LEADERSHIP
MEET OUR TEAM
CEO AND FOUNDER
Dr. George Davis is the Founder and CEO of Emergent Space Technologies, Inc. He received a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin for his research into the precise orbit determination of low altitude satellites using the Global Positioning System. His M.S. in Aerospace Engineering, also from the University of Texas, was on on-orbit assembly operations for lunar and Mars spacecraft. His research interests include PNT, autonomy and artificial intelligence/machine learning for small satellite applications. Prior to starting Emergent, he worked at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, providing GPS systems engineering, algorithm development, receiver testing and data analysis support to a variety of missions. At the peak of the Internet bubble, he joined Appnet Systems (subsequently acquired by Commerce One) to transition into the Information Technology industry and supported the development of web portals for the federal government and e-commerce exchanges. It was there that he saw the opportunity to apply modern software development principles and technology to the aerospace industry and decided to start Emergent. When not working, he enjoys coaching youth sports and playing softball and golf. With what little time he has left, he enjoys boating and fishing on the Chesapeake and probably watching too much college football and basketball.
VICE PRESIDENT OF OPERATIONS
Mr. Everett Cary is the Vice President of Operations and has previously served as the Vice President of Technical Services. He joined Emergent in 2002 and has seen the company through all its growth phases over the years. As the VP of Operations, he is responsible for the day-to-day tactical execution of the company's strategies. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland. While at Emergent, he has been the Principal Investigator for a government-funded program and has been active in applying modern information technologies towards automation of satellite ground systems. He has numerous years of experience in developing, deploying, and managing software solutions across a variety of domains. His organization skills and his ability to decompose solutions into work packages applied itself naturally to project management responsibilities and ultimately overseeing the corporate operations. Prior to joining Emergent, he designed, and supported software applications, including web and e-commerce portals, point-of sale solutions, enterprise business and auction applications. He has a strong interest in Engineering processes, having worked as a certified Rational Unified Process trainer and he is involved heavily with Emergent's Engineering Process Group. Outside of the office, he is a family man, scouter, and ham radio operator.
CHIEF SOFTWARE ARCHITECT
Mr. Timothy Esposito is Emergent’s Chief Software Architect, responsible for overseeing, guiding, and reviewing the technical implementations of Emergent's ground and flight software products, as well as leading some of the company’s key software projects, notably in space-based distributed computing and cybersecurity. He brings a mix of aerospace and computer science knowledge from his both education and industry experiences. Mr. Esposito earned a B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering from NC State University and a M.S. degree in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology. He has worked in the areas of flight dynamics, planning and scheduling, service-oriented architectures, ground system architectures, flight software architectures, and flight autonomy of distributed spacecraft systems. His career started at NASA GSFC, where he worked as a software engineer in the Mission Applications Branch for more than six years developing flight dynamics systems for Earth and space science missions, GMSEC middleware-based ground system technologies, and flight software experiments. After leaving civil service, Mr. Esposito joined the Boeing Iridium team, where he was responsible for maintenance and development of real-time systems. He joined Emergent in 2005 and has been responsible for a wide range of efforts in leading, supporting, or implementing ground software, flight software, and multi-mission operations efforts. Mr. Esposito was the Principal Investigator for a space-based version of a cloud computing suite of services called Cirrus, which is a key enabler to allowing computing at the edge of space. In his Chief Software Architect role, he provides design guidance for Emergent’s flight software and simulation technology to maximize interoperability, reusability, cybersecurity, and ability to meet future civil, military and intelligence community needs. While away from work, he loves traveling and being outdoors with his wife, daughter, two sons, and dog. As a recent resident to Colorado, his family has embraced skiing as the new winter activity. Other fun hobbies include Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and kiteboarding.
CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER
Mr. Austin Probe is the Chief Technology Officer for Emergent and manages the software factory in Austin, Texas office. He joined Emergent in 2016 after having earned his B.S. and M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University. Building upon his experience developing software and hardware for spacecraft, autonomous systems, robotics, and RF communications systems, he leads Emergent civil and national security space projects for DARPA, NASA, USAF SMC and AFRL/RV. In addition, he oversees the early stage development of Emergent’s ASCENT, SUMMIT, and YETI products as well as the GEAR FSW framework. Outside of work, Austin enjoys cooking, hiking, camping, and traveling with his wife, two daughters, and their dog.
DIRECTOR OF MISSION ENGINEERING
Mr. Jeff Baron is the Director of the Mission Engineering Division and is responsible for all of Emergent’s contract-based technical services work for NASA, DoD and Commercial space. Mr. Baron serves as the operational, management and business development lead in this role. Prior to joining Emergent in 2016, he enjoyed a diverse 25+ year career in areas including Customer Relationship Management consulting, Procurement, IT Leadership, and Task Lead and Group Lead on NASA contracts. Most recently, he served as the Ground Systems Group Lead for the SES II contract at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center while also serving as Emergent’s Business Operations Director & Quality Assurance Manager. Mr. Baron has also implemented ISO 9000, 20k and CMMI-DEV Quality Management Systems. When not working, Jeff enjoys golfing, movies, hiking and spending time with his wife of 25 years and their son, as well as their Boxer pup and grey tabby kitty.
DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Kendall Roberson is the Director of Product Development and is responsible for flight and ground software product development, deployment, management, and marketing. He currently leads multiple projects that are advancing and deploying our flight software autonomy products for use on civil and national security space missions. In addition, he serves as the Lead Software Engineer for the RISE contract at AFRL/RVE in Albuquerque, NM. Previously, he served as a lead for our mission control software team at NASA GSFC developing functionality supporting missions MMS, PACE, WFIRST, GEDI, RAVEN, OSAM-1, and others. Prior to joining Emergent in 2016, Mr. Roberson enjoyed a diverse career in software development leadership. He advanced aerospace state-of-the-art in launch vehicle flight software at Firefly Space Systems, test site and liquid propulsion flight software at Virgin Galactic, and avionics, test, and launch systems for Falcon 9 and Dragon at SpaceX. He advanced business automation state-of-the-art at American Express, Siebel Systems, and ISI. He advanced petrochemical state-of-the-art in industrial automation, measurement, and control at Tolteq Original Engineering, Daniel Industries, and DeltaSoft. When not working, Kendall enjoys sailing, science fiction, and spending time with his wife of 34 years and their four children, son-in-law, grandchildren, three cats, miniature golden retriever, and bearded dragon.
DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Dr. Ravi Mathur is the Director of Research and Development and oversees the creation of Emergent’s cutting-edge technologies, from inception to integration into Emergent’s products and into NASA, DOD, and commercial programs. Ravi has been with Emergent since 2012, after receiving his Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin with a focus on spacecraft trajectory design and optimization. He received an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from UT Austin for his work on real-time 3D interactive visualizations applied to aerospace software. Ravi has worked on aerospace software tool development projects in both the civil and defense sectors, including NASA’s General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) and NASA’s Copernicus trajectory optimization tool, and was on the winning team for the 2021 NASA Software of the Year Award for the latter. When not working on Aerospace programs, Ravi enjoys traveling with his wife and, more recently, stays busy chasing after and playing music with his toddler son.
DIRECTOR OF TALENT MANAGEMENT
Mr. Andy Frizzell is the Director of Talent Management. He is responsible for organization-wide needs assessment, recruiting, hiring, on-boarding, training, career development and performance management. He comes to this role after a 25 year career in enterprise software delivery and customer success and 5 years in executive recruiting. A graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, he is a family man, an active volunteer in the local community, and is an avid outdoorsman, brewer and fisherman.