He received a Master of Arts degree in national security affairs and strategic studies from the United States Naval War College in 1990.

He is married to the former Lynne Denise Mungle of St. Charles, Missouri, who works with Coldwell Banker Real Estate, and coordinates many charity and volunteer events.

Precourt graduated from Undergraduate Pilot Training at Reese Air Force Base, Texas, in 1978.

He holds commercial pilot, multi-engine instrument, glider and certified flight instructor ratings.

His other technical assignments to date have included: manager of ascent, entry, and launch abort issues for the Astronaut Office Operations Development Branch; spacecraft communicator (CAPCOM), providing the voice link from the Mission Control Center during launch and entry for several Space Shuttle missions; director of operations for NASA at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, from October 1995 to April 1996, with responsibility for the coordination and implementation of mission operations activities in the Moscow region for the joint U.S./Russian Shuttle-Mir Program.

STS-55 also flew the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment (SAREX) making contact with students in 14 schools around the world.

After 160 orbits of Earth in 240 flight hours, the 10-day mission concluded with a landing on Runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on May 6, 1993.

It also carried a Spacehab module in the payload bay in which the crew performed various life sciences experiments and data collections.

[2] STS-91 Discovery (June 2–12, 1998) was the 9th and final Shuttle-Mir docking mission and marked the conclusion of the highly successful joint U.S./Russian Phase I Program.

The crew, including a Russian cosmonaut, performed logistics and hardware resupply of the Mir during four docked days.