Building the Next Great Aerospace and Defense Company: One Year as CEO of Ursa Major

One year ago, I had the honor of joining Ursa Major as its Chairman and CEO.

In that time, I’ve been inspired, challenged, and energized by what Ursa Major has proven to be possible. I’ve watched this team relentlessly work to fly more and faster than ever before across all our product lines. Our engines have now flown hypersonic three times; we’ve advanced our solid rocket motor programs with flight tests and static fires of motors using highly loaded grain; we’ve completed several component tests for in-space propulsion systems; and we have closed more than $100 million in bookings in the first half of 2025, a combination of direct government contracts and commercial partnerships, for hypersonics, solid rocket motors, in-space propulsion, and launch.

But what I am most proud of this past year is the hard-earned credibility Ursa Major has built to be considered part of the very small number of companies solving critical strategic industrial base and national security challenges for the United States and our allies.

Today, Ursa Major is front and center solving defense and aerospace ecosystem issues. As the first American company to fire an oxygen-rich staged combustion engine, we’ve always been at the forefront of game-changing technologies, but the work this team has done in the last year puts us in a position to become the next great aerospace and defense company.

To me, that means we must tackle missions that matter, especially those for national defense. We’re focusing on solving problems others can’t, doing it exceptionally well, and delivering value to the country and to our investors. We’re not just building capability; we’re building relevance, and we’re doing it at a pace that matters.

For example, we’ve taken an engine all the way through TRL maturation to flight readiness – a complete system that didn’t exist before – and did it at light speed, with the quality needed for a hypersonic missile system. That level of execution is impressive.

The only way we’re able to do this is because of the caliber of our people at Ursa Major. They are what give me confidence that we have the team to take this company into the future. We’re also working to continue to grow our team with exceptional talent across a broader base of capabilities, adding depth, and maintaining our innovative, fast-moving culture as we scale and grow into new mission areas, even beyond propulsion.

In the next year, we’ll fly Draper – our storable, throttleable, reusable engine designed for hypersonic missions and space-based defense. We’ll move into production and qualification testing for solid rocket motors on critical armaments, built using our Lynx manufacturing system. We’ll strengthen our financial position, and do it all with a team you want to work with, because of our values, culture, and collaborative approach.

While our strategies will evolve with the market and the needs of the nation and our allies, right now, we’re focused on three critical areas: hypersonics, space-based rapid mobility and interception, and solving solid rocket motor shortfalls.

At Ursa Major, we operate at the edge of what’s possible—where safety, precision, and discipline are non-negotiable – designing and building systems that are inherently unsafe: hypersonic systems, highly energetic propellants, cutting-edge materials. That means we must have sophisticated quality and safety systems to ensure we operate safely, deliver safely, and send people home safely every night.

In the next few years, we’ll double, triple, even quadruple in size. Growth at that pace is a test of culture as much as capability. Maintaining the right DNA and balance of priorities as we grow will take constant attention. I know that our leadership team and broader workforce are capable of it, but it requires deliberate effort every day.

Only a handful of the top companies in the world can do what we are setting out to do. We’re young enough to be aggressive, not yet proven at scale, but moving with promise and agility toward it. For the big, urgent problems, Ursa Major is the partner you want. We’re fast-moving, innovative, and objectively able to deliver these systems, and we’re on track to scale to quantities that matter to the warfighter and customer.

It is an honor of my career to lead this team, and I look forward to what the next twelve months and beyond will bring. Ursa Major has greatness in store. The best is yet to come.