Jet Propulsion Laboratory (U.S.). Office of the Director.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's (JPL) Executive Council was established in an interoffice memo from JPL Director William Pickering to the Senior Staff on February 14, 1963. The roles of the Executive Council were to formulate the major policies of the Laboratory, develop long range and intermediate range plans for attaining the objectives of the Laboratory, recommend to the Director preferable courses of action, periodically review with the Director the status of existing and proposed major projects, and coordinate major actions of the Laboratory. The Executive Council also was established to provide an executive forum that would be concerned with any matter that might significantly affect the welfare of the Laboratory and its activities. The Council was intended as a high level advisory and consulting group to the Director. It was not empowered to make decisions, but to directly and actively assist and support the Director on the burdens and obligations of his office.

The permanent membership of the Council was established in 1963 as consisting of eight people: the Laboratory Director, Deputy Director, and the various Assistant Laboratory Directors (ALDs). The Staff Assistant to the Director served as Secretary, and was informally in charge of keeping records of meetings and correspondence. The makeup of the Executive Council has changed through the years, with retirements, laboratory reorganizations and changes in priorities. By the end of Bruce Murray's tenure as Laboratory Director in June 1982, the Executive Council was comprised of seventeen individuals, most of them either ALDs or their Deputies.