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Space Frontier Conference 13 Speakers Bios
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Walt Anderson – Walt Anderson, CEO of Orbital Recovery Corp., has played a major part of the competitive telecommunications industry which began in the U.S. in 1980 when MCI won a landmark legal decision which allowed it to compete with AT&T for long distance services. He has started, successfully operated and sold many telecom operations and has been an investor, advisor, Chairman or board member for numerous other companies.
Mr. Anderson is the founder of Gold & Appel Transfer S.A., a venture capital and business development company with investment in private and public companies operating in telecommunication, aerospace and water transportation business. He is chairman of Satellite Media Services, which was created by Gold & Appel in 1997 to provide competitive access to satellite capacity linking most of the world to Europe. Satellite Media Services created and operates one of the worlds largest IP satellite networks. He is also a director of MirCorp, which was originally formed to privatize the MIR space station. MirCorp arranged for the first space ‘tourist’, Dennis Tito, to visit the ISS. MirCorp recently announced plans to build and launch a new mini-station to an orbit near the ISS in cooperation with RSC Energia with the support of the Russian Space Agency, the Russian Government and NASA.
Andre Bormanis – Andre Bormanis received his B.S. in Physics, (minor in Mathematics), in 1981 from the University of Arizona. He received his M.A. in Science, Technology, and Public Policy in 1994 from George Washington University. His master's thesis was entitled "A Program in Transition: Policy Aspects of U.S. Planetary Exploration."
Mr. Bormanis is a policy analyst and consultant; has assisted in research in planetary science and astronomy; has taught physics, mathematics, and microcomputer application software at the undergraduate level; has written teaching materials and workbooks for microcomputer application software courses; has written policy papers, popular science articles, and screenplays, and has helped design and develop an interactive astronomy education microcomputer software package. From 1993 through 2001 he was science consultant to the Star Trek television and feature film series. During this period he also wrote a number of stories and teleplays for the Star Trek: Voyager television series. From 1993 through 1998 he assisted the San Juan Institute (a non-profit planetary research science laboratory in San Juan Capistrano, California) in the development of new programs. He is also a long-time volunteer for The Planetary Society, and helped organize the highly successful Planetfest '97 and Planetfest '99 public events.
Mr. Bormanis is currently a staff writer on the Paramount television series Enterprise.
Rick Citron – Rick Citron is an attorney and entrepreneur specializing in business law, real estate, and succession planning. He has contributed to the success stories of hundreds of companies, utilizing his experience and the synergy of a carefully nurtured network of professionals throughout the world. Rick's support and counsel have fostered positive business relationships, and created a loyal client base for the boutique law firm of Citron & Deutsch. He continues to share his knowledge and experience through guest seminars on raising capital, succession planning, communications, technology and law.
Jeff Krukin – Jeff Krukin is an international speaker, writer, analyst, and award-winning leader concerned with commercial space development, space settlement, and The Human-Space ConnectionTM, which you can learn about at www.jeffkrukin.com. During his undergraduate studies in Psychology and Sociology at The George Washington University, Jeff became interested in how resource constraints contribute to global conflict. This lead to the Studies of the Future graduate program at the University of Houston/Clear Lake, where he studied space resources and deepened his belief that space settlement and development are necessary for humanity's survival and prosperity.
Jeff's first space article was published in 1981, the year he completed his graduate internship at NASA Headquarters and became an IBM Systems Engineer at NASA's Johnson Space Center. In the early-1990's he began speaking at conferences about the settlement and development of space. Combining his passions for space and writing, in the early 1990's he wrote a monthly column entitled "Think About It," which appeared for several years in the Journal for Space Development and other space newsletters. He has also been published in Space News, the Houston Chronicle, the Houston Business Journal, and on websites like Spacedaily.com and Betterhumans.com. Chelsea House will publish his first book essays, specifically written for high school students, in a multi-author collection in Fall 2004.
Jeff is also a noted conference speaker and has been interviewed on radio and television news programs. Recent speeches include the Return to the Moon conference, where he presented ideas for marketing space to the general public, and the World Future Society's annual conference. This December, Jeff will speak at the International Space University's annual international symposium in France.
Invited to become a Space Frontier Foundation Advocate in 1990, Jeff became a Board Member in 1995, and the first Director of Advocates the following year. In 1997 he left the Foundation to become a ProSpace Board Member and Director of the 1998 and 1999 March Storm lobbying events. For this Jeff received the 1998 ProSpace Activist of the Year Award. In 1999 he became Vice President and continued as Director of March Storm. Jeff became Chairman in 2002 and served until 2004. Jeff's current affiliations include the International Association of Space Entrepreneurs and The Space Frontier Foundation's Space Settlement Project.
Thomas Andrew Olson – In 1986, Thomas A. Olson helped start up the investment firm Sydney Capital Management, in San Francisco. Within two years, working in close association with the firm's primary founder and CEO, Bill Rivoire, he helped raise the asset base under management to over $250 million. He remained with Sydney until its acquisition by Kidder-Peabody in the early 90's.
Prior to Sydney and after, up to the present day, Mr. Olson has been an IT consultant to small and medium sized enterprises. President of Cyberjox, Ltd. Consulting Services in New York, he has added value in complex projects for such firms as Lockheed-Martin, Bechtel Civil Corp., ATT Cablesystems, KPMG, and Consumers Union. He specializes in development of content management systems for cross-media publishing.
His academic backgrounds include a B.A. in Biology and advanced studies in Aerospace Engineering. A space enthusiast since Alan Shepard's 1st flight, Mr. Olson is a Founding Member of the Mars Society, and was elected an Advocate of the Space Frontier Foundation in 2003.
When Pathfinder landed on Mars in 1997, and the JPL website received tens of millions of hits in a few short weeks, he was hit with an idea: That if somehow all that latent public interest in space could be more effectively channeled, the door to a new Space Age could truly be opened for everyone. He liked that idea so much, he gave it a term: "The power of inclusion".
That idea evolved into the Colony Fund initiative, or, "space venture capital for the rest of us". "Colony Fund I", when SEC registration is complete, will be a public, exchange-traded retail mutual fund, with a significant proportion of assets raised dedicated toward building the emerging space companies and infrastructure for the 21st century.
Mr. Olson is CEO of Colony Fund, LLC.
Robert D. Richards – Robert (Bob) Richards is the Director of the Space and Atmospheric Division of Optech Incorporated, a world leading developer of laser sensors (Lidar) for space operations and planetary exploration.
Bob has been involved with international space development for over 20 years. He completed his undergraduate degree in engineering at Ryerson University and went on to graduate work in Engineering Physics and Space Science at Cornell University, where he was special assistant to professor Carl Sagan.
As a student Bob joined forces with Peter Diamandis and Todd Hawley in the creation of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS), the world's largest student-run pro-space organization, and the Space Generation Foundation, an educational foundation which continues its work today with the United Nations and other organizations on youth involvement in space development.
In 1987 Bob Founded the International Space University with Diamandis and Hawley, where he served as the University's first Associate Administrator for Strategic Planning and Director, as well as Chairman of the Board's Strategic Planning and Administrative Committees. ISU inaugurated its Central Campus in Strasbourg, France in the fall of 2002.
In the early 1990's Bob turned his attention to commercial space with his formation of Canada Space Technologies Inc. and a plan to build Spaceport Canada, a world class micro satellite polar launch facility in Churchill Manitoba. The company attracted federal endorsement and support at the cabinet level but decided to defer the project in 1995 due to global market uncertainties.
Bob has appeared widely on television and radio programs as a space exploration communicator. In 1992 he co-anchored Roberta Bondars' historic shuttle launch on Canada AM with Pamela Wallin, and was a contributing author of "Blueprint for Space, a book on the development of the space age, published by the Smithsonian Institution.
Throughout the 1990's Bob pursued private business interests while remaining actively engaged in space development work through various boards and committees of the ISU and other space organizations.
In January 2002 Bob joined Optech Incorporated as Director of the company's newly formed Space and Atmospheric Division, marking a renewed focus on commercial space development.
John Smart – John Smart is a developmental systems theorist who studies accelerating change, computational autonomy and a topic known in futurist circles as the technological singularity (see http://singularitywatch.com). He is president of the Institute for the Study of Accelerating Change, a nonprofit community for research, education, consulting, and selected advocacy of communities and technologies of accelerating change. He co-produces the annual Accelerating Change conference, a meeting of 300 change-leaders and students at Stanford University, and edits ISAC's free newsletter, Accelerating Times, read by future-oriented thinkers around the world.
John has a B.S. in Business from the Haas School at U.C. Berkeley and seven years of coursework in biological, medical, cognitive, computer and physical science at U.C.L.A., U.C. Berkeley, and U.C. San Diego. His first book, Planning A Life In Medicine (for premedical students), will be published by Random House in March 2005. He is currently completing an M.S. in Future Studies at U. Houston and writing his second book, Destiny of Species, on the topic of accelerating change.
Phil Smith – Mr. Smith has five years of experience in technology and policy analysis related to commercial, civil, and military space programs and systems, missile defense programs, and weapons of mass destruction. He currently works as a space industry analyst with expertise in launch vehicle markets, satellite markets, emerging space markets, worldwide government space activities, and aerospace-related technology assessments.
Clients include the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration's Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/AST), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Satellite Industry Association (SIA), and various commercial launch and satellite service providers. Prior to working with Futron, Mr. Smith was employed with SAIC as a defense policy analyst working with the USAF Strategy and Plans Directorate (AF/XPXS) and the Army's National Security Policy Division, Strategy, Plans, and Policy Directorate (DAMO-SSD). In this capacity, Mr. Smith was responsible for providing policy and technical analysis on government and commercial space activities with potential impact on military operations (such as dual-use launch vehicle components), and providing expertise related to treaties concerned with weapons of mass destruction.
Mr. Smith also served a total of eight years in the USAF working with nuclear missile systems, industrial hygiene programs, environmental sampling and analysis projects, battlefield medical procedures, and detection and decontamination of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons agents. Mr. Smith earned a master of science degree in space studies and an undergraduate degree in political science, and was a candidate for public office in 1997.
John Spencer – John Spencer is a space architect with over twenty five years of award winning design experience. He has built a career that is a balance between the design and finance professions. He is a pioneer in what he calls “The Design Frontier.” He creates, designs, and develops his own space tourism, Mars, and future themed simulation and attraction projects and serves as a conceptual designer for some of the world's largest corporations.
He has won two awards from NASA for his architectural designs for the International Space Station now in Earth orbit and created the first interior designs on the SpaceHab Module which has flown into orbit over a dozen times. He is the Founder (1995) and President of the not-for-profit Space Tourism Society (STS) and is considered a founding father of the Space Tourism Industry. He is the author of Space Tourism - Do You Want To Go, with Karen Rugg, published by Apogee books in September, 2004. The book premiers his design for the world's first orbital super yacht named Destiny.
As a real estate developer and master planner, he coined the term “Experience Park” in the early eighties. Some of his original concepts and designs include “The Science Fiction Hall of Fame” for the Queen Mary site, the first “Star Trek” theme park, and the “FuturePort Park.” He coined the terms “SimExperience” and “Simnauts” to describe the new generation of totally immersive orbital space cruise and Mars exploration and recreation simulation experiences he is currently designing. He is quoted in over 50 magazines, newspapers, and TV shows including The Today Show on the growing space tourism industry. www.spacetourismsociety.org and www.redplanetventures.com.
Rick Tumlinson – Named one the top one hundred most influential people in the space field by Space News, Rick Tumlinson is the Co-Founder of the Space Frontier Foundation, which has been called “pound for pound the most effective space organization on Earth.” From an old Texas family whose pioneering credits include co-founding the Texas Rangers and fighting in the Alamo, Rick has spent his life fighting to open the space frontier. The son of an Air Force Sergeant and his English wife, he was educated primarily in England and Texas.
Mr. Tumlinson worked for noted scientist Gerard K. O'Neill at the Space Studies Institute, founded the New York L-5 Society, and was a key player in starting the Lunar Prospector project which discovered hints of water on the Moon. He also helped pass the Space Settlement Act of 1988, testified before President Reagan's National Commission on Space, and was a founding trustee of the X-Prize. Over the years he has been a lead witness in six congressional hearings on the future of NASA, the U.S. space program and space tourism, most recently in early 2004, testifying before the Senate Space and Technology Committee on the Moon, Mars and Beyond program.
To support his activism, Tumlinson produced the animated videos used to gain funding for the Air Force's DC-X rocket project, the International Space University, the X-33 rocket program, the Air Force's Space Command and created the first ever paid political announcement for space. A regular contributor to the space industry paper Space News, Tumlinson's writings and quotes have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Reader's Digest and dozens of other publications around the world. He has appeared on such television programs as ABC's World News Tonight, the CBS Morning Show, and Politically Incorrect. Internationally he has appeared on TV sets from Russia to China's CCTV and the BBC and been quoted in a wide range of journals, from The Economist to China's People's Daily.
Not satisfied to just talk, write about and help get funding for projects, Mr. Tumlinson has put his time and money where his mouth is. He co-founded the firm LunaCorp which produced the first ever TV commercial shot on the International Space Station for Radio Shack. He led the team which turned the Mir Space Station into the world's first commercial space facility, and was a co-founder of the space firm MirCorp. Along the way he personally signed up Dennis Tito, the world's first "citizen explorer," and has assisted in numerous other such projects.
Rick has appeared on the front page of the New York Times, has been featured in two issues of Popular Science, and appeared as an expert guest on the "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather," CNBC's "Open Exchange" and was quoted in papers such as the Washington Post, LA Times, and the Orlando Sentinel, regarding the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. He also appears often as a space commentator on CNN. He has been a consultant to the Heinlein Prize Organization and is leading an effort to get the United States to Return to the Moon and explore Mars. Rick is working on a book, The Case for the Moon, and is starting his own space firm, “XTreme Space.”
Elaine Walker – Elaine Walker made a conscious decision to dedicate her life to promoting human space exploration through her music as a direct result of reading Rick Tumlinson's early writings in the "Frontier Files". She has "spread the word" in many TV, radio and magazine interviews and performs frequently in the Eastern states with her band ZIA, promoting a positive view of space exploration to a young audience.
Elaine also sings at several pro-space conventions each year and has three full-length CD's of her own, "Frontier Creatures", "MARS" and "Space Elevator Music".
Elaine is currently president of the NYC chapter of NSS, the US Groups Team Leader of the Extropy Institute, and became an advocate of the Foundation in 2001. Her company, BlueZia Productions, writes music for space-related ventures. Some BlueZia work includes the song "Yuri Gagarin" (theme song for Yuri's Night: The World Space Party), "Devon Island" (written for the NASA Haughton Mars Project), "Who Will Win the X-Prize?", and music for TransOrbital's promo videos.
Dennis Wingo – Dennis Wingo is a 22-year veteran of the computer, academic, and space communities. He worked for early computer pioneers in the development of local area networks which eventually led to innovations such as DSL.
He was also an integral force in the use of commercial systems for use in space and flew the first MacIntosh on the Space Shuttle as experiment controller.
Dennis received his degree in Engineering Physics at the University of Alabama in Huntsville where he won honors for his academic publications and for his unique approach to small satellite development.
Dennis is the Founder & President of SkyCorp Incorporated and has developed a patented approach to the development of highly capable spacecraft manufactured on orbit on the Space Shuttle or International Space Station. SkyCorp has also qualified payloads for flight to the space station via the Russian Soyuz vehicle.
Steven Wolfe – Steven Wolfe spent over five years as the legislative aide for space policy to the late Congressman George E. Brown, Jr. (D-CA), where he drafted the Space Settlement Act of 1988 (contained in Public Law 100-685). Steven served as Executive Director of the Congressional Space Caucus and on the Board of the National Space Society. He is an Advocate of the Space Frontier Foundation. His writings on space topics have appeared in The New York Times, Space News, Space Front and Ad Astra, and elsewhere. He has also appeared on radio and television commenting on space issues. In the 1990's, Steven built a career in the management of not-for-profit organizations, and currently serves as an executive for a major trade association based in New York City.
Recently, Steven helped William E. Burrows and Robert Shapiro develop their idea for a lunar archive project called the Alliance to Rescue Civilizations (ARC). Steven has also spent nearly 20 years in spiritual inquiry, which led him to a unique perspective on the spiritual dimension of humanity's yearning for space. He shares this perspective in his writings and talks.
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