La Forge once impressed Captain Jean-Luc Picard by staying up all night to fix a shuttle craft that Picard mentioned had a superficial problem. Upon learning this, Picard decided he wanted Geordi on his next command which ended up being the "Enterprise"-D where Geordi was assigned to him as a helmsman. At the beginning of , he was promoted to Lieutenant and named Chief Engineer; in , he rose to Lieutenant Commander, a rank that he held for the duration of the series and movies.