Michael Gass stepped down as ULA's CEO in August 2014 and was replaced by Tory Bruno, former vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Strategic and Missile Defense Systems. ULA entered into a partnership with Blue Origin in September 2014 to develop the BE-4 LOX/methane engine to replace the RD-180 on a new, lower cost first-stage booster rocket. At the time, the engine was in its third year of development by Blue Origin. ULA said it expected the new stage and engine to start flying no earlier than 2019 on a successor to the Atlas V. A month later, ULA announced a major restructuring of processes and workforce to halve launch costs, partly due to competition from SpaceX. The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) calculated the average cost of each ULA rocket launch for the U.S. government had risen to approximately US$420 million in 2014.