Department Manager – COSMOS Training Academy

ASCEND Aerospace & Technology, LLC (ASCEND) is an All-Small Mentor-Protégé Program (ASMPP) Joint Venture (JV) between Aerodyne Industries, LLC and Amentum Technology Inc., that leverages our 12+ year collaboration as award-winning NASA contractors. Through our ASCEND partner companies, we have 62+ years of experience working for NASA and currently manage 5,500 employees across nine NASA Centers. With this foundation of expertise, we are dedicated to helping every mission succeed—today and into the future.

Job Description

COSMOS supports NASA’s human spaceflight mission—supporting astronauts and groundbreaking science in low Earth orbit today while helping enable humanity’s return to the Moon and future exploration beyond. Our teams provide the mission systems, software, facilities, and technical expertise that help make human spaceflight possible.

COSMOS is seeking a highly motivated person to join the Mission Systems Operational Support Directorate as Department Manager for development and leadership of the COSMOS Training Academy at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

The Department Manager will provide people, technical, and organizational leadership to establish and operate a training program focused on recruiting, identifying, interviewing, and hiring new personnel to fulfill a wide variety of technical roles on the COSMOS contract. Once the new personnel are onboard, activities will shift to training and evaluating the new personnel on a wide variety of technical and interpersonal skills.

The manager will interact with other members of management on the contract to identify the type of skills needed to support open positions and establish rotational training opportunities to expose new hires to a wide array of positions in order to find the best fit for the new hire and the existing teams.

The manager will continuously evaluate the new hires to evaluate key factors such as performance, team compatibility, growth potential, technical competence, social maturity, ambition, and curiousness with regular checkpoints to determine ability to successfully perform in a given role. Ultimately the manager will, along with the management team, recommend a disposition for each new hire once they complete the program.

The successful candidate will be expected to lead through change, foster innovation and continuous improvement, develop and empower employees and team leads, and create an environment of collaboration, accountability, trust, and open communication.

Description of Duties

• Recruit, Identify, and Hire new personnel to the contract.
• Establish clear expectations for employees and provide timely coaching, feedback, recognition, and performance management.
• Develop new hires through mentoring, coaching, training, and rotational assignments.
• Evaluate employee capabilities and organizational needs to determine the best fit for assignments while supporting both the success of the contract and the development of individual employees.
• Identify future leadership and technical capability needs and support employee development and succession planning.
• Plan and execute onboarding and training of new personnel to ensure successful integration into the organization.
• Develop relationships with external institutions, including colleges and universities, to enable timely and effective acquisition of highly talented candidates.
• Ensure department processes, documentation, records, collaborative workspaces, and required management information are current, accurate, and effective.
• Communicate department status, accomplishments, issues, risks, and resource needs with COSMOS management, NASA personnel, and FOD leadership as appropriate.
• Foster a culture of innovation, continuous improvement, and constructive challenge that encourages employees to identify and implement better ways of accomplishing the work.
• Create an environment that empowers employees and team leads to bring forward new ideas, identify opportunities for improvement, appropriately challenge existing approaches, and take ownership of solutions.
• Foster a collaborative work environment that promotes teamwork, open communication, trust, accountability, and effective integration across organizational boundaries.
• Communicate urgent events and significant issues to appropriate leadership and stakeholders in a timely manner.
• Perform other leadership, technical, operational, and administrative duties as required to support the organization and NASA mission.

Job Requirements

• Experience with recruiting and hiring employees.
• Experience with development of training programs and approaches.
• Experience with objectively evaluating new hires against a variety of criteria.
• Ability to collaborate with other members of management to achieve a defined staffing outcome.
• Demonstrated ability to develop employees through coaching, feedback, mentoring, and rotational assignments.
• Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written.
• Ability to communicate effectively across organizational boundaries and with personnel at all levels.
• Demonstrated ability to establish priorities, manage multiple competing demands, and respond effectively to rapidly changing requirements.
• Strong decision making, problem-solving, conflict resolution, and organizational skills.
• Ability to build strong working relationships and operate effectively within a blended NASA and contractor organization.
• Must be able to obtain a NASA Personal Identity Verification (PIV) Badge for NASA credentials.

Desired Requirements

• Demonstrated ability to develop personnel, build organizational capability, and perform succession planning.
• Familiarity with Johnson Space Center mission systems and facilities, including the Mission Control Center (MCC), Mission Training Center (MTC) and Space Vehicle Mockup (SVMF).
• Experience supporting ISS, Artemis, Orion, Gateway, Commercial Crew or other space operations programs.
• Experience creating an environment that encourages innovation, collaboration, employee engagement, and continuous improvement.
• Demonstrated interest and motivation to learn and grow as a leader.

Qualifications

• Holds a Bachelor of Science degree from an accredited college and normally a minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience.
• Relevant experience in development and/or operation of training programs in technical industries.

This position is expected to pay $120,000 - $132,000 annually; depending on experience, education, and any certifications that are directly related to the position.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, disability, veteran status, age, marital status, pregnancy, genetic information, or other legally protected status.

Final compensation is determined through a comprehensive evaluation of several key factors, including the candidate’s educational background, specialized technical expertise, and relevant professional experience. We also consider internal equity, prevailing market data, and specific contractual or funding requirements to ensure competitive and equitable offer alignment.