|  | Gaele Winters | |
Gaele Winters
Director of OPS
Gaele Winters is the ESA Director of Operations and Infrastructure (D/OPS), and Head of the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, taking up duty in April 2004.
After graduating with an MSc in Economics from the Free University of Amsterdam, Gaele Winters joined the Secretariat of the Social-Economic Council of the Netherlands.
In 1981 he became Senior Policy Advisor in the Energy Department of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and in 1986 Head of the Division for Gas Revenues, a post he held for two years.
His next position with the Ministry was as Deputy Director for Manufacturing and Heavy Industry, followed by Director of the Policy Division in 1990. It was during this period that he first became concerned with space as he was also appointed Policy Coordinator for Space Policy.
In 1993, still within the Ministry of Economic Affairs, he was appointed Deputy Director-General for Industry as well as Director for General Policy Coordination for the Industry Directorate-General. In this position he was concerned with all technological development programmes including those for space, and as Director of Manufacturing and Heavy Industry he was directly involved with aerospace issues. Because of this experience, in 1997 he was appointed President and CEO of Fokker Space BV, a position he held until joining ESA. Prior to his present post, he had been ESA Director of Technical and Operational Support since 2001.
Gaele Winters was appointed Chairman of the ESA Council in 1993. He has also been Chairman of the Netherlands Industrial Space Organisation and on the boards of the Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programmes and the Netherlands Aerospace Laboratory.
His experience of both the public and private sectors has helped him to understand the differences between the two sectors and the constraints facing a public agency.
The Directorate of Operations and Infrastructure is a support directorate within the ESA organisation. OPS is responsible for ESA's flight operations and corresponding ground segment facilities, and in more general terms, for ESA's infrastructure facilities.
As a consequence, within D/OPS are the two major ESOC departments for Ground Systems Engineering and Mission Operations, in addition to the Information Systems department and the Site Management department.
One of the key roles of OPS will be to optimise the use of the ESA's investment and maintenance budgets. This implies a strong focus on the internal customers and their present and future needs. D/OPS will also be the focal point for developing cooperation with other centres in Europe in the field of flight operations.
When asked about his position Gaele Winters said, "The main challenge for our directorate will be to respond in an effective way to the needs of our customers, in the first place the ESA programmes, by maintaining a high quality of services while at the same time finding new ways to increase efficiency and lower the costs of our operations."
Last update: 17 July 2008 | 
