Bill Ochs

Biography

Bill Ochs has 30+ years of experience in the aerospace industry. He has worked in both private industry and for NASA and is currently the Project Manager for the James Webb Space Telescope. Ochs received a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Fairleigh Dickinson University and a Masters in Operations Research from George Washington University. He began his career in 1979 with the Bendix Guidance Systems Division in Teterboro, N.J. as an electronics/software engineer, developing the flight software for the Hubble Space Telescope safing system. In 1983, Ochs transferred to Goddard Space Flight Center as a systems engineer for HST operations. In 1990, Ochs joined NASA as the HST Operations Observatory Systems Manager. Ochs has also served as the HST Deputy Operations Manager and the HST Operations Servicing Mission Manager. In 1998, Ochs became the Project Manager for the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) which was successfully launched in January of 2003. After SORCE, he was appointed the Project Manager for LDCM and led the project through the difficult period of the LDCM Data Buy, flying an instrument on NPOESS, to the current mission implementation. In December 2010, Ochs was appointed the JWST Project Manager. Ochs has been the recipient of the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal, the Space Flight Awareness Honoree Award, various NASA Group Awards, 2010 NASA Honor Award for Outstanding Leadership Medal, and most recently the 2011 Robert H. Goddard Award for Outstanding Leadership. In his spare time (of which he has little), he enjoys photography, golfing, reading, woodworking, and travel.