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Prior to his confirmation as the DDR&E, Dr. Hans Mark was a Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at The University of Texas at Austin from 1988-1998. He also held the John J. McKetta Centennial Energy Chair in Engineering from 1992-1998. He had been associated with The University's Institute for Advanced Technology as a Senior Research Engineer since 1990. In that capacity he worked on advanced weapons systems for the U.S. Army.
Dr. Mark was Chancellor of The University of Texas System from 1984-1992. The University of Texas System consists of 15 separate institutions, nine academic campuses, four medical schools and two research oriented hospitals. Two of the academic campuses, The University of Texas-Pan American and The University of Texas at Brownsville, were added to The University of Texas System during Dr. Mark's term of service as Chancellor. The externally funded research performed at the U.T. System campuses increased from $270 million in 1984 to $600 million in 1992. In addition, two industrial research consortia were established and housed in facilities partly financed by the University, the Microelectronics and Computer Corporation (MCC) and SEMATECH. The University of Texas System is one of the largest university systems in the U.S. having 60,000 employees, 160,000 students and an annual budget of about $4.5 billion.
Prior to joining the University in 1984, Dr. Mark was appointed the Deputy Administrator of NASA in 1981. During his term of service he oversaw the first 14 space shuttle flights and helped to initiate the U.S. Space Station Program. Dr. Mark moved to Washington, D.C. in 1977 when he was appointed Undersecretary of the Air Force and Director of the National Reconnaissance Office. In the latter post, he was responsible for managing the U.S. satellite reconnaissance program. In 1979, Dr. Mark was appointed Secretary of the Air Force, a post he held until 1981. During his service as Secretary of the Air Force, Dr. Mark initiated the establishment of the U.S. Air Force Space Command, which is now the U.S. Space Command with headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Before moving to Washington, D.C., Dr. Mark was the director of the NASA-Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California from 1969-1977. The Center is responsible for conducting a wide variety aeronautical and space research projects. During his term as director, he supervised the management of the "Pioneer" planetary exploration program. Pioneer 10 was launched on March 2, 1972 and became the first spacecraft to fly past Jupiter and the first manmade object to leave the solar system. Dr. Mark was also responsible for initiating the Bell XV-15 experimental tiltrotor aircraft program which in 1996 led to the development of the first privately funded commercial venture in tiltrotor aviation, the Bell-Boeing 609.
From 1955-1969, Dr. Mark was associated with the University of California at Berkeley and at Livermore, California. He served as a professor of nuclear engineering and department chairman at the University of California in Berkeley and as a research scientist and division leader at the University's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Mark led research groups working in nuclear and atomic physics and also contributed to astrophysics and to developing instrumentation used in the testing of nuclear weapons. In addition to his regular academic appointment, Dr. Mark has held non-tenured or adjunct appointments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the University of California at Davis, and The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of Polytechnic University in New York and was a director of several corporations. He served on President Ford's Science and Technology Advisory Group and on the Defense Science Board.
Dr. Mark is the author or co-author of more than 180 scholarly articles and numerous books including Experiments in Modern Physics, The Management of Research Institutions, Power and Security, The Space Station: A Personal Journey, and Adventures in Celestial Mechanics.
Dr. Mark was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1976. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, The American Physical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi, Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, The American Nuclear Society, the American Society for Engineering Education, the Cosmos Club, and the Council on Foreign Relations. In 1966, Dr. Mark was named outstanding engineering teacher at the University of California in Berkeley by Tau Beta Pi. He was awarded NASA's Distinguished Service Medal in 1972 and again in 1977. In 1981, he received the Distinguished Public Service Medal from the Department of Defense. The U.S. Air Force bestowed the Exceptional Civilian Service Medal on Dr. Mark in 1979, and in 1984 he received the Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal and the Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal from NASA. Dr. Mark holds four honorary degrees: Doctor of Science from Florida Institute of Technology (1978), Doctor of Engineering degrees from Polytechnic University (1982) and the Milwaukee School of Engineering (1991), and a Doctor of Humane Letters from St. Edward's University (1993).
Dr. Mark earned an A.B. degree in physics from the University of California in Berkeley in 1951 and a Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1954. From 1954 to 1955, he served as acting chief of the neutron physics group at MIT.
Visit http://www.dtic.mil/ddre/bios/mark.html to find out more.
As the Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) since July 1998, Dr. Hans Mark is the chief technical advisor to the Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology (USD(A&T)) on defense research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E). In this capacity, Dr. Mark oversees the priorities, programs, and strategies of the DoD RDT&E program.