Matthew Ritsko is the Deputy Director for Planning and Business Management within the Engineering and Technology Directorate at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Matt provides infrastructure, human capital and resources management to NASA’s largest engineering organization; providing leadership for 1,291 Civil Servants and 2,063 contractors – comprised of 368 unique technical disciplines and 278 facilities.

Prior to this role, Matt served as the Deputy Director for Planning and Business Management within GSFC’s Flight Projects Directorate. In this role, Matt provided program planning and control (PP&C) leadership and guidance to spaceflight missions. He enhanced project management for 260 Civil Servants and improved cost reporting and assessments for the portfolio of 80 missions. In this executive role, he streamlined the workforce and business practices across the directorate.

From 2020 until 2022, Matt served as the Chief of Resources Management Office within the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO). In this role, he provided leadership to resources management functions supporting multiple mission directorates and GSFC facilities (Greenbelt, Wallops Flight Facility, and Independent Verification and Validation Facility). He managed approximately 320 civil servants and contractor business personal supporting the entire portfolio of institutional and spaceflight efforts. Matt also served as Goddard’s lead for Program Planning and Control (PP&C).

From 2017 until 2020, Matt was the NASA Program Business Manager for the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS); a collaborative program between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA for next generation environmental satellites. Matt served as the lead for all business activities and advised management, technical leads, and scientists on PP&C activities on a $18 billion dollar budget. Matt led an effort to reduce the program’s budget and baselined the portfolio. His responsibilities included providing overall programmatic management to enable effective project management decision making. In addition to this role, Matt was the NOAA Business Branch Chief and oversaw NASA’s business staff on GSFC collaborations with NOAA. His staff supported the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), the Space Weather Follow-On (SWFO) project, and several future study efforts. From 2013 to 2018 Matt was the Deputy Project Manager for Resources on the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Project; a $323 million dollar astrophysics exoplanet discovery mission to find nearby new planets. He was responsible for all programmatic control activities. Under Matt’s leadership, TESS was delivered two months ahead of schedule and $31 million under budget. In addition, Matt was the Deputy Project Manager for Resources for the Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return (CAESAR) project, a $1.3 billion mission concept.

Matt started his NASA career in 2005 in resources analyst roles on numerous flight projects, gaining varied (in-house and out-of-house) experiences and increased responsibilities. He supported the OCFO Program Analysis Office, the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS), the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and the Gravity and Extreme Magnetism SMEX (GEMS) projects.

Matt has been twice honored as a recipient of NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal, NASA’s Exceptional Service Medal, as well as  the Robert H. Goddard Award of Mission and Enabling Support. He has been recognized on several NASA Group Achievement and NASA Silver Achievement Medal group awards. Matt holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Pennsylvania State University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Maryland. He has a certificate in Systems Engineering from MIT and Project Management from Georgetown University.