Reflections on Leadership and Its Politics: Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator, 2009–17

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12891
• Published date: 01 November 2017
• Date: 01 November 2017

Corrigendum

In Lambright ( 2017 ), a new paragraph has been inserted after the 5th paragraph on page 619. It should read as

follows:

Bolden wished to clarify his decision to move Scolese to Goddard. While he was frustrated with the perceived

Scolese-Garver conflict and the move ameliorated a problem in headquarters he regarded as “toxic,” the transfer

of Scolese was precipitated by other factors and was mutual between Bolden and Scolese. One factor was his

need to replace the then Goddard director, who was leaving. Scolese wished to return to Goddard where he

had begun his career to get back to dealing with core science and technology issues. A second factor—which

connects with Bolden’s growth on the political side of his job—was his need to show Senator Barbara Mikulski

(D., Md.) that he was personally serious about the James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble successor, about

which Mikulski was extremely concerned. Mikulski had an enormous influence on NASA’s budget. As Bolden

recalled, he made a “commitment to get control of the JWST program and to assure her that we’d get to the

finish line under our new budget and schedule projections. In order to do so, I decided to move primary

responsibility of JWST to the Office of the Administrator and tasked Chris [Scolese] as the principal surrogate

and decision maker for me with this program. When the center director’s position at GSFC came open…this

enabled us to move him with his leadership and decision making responsibility for Webb to Goddard from

where the JWST program was being managed.” The move of Scolese from headquarters to Goddard thus served

a number of Bolden ’ s purposes.

Reference

Lambright , W. Henry . 2017 . Reflections on Leadership and Its Politics: Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator, 2009–17 . Public

Administration Review 77 ( 4 ): 616 – 20 . https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12757 .

Reflections on Leadership and Its Politics:

Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator, 2009–17

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 77, Iss. 6, pp. 960. © 2017 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12891.

960 Public Administration Review • November | December 2017