Mary Kicza was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1959.  She earned a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from California State University and a masters degree in Business Administration from the Florida Institute of Technology.  Mary started her federal career as a coop student working as a civil servant for the Air Force at McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento, California.  She worked at McClellan as an engineer developing software for automated test systems supporting Air Force satellite systems.  In 1982, Mary came to work for NASA where she stayed until 2005, having served in several positions and locations, including as an engineer at the Kennedy Space Center (supporting the Atlas Centaur and Shuttle Centaur Programs), at NASA Headquarters (progressing from engineering into senior management within NASA’s Office of Space Science and Applications), at NASA Goddard (serving as Associate Center Director), then back to NASA Headquarters as an Associate Administrator and then as NASA’s Deputy Associate Administrator.  She transitioned to NOAA in 2005, following a change in NASA Administration, and served first as Deputy AA and then as AA within NOAA NESDIS.  Mary retired from federal service in 2005 and has consulted to companies supporting both NASA and NOAA since that time.