Sierra Space CEO suddenly announces retirement
The CEO of Sierra Space, Tom Vice, revealed yesterday his decision to retire at the end of 2024, providing no reasons for the decision.
Vice had not previously announced any plans to retire from Sierra Space, where he had been chief executive since mid-2021. When the company issued the statement about his retirement, Vice was still listed on Sierra Space’s website in his roles as chief executive and a member of the company’s board of directors.
Sierra Space said that the chairman of the board of Sierra Space, Fatih Ozmen, would serve as interim chief executive while the company looks for a permanent replacement. He is chief executive and co-owner of Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), the company from which Sierra Space was spun out in 2021.
The coming year is going to be critical for Sierra, as it will finally launch Tenacity to ISS after years of delays. Should it fail, the company will face huge hurtles to survive. Maybe Vice, who is 61, decided it was time to actually retire. He also likely didn’t want take on that risk.
Overall Vice’s leadership had been good for Sierra. The company’s work accelerated significantly after it was spun off from Sierra Nevada.
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The CEO of Sierra Space, Tom Vice, revealed yesterday his decision to retire at the end of 2024, providing no reasons for the decision.
Vice had not previously announced any plans to retire from Sierra Space, where he had been chief executive since mid-2021. When the company issued the statement about his retirement, Vice was still listed on Sierra Space’s website in his roles as chief executive and a member of the company’s board of directors.
Sierra Space said that the chairman of the board of Sierra Space, Fatih Ozmen, would serve as interim chief executive while the company looks for a permanent replacement. He is chief executive and co-owner of Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), the company from which Sierra Space was spun out in 2021.
The coming year is going to be critical for Sierra, as it will finally launch Tenacity to ISS after years of delays. Should it fail, the company will face huge hurtles to survive. Maybe Vice, who is 61, decided it was time to actually retire. He also likely didn’t want take on that risk.
Overall Vice’s leadership had been good for Sierra. The company’s work accelerated significantly after it was spun off from Sierra Nevada.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Thoughts on this being a way to provide a way in for Tory Bruno and possibly parts of ULA?
A built-for-reuse orbiter / lander and a non-reusable booster don’t sound like a great pair. I get the impression that ULA wants to be in the business of manufacturing rockets, while Sierra wants to be in the business of flying rockets.
Ray Van Dune,
I’m inclined to agree. Sierra’s weakness is that it has always subcontracted too much of its stuff to OldSpace outfits and that has slowed it a lot. The best example is that of having the main structure of Dream Chaser built by LockMart. The departed Vice, so far as I can tell as a casual observer, did nothing much toward doing more of Sierra’s work in-house.
AO1,
Interesting thought. Sierra’s owners would certainly have gotten to know Bruno pretty well while kicking ULA’s tires over the last couple of years.
But ULA has suffered from the same problem as has Sierra of over-reliance on sub-contractors for major components it lacks the capability of designing and making in-house. In ULA’s case that may well simply be a matter of Bruno’s limited maneuvering room given Boeing and LockMart’s history of treating ULA as a cash cow and not allowing it the funds needed to correct its internal deficiencies. In the case of Sierra the problem seems more organic. The Ozmens not only tapped LockMart to build, quite tardily, the main structure for Dream Chaser – echoing ULA’s difficulties with getting BE-4 engines from Blue Origin – but also took on its own role as a subcontractor for that very same Blue Origin on the Orbital Reef project about which Blue has also since dithered much and blown hot and cold. Perhaps Bruno – especially if Sierra actually bought ULA – could fill the gaps that have kept both companies from being as vertically integrated as it now seems plain they need to be to have any prayer of remaining viable going forward against competitors which are.