Jeff M. Bingham
Principal, Focused Solutions and Strategies, LLC
Mr. Bingham is currently the sole proprietor of Focused Solutions and Strategies, LLC, a Virginia-based consulting firm. Mr. Bingham began his career in 1972, as the Assistant to the Mayor of Salt Lake City, E.J. “Jake” Garn. When Mayor Garn was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1974, Mr. Bingham became his Chief of Staff in Washington, DC and served in that role to September of 1990. Throughout that period, he was heavily involved in the Senator’s space-related activity, as Ranking Member and Chairman of the Senate VA-HUD-IA Subcommittee on Appropriations, which had responsibility for NASA appropriations. After leaving the Senator’s office in 1990, he served as a NASA consultant and participant in the Synthesis Group, chaired by former Gemini and Apollo astronaut General Tom Stafford, charged with developing alternative planning approaches for missions to the Moon and Mars under the Space Exploration Initiative of President George H.W. Bush.
In May 1991 he relocated to Houston, Texas as a Senior Policy Analyst for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), and supported the Johnson Space Center in strategic planning and exploration policy activities. In 1994 he joined NASA as the Legislative Coordinator for the International Space Station Program, serving in that role until September 1996. From April 1996 to April 1999, he managed the Space Station Information Center (aka “War Room”), and returned to Washington, DC and NASA Headquarters in September 1996 to undertake that activity full-time. In December 2000, he supported the Bush-Cheney NASA Transition Team, and in January 2001 was appointed by the White House as Special Assistant for Legislation to NASA Chief of Staff. From May 2001 to May 2002, he served as Acting Associate Administrator, then as Associate Administrator for Legislative Affairs, at NASA Headquarters. In May 2002, he was appointed Senior Advisor/Special Assistant to the NASA Administrator for Policy and History.
Mr. Bingham left NASA in April, 2004, and spent a year working on organizing materials for a space station policy history, writing, speaking and consulting. In April, 2005, he returned to the U.S. Senate as Staff Director for the Subcommittee on Science and Space of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, chaired by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) which had authorization and oversight jurisdiction for NASA and the National Science Foundation. Over time that job evolved to be Senior Adviser on Space for the full Commerce Committee, and he remained in that job until August 30, 2013. While at the Committee, Mr. Bingham served as the lead Republican staff in the development and enactment into law of the 2005, 2008 and 2010 NASA Authorization Acts.
Jeff remains active on an advisory basis in the space policy arena and currently serves as a member of the Space Studies Board (SSB) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, where he also serves on the SSB Executive Committee. In July 2016, Mr. Bingham was appointed by Virginia Governor McAuliffe to the Board of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, which operates the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops, Island, Virginia and is currently Vice Chairman of the Authority. In September 2016, Mr. Bingham was elected as Vice President for Policy of the American Astronautical Society (AAS). He is also a member of the Board of Advisers of Explore Mars, LLC.