Science from 1986-1992. He is a co-founder and managing partner of the EOP Group, a Washington-based consulting company specializing in government regulatory strategic development and budget policy.
Hezir served as one of the members of the NRC’s Committee on NASA’s Strategic Direction. The committee’s report, NASA’s Strategic Direction and the Need for a National Consensus, was issued in December 2012. He was appointed to the SSB in July 2012. Hezir has served on a number of other NRC committees and boards, as well as the NASA Advisory Council.
Hezir has a B.S. in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.S. from the Heinz School of Public Policy there.
If confirmed, he will follow a trail of other space-savvy former OMB insiders to DOE. He is replacing Steve Isakowitz, who was the Branch Chief for Science and Space at OMB before joining NASA as its Comptroller in 2002 and later was NASA’s Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration. He left NASA in 2007 to become DOE’s CFO, a position he left in 2011 to join Virgin Galactic. NASA’s current CFO, Elizabeth (“Beth”) Robinson, came to NASA in 2009 from OMB and is awaiting confirmation as Under Secretary of DOE. Senator David Vitter (R-LA) has placed a hold against Robinson’s nomination, however.
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