LEWISTON – The head of the nation’s space exploration program will be the keynote speaker at the annual meeting of the Lewiston Auburn Economic Growth Council.

Sean O’Keefe, chief administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, confirmed that he will be speaking at the local economic development board’s annual meeting in mid-May.

“This is very cool; we’re really excited,” said Paul Badeau, marketing director for the LAEGC, who extended the invitation. Confirmation came Wednesday via Sen. Olympia Snowe’s office.

O’Keefe was appointed by President George W. Bush as NASA’s 10th administrator in December 2001. As administrator, O’Keefe leads the NASA team and manages its resources as it seeks to advance aeronautics and space technologies. The president has requested a $16.2 billion budget for NASA in his 2005 budget.

According to NASA’s biography of O’Keefe, he joined the Bush administration on inauguration day and served as the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget and deputy assistant to the president where he oversaw the preparation, management and administration of the federal budget and management initiatives across the Executive Branch.

Prior to joining the Bush administration, O’Keefe was a professor of business and government policy, an endowed chair at the Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He also served as the director of National Security Studies, a partnership of Syracuse University and Johns Hopkins University, for delivery of executive education programs for senior military and civilian Department of Defense managers.

Appointed as the secretary of the Navy in July 1992 by President George Bush, O’Keefe previously served as comptroller and chief financial officer of the Department of Defense since 1989. Before joining Defense Secretary Dick Cheney’s Pentagon management team in these capacities, he served on the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations staff for eight years, and was staff director of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. His public service began in 1978 upon selection as a presidential management intern.

He served on the national security panel to devise the 1988 Republican platform and was a member of the 1985 Kennedy School of Government program for national security executives at Harvard University.

In 1993, President Bush and Secretary Cheney presented him the Distinguished Public Service Award. He was also the recipient of the Department of the Navy’s Public Service Award in December 2000.

O’Keefe earned his bachelor of arts in 1977 from Loyola University in New Orleans, Louisiana, and his master of public administration degree in 1978 from The Maxwell School. His wife Laura and children Lindsey, Jonathan and Kevin, reside in northern Virginia.

– Carol Coultas