Karl-Egon Reuter has been involved in space activities for nearly 30 years, 25 of which he spent, in various capacities, at the European Space Agency (ESA) and, previously, at its predecessor organisation European Space Research Organisation (ESRO). He graduated in Production Engineering at Aachen Technical University in 1962. After some years conducting research at the Institute for Machine Tools and Production Engineering of Aachen University, in 1962, he joined the Nuclear Research Centre KFA Jülich in Germany, becoming Section Head for project planning and external contracts. In 1969 Reuter took up a new position in the ESRO in Paris as an engineer in the Forecast and Programmes Division and was appointed in May 1976 - after the formation of the ESA - Head of the General Planning Department, a post he retained until 1980. From 1981 to 1985 he served as Project Control Manager of the Franco-German Direct Broadcast Satellite Project TV-SAT/TDF 1 as an employee of the Deutsche Forschungs- und Versuchsanstalt für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DFVLR) in Munich, Germany. K.-E. Reuter returned to ESA in late 1985 as Head of the Coordination and Monitoring Office and in 1988 was appointed Head of the Director General's Cabinet, a position with responsibility for the Secretariats of the ESA Council and Management Board, ESA Public Relations and Publications and supervision of the Agency's outposts in Brussels, Moscow and Washington. He prepared and organised the ESA Council sessions at ministerial Level in 1987, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1997 and 1999. Reuter was a member of both the German and French Associations for Aeronautics and Astronautics (DGLR and AAAF) and in 1995 chaired the Space Agency Forum (SAF). He has authored a number of papers on Programme Planning and ESA's Long-Term Plan and Programmes and in 1990 initiated the ESA History Project which he managed until his retirement in 1999 when he became chairman of the ESA History Advisory Committee up to the end of the Extended Project in 2005.