ASTROBOTIC - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director of Planetary Landers
- Head of the Planetary Landers Department
Andrew Jones is the head of the Planetary Landers Department, leading a team of extremely talented engineers and mission personnel in our objective to land commercial vehicles on the lunar surface. His current assignment is the delivery of the current NASA lunar lander programs, Peregrine and Griffin, the latter carrying NASA's water-hunting rover VIPER to the south pole of the Moon. Additionally, he is looking ahead at the development of the next generation of Astrobotic Lunar Landers.
Andy started his career over 30 years ago as a stress engineer at Westland Helicopters, and since has worked on almost every aircraft type, including rotorcraft, fixed wing and rockets, and across all life-cycle phases from development to in-service. From Westland, Andy moved company and country, being recruited by Bombardier Aerospace where he eventually became the manager for In-service engineering, responsible for the structural repair and integrity of the CRJ fleet of 1300 aircraft. Following Bombardier, Andy spent several years in the engineering services industry as Director of Operations and Engineering, managing large teams across multiple continents and countries. Finally, before joining Astrobotic, Jones was Director of Engineering for the Spaceship Company, working on the Virgin Galactic mothership and spaceships.
This extensive experience in engineering, program management and manufacturing, honed his skills in delivering on complex programs.
Jones holds a BEng in Mechanical Engineering and Energy Studies from Cardiff University and is a gear head in his spare time, having rebuilt/restored a number of antique, and newer, cars.
Anthony Hill leads all financial efforts of the company with an emphasis on creating profitable growth and long-term shareholder value. He has over 12 years of financial leadership experience in mergers and acquisitions, financial reporting, tax, forecasting, investor relations and treasury for high growth organizations in the engineered materials and banking industries. Most recently Anthony served as the Vice President & Controller of TriState Capital Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: TSC) and Financial Operations Principal of the Broker Dealer subsidiary. Prior to TriState, he was Assistant Corporate Controller II-VI Incorporated (Nasdaq: IIVI). Anthony became a Certified Public Accountant while working in the Audit and Assurance Services practice at PwC and holds an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh Katz Graduate School of Business.
Dan Hendrickson leads Astrobotic's business development efforts and payload sales. Prior to Astrobotic, Hendrickson served as the Director of Civil and Commercial Space Systems at the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA). During his time at AIA, Hendrickson was a consensus builder among a council of 50 U.S. space companies to provide the U.S. Government guidance on key space industry interests. Before transitioning to AIA, Hendrickson served as a civilian mission assurance engineer at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on five successful Atlas V launch campaigns.
Job Titles:
- Director of Propulsion & Test
- Director of the Propulsion & Test
Jenna Edwards is the Director of the Propulsion & Test department (formerly Masten Space Systems). She leads a team of talented engineers and technicians to develop and apply propulsion technologies for dynamic, autonomous, and precision landing systems. In its nearly two decade history, the department has accumulated the most successful rocket-powered landings in the industry. The team currently has one active flight vehicle (Xodiac), a new VTVL rocket development program (Xogdor), and numerous test and applied propulsion programs.
Jenna brings a decade of experience in strategy and growth, with a focus in aerospace and defense. She started her career in management and strategy consulting at Avascent, a leading aerospace and defense consulting firm in Washington, D.C.. She went on to work in regional economic development in Charleston, SC, where she led the development of the Charleston's Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) strategy and industry cluster development strategies. Prior to its acquisition by Astrobotic, Jenna served as Chief Operating Officer of Masten Space Systems.
Jenna holds a master's degree in international business and trade from the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
John Thornton has grown Astrobotic's business of delivering affordable space robotics technology and planetary missions by attracting technology contracts, equity investment, and payload customers. Under his leadership, the company has booked three lunar missions with its Peregrine, Griffin, and MoonRanger spacecraft. At Carnegie Mellon University, Thornton led the build of Scarab, a NASA concept rover for lunar drilling, and the first rover to carry a prototype of the NASA RESOLVE payload that will now be flying to the lunar south pole on the NASA VIPER rover aboard Astrobotic's Griffin lander. Thornton also founded the Carnegie Mellon University Advanced Composites Lab, a research, training, design, and manufacturing program specializing in high performance, lightweight composites for robotics.
Job Titles:
- Director of Operations
- Head of the Operations Department
Leanne Dummer is head of the Operations Department, leading cross functional groups in support of our various programs and corporate initiatives. She is responsible for Procurement, Information Technology, Quality, Safety, and Facilities Management with an emphasis on driving standardized operational excellence. Her 20+ years of experience spans across operational leadership roles in manufacturing, quality, materials, supply chain, systems/process integration, and facility management in the electronics manufacturing industry. She started her career working for TUV Management Service, an EU regulatory agency, where she spent time testing electronic products to immunity and emission standards, and performing safety compliance, ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 audits. From there, she was recruited by Picosecond Pulse Labs, now Tektronix, as the Director of Quality where she successfully developed and implemented a quality management system from the ground up. After that she served in manufacturing and quality leadership roles for Spectra Logic Corporation where she was responsible for the assembly, integration, test and the quality of robotic data archival systems while leading continuous improvement efforts and several new system integrations. Most recently, she was the Group Operations Manager for Progeny Systems LLC (a DOD contractor and subsidiary of General Dynamics Mission Systems) with oversight of all Pennsylvania manufacturing operations and facilities. She recently led efforts to integrate production and security required infrastructure in a new facility supporting increased manufacturing volume and the required DCSA open area storage approval. Leanne has a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Colorado and a holds a DOD secret level security clearance.
Job Titles:
- Director of Lunar Surface Systems
Michael Provenzano is responsible for leading the development of Astrobotic's planetary rover product lines and generating mobile payload sales. He leads a team of engineers who are developing the world's first and smallest commercial lunar rover, the CubeRover. Provenzano is also leading the development of Astrobotic's medium and large lunar rovers, MoonRanger and Polaris. A recognized entrepreneur formerly selected as a Forbes' Top 100 Global MBA, Provenzano specializes in making early technologies marketable. He has a history managing complex technical projects, including work on the Boeing Space Launch System and leading the development of an NSF-funded I-Corps Site Team at Carnegie Mellon University researching electromagnetic transportation from the lunar surface.
Job Titles:
- Director of Human Resources
- Head of Human Resources
- Senior Human Resource Executive, Business
Robin Hunter is head of Human Resources at Astrobotic, leading people strategy and operations, including talent management, rewards, organizational change, and diversity, equity and inclusion, to deliver a world class employee experience.
With over 20 years of experience, Robin is an accomplished senior human resource executive, business transformer, and advisor who has worked with start-ups, turnarounds and Fortune 500 companies. She is focused on developing high-performance teams, cultural transformation, and optimizing mergers and acquisitions to facilitate rapid growth.
Robin attended Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, IN and holds a bachelor's degree in Communications, a minor in Business Administration, concentrating in International Studies and Finance.