The Securities and Exchange Commission has appointed Wesley Bricker, interim chief accountant at SEC, to the position on a full-basis as successor to the retiring James Schnurr.

SEC said Tuesday the Bricker will head the Office of the Chief Accountant and serve as the commission’s principal adviser on accounting and auditing matters under his new role.

Bricker will also help SEC discharge its oversight of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

He was named interim chief accountant in July to fill in for Schnurr, who suffered injuries in a bicycle accident.

“[Bricker] has demonstrated excellent leadership and analytic skills in leading the work of the office, and we are very fortunate to continue to have him serve this critical role at the agency,” said SEC Chair Mary Jo White.

Bricker joined SEC from PwC, where he served as a partner and oversaw audit engagements in the banking, capital markets, financial technology and investment management sectors.

He previously worked as a professional accounting fellow in Office of the Chief Accountant.

The Office of Personnel Management has implemented a governmentwide suspension on the processing of an agency’s Qualifications Review Board cases for Senior Executive Service appointments once the agency chief resigns.

Beth Cobert, acting OPM director, wrote in a memorandum issued Friday the moratorium is scheduled to take effect on Dec. 7 and seeks to provide incoming agency heads an opportunity to decide on executive appointments.

Cobert noted that President Barack Obama asked “all non-termed presidential appointees” to submit letters of resignation by Dec. 7 in an effort to provide the president-elect “maximum flexibility” to form his administration.

OPM will put off the 90-day deadline for QRB case submissions, decline new QRB case submissions and continue to process cases that agencies filed with OPM prior to the implementation of the moratorium, according to the memo.

The moratorium will not apply to agency chiefs whose departures were not called by the U.S. president as well as personnel who have completed an OPM-approved Candidate Development Program for SES.

Agencies may request a moratorium exception for a particular post “based upon critical need,” Cobert added.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Igor Komarov, head of Russia’s national space organization Roscosmos, have discussed further cooperation on space activities between the U.S. and Russia, Space News reported Monday.

Jeff Foust writes Bolden and Komarov said at a press conference on Saturday crew exchanges between the two countries will start once NASA launches commercial crew vehicles to provide transportation to the International Space Station.

“I believe that it is very important for all participants of the program to have alternative transportation means to the station,” Komarov said.

Komarov added Russian cosmonauts will fly on U.S. commercial vehicles while some NASA astronauts will continue to use Russian Soyuz spacecraft, Foust reported.

Bolden noted the two countries have yet to work out details on crew exchanges, the report stated.

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program aims to develop a commercial crew space transportation platform that could end U.S. reliance on Soyuz vehicles.

Subject-matter experts at NASA‘s Kennedy Space Center in Florida have provided technical support to SeaDek Marine Products and GeNO as part of the agency’s Regional Economic Development program that seeks to increase partnership between the center and local businesses.

NASA said Tuesday KSC’s Cryogenics Test Laboratory provided test equipment as well as test and evaluation procedures to help SeaDek address material limitation for the closed-cell EVA foam that is used for the company’s padded deck protectors.

Biopharmaceutical company GeNO worked with NASA’s mechanical engineers through the RED Program to correct a malfunctioning reaction vessel, NASA added.

“This effort is about connecting our regional industry with NASA’s technology, capabilities and resources, with the goal of solving technology challenges together and driving economic successes for the region,” said Elizabeth Huy, senior manager of business development at the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast.

“The subject-matter experts assisted us in a search for an answer that would have taken us an additional two years to find on our own,” said Ryan Denton, an engineer at GeNO.

KSC and EDC jointly launched a regional economic development pilot program dubbed Technology Docking in January 2015 to facilitate collaborations between the center and companies in the region.

The RED program works to match small companies with subject-matter experts at Kennedy to provide advice, address problems and introduce money-saving methods.

Robert Ashley, project lead for Kennedy Space Center’s RED Program, said NASA seeks to establish an umbrella Space Act Agreement with EDC to further support small companies.

Sixty-nine companies have engaged in initial discussions with NASA experts under the RED program over the past two years and 14 of those companies received additional assistance from the agency through the Technology Docking program.