Former NASA Administrator and Wash100 Award winner Jim Bridenstine has been selected to the National Security Space Association’s board of advisors.

As a board member, Bridenstine will leverage his extensive experience in the space and national security fields to drive the association’s mission to cultivate and maintain long-term collaborations between the public and private sectors going forward, the NSSA shared with ExecutiveGov in an email sent last week.

“Since the National Security Space Association’s founding, they have managed to create a coalition highlighting the national importance of space that often transcends the national security community,” Bridenstine said.

Bridenstine shared his excitement to contribute to the board, which he said “already holds unparalleled expertise and a wide breadth of perspectives.”

In April 2018, Bridenstine was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the 13th NASA administrator, a role he held until January 2021. While serving in this position, Bridenstine played a leading role in progressing NASA’s aeronautic, science and space exploration initiatives.

Before joining NASA, Bridenstine represented Oklahoma’s First Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was a member of the Armed Services Committee and the Science, Space and Technology Committee.

Bridenstine assumed his first public sector role as a U.S. Navy pilot in 1998, during which he flew the E-2C Hawkete off the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. Following his transition from active duty to the U.S. Navy Reserve, Bridenstine returned to Tulsa, Oklahoma and assumed the position of executive director at the Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetarium.

“Jim brings a diversity of experience and insight that will highly inform the Association’s priorities and focus, thus enabling us to better support the national security space enterprise and our member companies,” said NSSA Chairman Joe Dodd.

Outside of NSSA, Bridenstine works as an independent consultant across multiple defense, aerospace and intelligence markets.

Jeff Rezmovic, who most recently served as deputy chief of staff for policy at the Department of Homeland Security, has been nominated by President Joe Biden to assume the chief financial officer role at DHS.

According to a White House announcement on Tuesday, the national security leader has experience in advancing DHS’ strategic, policy and operational priorities such as counterterrorism, cybersecurity, border security, immigration and emergency management.

Rezmovic also helped Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas oversee DHS’ $98 billion budget and 260,000 personnel.

“Jeff’s accomplishments demonstrate his talent and commitment to making government more capable, efficient and accountable to the people we serve. During his tenure at DHS, he led the creation of the congressionally-mandated Surge Capacity Force,” Mayorkas said about Rezmovic.

Rezmovic’s career with the department started in 2010, when he joined the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a presidential management fellow and speechwriter.

After that, he assumed roles of increasing responsibility such as acting deputy chief of staff, counselor to the deputy secretary and branch chief at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Gen. Eric Smith, assistant commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, assumed additional duties as acting commandant of the service branch following Gen. David Berger’s retirement after more than four decades in service and four years at the helm of USMC, USNI News reported Monday.

The Senate has yet to confirm Smith, who testified before the upper chamber in mid-June with regard to his nomination to the USMC commandant role. He is the first acting commandant since 1910.

“Because no 39th commandant has yet been confirmed by the Senate, I will perform the duties of the commandant using the full authority of that office until such time as a confirmation occurs,” Smith said in a video message after the relinquishment of command ceremony.

Smith said he will focus on advancing the service’s overhaul efforts and ensuring the force’s readiness to respond to crises worldwide, according to a report by the Marine Corps Times.

“I still retain the authorities of the office of the commandant, so as far as budgetary, experimentation, changing formations, I can still do all that,” the general said. “And those things that are working well for us — long-range fires, et cetera — we will move faster on them as long as we have a defense budget.”