Keith Dayton
Vice President Launch Operations
Sea Launch Company, LLC

Keith Dayton is Vice President, Launch Operations, for the Sea Launch Company. In this capacity, he is responsible for the leadership, management and coordination of the Sea Launch team. Prior to this assignment he served as Deputy Vice President of Operations, leading the day-to-day direction of the operations team.

Dayton also served as Director for Mission Assurance, where he was responsible for the integrated set of processes and systems that ensure mission success and ever increasing system reliability. In this capacity, he managed overall quality requirements, configuration and data management, problem reporting process, in-flight anomaly investigation process, integrated readiness reviews, insurers’ briefings, process auditing and hardware/software acceptance.

Before joining Sea Launch in 2002, Dayton was the Associate Program Director for the Space Shuttle upgrades program, responsible for the development of Space Shuttle power system upgrades with United Space Alliance and NASA. He also held the position of Director of Advanced Propulsion within Boeing’s Phantom Works organization, leading a technical staff in the design and development of advanced space transportation propulsion and thermal systems.

Dayton has more than 20 years of experience in the aerospace industry with 16 years experience managing programs and leading multi-discipline teams. He was the program manager of many government and NASA programs, such as the Delta Clipper Re-usable Experimental Rocket Program, the National Aerospace Plane Program, and several Strategic Defense Initiative programs with space and ground based laser weapon systems.

He is a member of the industry/government led space propulsion synergy team and AIAA mission assurance and risk management team. He is a recipient of several prestigious Boeing and government issued awards, such as the NASA Group Achievement Award, the President’s Award from McDonnell Douglas, USAF’s Award of Excellence and Award of Distinction. He was also honored with Orange County Engineering Council’s Project Award of the Year. Dayton has a Bachelors Degree from California State University, Long Beach.