William W. Parsons Jr.

William W. (Bill) Parsons is an American engineer. He served as the ninth director of NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center, and as the fifth and seventh director of NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center.

Parsons served as Space Shuttle Program Manager from 2003 to 2005, and was instrumental in the Space Shuttle's return to flight in 2005 following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

Career

NASA Parsons joined the NASA team in 1990 at the Kennedy Space Center as a launch site support manager in the Shuttle Operations Directorate. In 1997, he was assigned to Stennis Space Center as the chief of operations of the Propulsion Test Directorate. Parsons relocated to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston to become the director of the Center Operations Directorate. He later served as the deputy director. In 2001, he returned to Stennis and served as director of the Center Operations and Support Directorate. His first stint as Stennis center director came in August 2002.

Personal life Parsons holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from the University of Mississippi, and a master's degree in engineering management from the University of Central Florida.

He resides in Sanford, Florida.