People Category: Wednesday SciTech Sessions

Joe came to Boom with significant experience in the aerospace industry. He played engineering and leadership roles on aircraft and certification programs at Hawker Beechcraft, Adam Aircraft Industries, Eclipse Aviation, and ICON Aircraft, and he has been an early employee at three aerospace startups. At Adam, he was Chief Engineer of the Adam A700 light jet. In addition to his work on several experimental and military projects, Joe has led development of several passenger aircraft from clean sheet through FAA certification.

C. Wayne Ottinger Has more than sixty years of aerospace engineering and management experience including positions with federal and state agencies, industry, consulting, and small business. His aerospace and advanced technology experience includes jet and rocket propulsion, flight-testing, engine control systems, ejection systems, energy conservation and renewable energy sources. He was the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle Technical Director and Base Manager (Ellington Field LLTV Flight Test) for Bell Aerosystems Co. For the NASA Flight Research Center (now the Armstrong Flight Research Center), he was Project Engineer (Flight Operations) for the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle and Propulsion Engineer for the X-15 Rocket Aircraft. In June 2008 he founded, Aerospace Legacy Engineering & Technology Recovery Organization (ALETRO) a nonprofit corporation and serves as President. In 2008 & 2009 he served as a NASA SAGES (Shuttle and Apollo Generation Expert Services) consultant on the NASA Study for Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV) options for the Constellation program. Post Apollo, he worked in a number of advanced technology fields:

• Air Cushion Vehicles & Surface Effect Ships, Engineering Consultant & Film Producer
• California Energy Commission, Conservation & Renewables
• Uranium Enrichment, Gas Centrifuges, Advanced Imaging Technologies for failure analysis
• Owner/Builder Passive Solar Home, Featured in Sunset Magazine

Dr. Erik L. Axdahl is chief engineer for high speed transportation at The Spaceship Company (TSC), with the vision to transform  commercial air travel.  Prior to joining TSC, Erik served as a research aerospace engineer at NASA Langley Research Center where he collaborated on national projects in support of hypersonic propulsion and vehicle development.  He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and earned his master’s and doctorate from Georgia Tech.  Erik is also a member of the AIAA High Speed Air Breathing Propulsion technical committee and is that group’s technical discipline chair for AIAA Propulsion and Energy.