Dave McGowan

After graduating from Vanderbilt with a Mechanical Engineering degree, Dave joined the USAF as a Civil Engineering officer designing HVAC and leading Base Maintenance activities.  He supported Operation Desert Storm in theater and upon return to the US served in a full-time combat engineering role for the USAF’s RED HORSE engineering Squadron.

Dave then joined Orbital Sciences and spent the next 31 years integrating, testing, assembling, and launching rockets, missiles, and launch vehicles.  He’s led numerous launch vehicle field campaigns resulting in the successful launch of dozens of spacecraft.  He’s supported launches of Pegasus, Minotaur, Taurus, Antares, and GMD launch vehicles at Vandenberg SFB, Patrick SFB/Cape Canaveral, Wallops FF, Reagan Test Site/Hickam AFB for customers including NASA, USAF, Navy, ARPA/DARPA, NRO, South Korea, Taiwan, and US commercial firms.  For these launches Dave both turned wrenches on assembly floors and managed entire field operations directing engineers, technicians, payload customer interface, schedule creation/execution, budget, and material operations.  After Orbital merged with ATK and was eventually acquired by Northrop Grumman, Dave served as the Integration & Test Lead for NG’s Sentinel ICBM and NGI missile defense programs.