Kim E. Whitson has been appointed deputy director of the Office of Procurement at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Whitson will share responsibility for all stages of the Marshall Center's contracting process, including solicitation, evaluation, negotiations, awards and contract management both at Marshall and at associated contractor facilities. He will help oversee more than 150 civil service and contract employees and will supervise more than 900 active contracts, grants and cooperative agreements valued at more than $30 billion. He assumed his position in the last quarter of 2008.

From 2004 to 2008, Whitson was manager of the Engineering Support Office in Marshall's Office of Procurement, responsible for planning and directing procurement of products and services for the Engineering Directorate. From 2002 to 2004, he managed procurement activities and contracts for the Space Shuttle Projects Office and the Flight Projects Directorate.

From 1998 to 2002, Whitson was chief of the Research and Development Support Division of the Office of Procurement, responsible for procurement activities for several Marshall organizations. In 2001, he was selected to participate in a NASA Headquarters Industry Rotation Program for one year. During the assignment, he worked with the Product Marketing organization at the Georgia Power Company in Atlanta, assisting the group in developing, launching and managing different products.