First Mode was founded on the belief that multidisciplinary teams armed with the latest technology can produce outsized value for businesses, governments, and individuals. At First Mode, I engage with the space community to provide solutions to the complex challenges they are facing as well as lead system architecture, design and prototyping efforts for our customers in both the private and government space sector.We are a group of experienced big picture thinking engineers across a mix of disciplines who bring determined cognizance to the work defined by our clients. Our staff has extensive experience in Planetary and Deep Space missions as well as Earth Observation through previous work at JPL, Lockheed Martin, and a few small satellite companies. Our independence and agility enable us to support a wide variety of work, from long term mission architecture and design to jumping in to support mission critical tiger teams and performing prototype development and testing.We have experience in proposal and study creation, mission and campaign architecture and definition, interface definition and configuration, preliminary and detailed design and analysis, integration, test, and operations.

Asteroid Exploration Mission - Surface Penetrator Lead (March 2017 - February 2018)- Led a multidisciplinary team of 5 to architect and create a preliminary design of an asteroid surface penetrator to deliver and operate two instruments below the surfaceAdditively Manufactured Cubesat Integrated Propulsion and Structure R&D Lead (June 2016 - March 2017)- Led a small team through multiple iterations of design, build, and test to bring an additively manufactured integrated primary structure and propulsion system to TRL 5 in support of a Phase II NASA SBIR- Created a design allowables qualification program for additively manufactured Ti-6Al-4V

Mars 2020- Turret (Robotic Arm End Effector) Configuration and Design (August 2014 - May 2016) - Configured a percussive drill and two science instruments on a robotic arm with tight volume constraints. Designing ground registration contact sensors, vibration isolation systems for the instruments, and the Turret’s primary structure- Weak Rock and Regolith Coring Bit Design (February 2014 - August 2014) - Designed bits for rotary and rotary-percussive collection of weakly lithofied rock material and regolith in dry environment for Mars sample return- Rock Characterization Engineer (August 2013 - December 2013) - Developed systems for characterizing rock mechanical properties important to our coring operation through observation and testMars Science Laboratory- Failure Analysis Tiger Team Member (Various) - Member of three separate small teams to determine mechanical failure mode of testbed/flight hardware and develop operational solutions to mitigate failures on Martian hardware- Sampling System Characterization Testing Lead (April 2011 - August 2013) - Led team of 12 engineers in multi-million dollar test program to characterize the performance of the drill and sample processing system and design sequences for flight operations in a Mars environment. Duties included working with project scientists, test design, effective staffing and team dynamics management, efficient test scheduling, and budgeting- Rover Mechanical Validation & Verification Integration Engineer (March 2010 - April 2011) - Integration lead for qualification model rover in static and dynamic test programs designed to verify the rover would survive entry descent and landing and designed experiments/GSE for two model correlations. Led team of 5 technicians to prepare rover for 10+ tests on and off site- Rover Secondary Structure Design (November 2009 - March 2010) - Implemented primary structure modifications and designed, delivered and installed secondary structure

Google Lunar X-Prize Team Composites Manufacturing and Design Engineer- Created composites lab for fabrication of sheets, sandwich panels, tubes, and complex contours- Performed structural analysis for and layup design of all composite structures for Lunar Rover