A Montevallo native has been tapped as the acting director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

Robert M. Lightfoot, Marshall’s deputy center director, will serve until a permanent replacement is named for David King, who is retiring as director at Marshall to accept a position as executive vice president of Dynetics in Huntsville.

King’s retirement is effective immediately, said a press release.

Lightfoot has served as deputy director at Marshall since May 2007. From 2005 to 2007, Lightfoot worked as manager of the Space Shuttle Propulsion Office at Marshall. Prior to that, Lightfoot was assistant associate administrator for the Space Shuttle Program in the Office of Space Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Before that, he was director of the Propulsion Test Directorate at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Miss.

Lightfoot began his work with NASA at Marshall in 1989 as a test engineer and program manager. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of Alabama, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering.