Thomas Ridgeway Email & Phone Number

Mcgregor, Texas, United States

San Diego, California, United States

Advisory and teaching role within the organization. Taking a step back from official leadership roles, and instead focusing on one-on-one mentoring, providing guidance on design processes, and assisting in kickstarting subprojects.Specific Accomplishments and Duties:- Mentored 7 motivated underclassmen students in the club and successfully restarted Rocket Project's solid rocket motor casting and research efforts.- Mentored 3 students in a project team to design and test a torch igniter for integration into the club's 1000 lbf ethalox engine. Focused on first principles and good practice.- Leveraging prior experience to steer technical decisions away from past mistakes.- Teaching incoming members technical and interpersonal skills valuable to the club and transferrable to career.- Filling in as a working team member when emergency calls for additional hands on an action item.

San Diego, California, United States

Acting as the face of the club, the President of Rocket Project is responsible for seeing that the mission statement is adhered to, and for representing the organization when interacting with the community. The President ensures proper communication, handles administrative duties, and manages the project's progression from a high level.Specific Accomplishments and Duties:- Wrote a proposal resulting in a $66,000 award from San Diego State University to fund the club’s current project. Strengthened donor relations, increasing total private funds and ensuring the longevity of community relationships.- Coordinated member recruitment and retention, bringing total team membership to over 100 students.- Managed administrative overhead efficiently, keeping team focus on technical work and deliverables.- Guided the project’s vision from a high level and cultivated club morale, ensuring deadlines and goals were met or exceeded while maintaining commitment to the club’s mission statement.

San Diego, California, United States

In charge of the technical direction and development of the team's various projects and subsystems; leading systems integration, ensuring all GSE and flight designs meet system-level requirements. Overseeing operation during testing, ensuring adherence to procedure and addressing technical anomalies.Specific Accomplishments and Duties:- Advised internal projects spanning all sections, providing technical insight and direction to further resources.- Coauthored a Matlab script with a user friendly GUI for determining tank pressure and propellant line sizing given various properties. Allowed for rapid turnaround from new design to updated operating parameters.- Formalized a part numbering system best practice and file tree organization method for use with a cloud CAD-sharing software, simplifying the previous structure and making it more user-friendly.- Ensured major technical purchase requests and outsourcing stayed within allocated budget for the year. Reviewed BOMs with section leads to check for errors or more economical solutions.

San Diego, California, United States

Responsible for overseeing and managing the fluid systems section members and ensuring the working order of the ground support and on-board systems. Lead and initiated the design process for future systems and supervised the assembly of the physical plumbing.Specific Accomplishments and Duties:- Performed a root cause investigation of malfunction of onboard cryogenic vent valve assemblies. Redesigned pressure supply components resulting in reliable actuation and venting for a methalox rocket.- Optimized the pre-terminal sequence fueling procedure to reduce propellant losses due to cryogenic boiloff.- Directed the fueling team during the pre-terminal sequence at static hot fires and launches.- Prototyped first-iteration ground systems for remote pressurization, pneumatic control, and oxidizer fill and venting of an ethanol-LOx booster, with emphasis on reliability and redundant safety measures.Held this position during the successful launch and recovery of Lady Elizabeth, a methalox rocket that launched on February 1, 2020 and achieved an apogee of 13,205 feet.

San Diego, California, United States

Worked on designing, assembling, and maintaining the onboard and GSE fluid systems.Specific Accomplishments and Duties:- Analyzed the costs versus benefits of offboard and onboard actuation of main propellant valves by modeling the actuator-valve linkages in CAD, resulting in vehicle weight reduction and overall system simplification.- Improved operator and system safety measures during an overhaul of the pressurization and pneumatic control ground systems for a methalox rocket.- Member of the fueling team responsible for propellant loading; operated in both the fuel and oxidizer teams. Monitored pressures and loaded propellants during active testing.

Alameda, California, United States

Internship working as a propulsion engineering intern. Responsibilities included support tasks for both first stage and upper stage propulsion for Rocket 4.Specific Accomplishments and Duties:- Designed tooling for subcomponent proof testing of a turbopump assembly. Owned components from concept through release.- Operated small scale tests, post-processed data, and presented test results. Testing included engine plumbing fatigue and thermal protection torch testing.- Brought up an engine checkout stand to operational state. Created a data display panel, performed component inspection, and ran fitting and decay leak checks. Wrote a high-level report detailing the stand's operational state and recommended changes to procedure and hardware based on lessons learned.

Mojave, California, United States

Internship working as a propulsion test intern. Responsibilities primarily supported the refurbishment and return-to-service work on the rocket motor test stand.Specific Accomplishments and Duties:- Adapted paper procedures for use in a cloud-based management and operation program. Increased traceability and ease of use, enabled live updates and collaboration on running procedures.- Designed ground support equipment for propulsion testing operations. Established requirements, designed hardware, sourced components, created drawing packets, and outsourced manufacturing.- Created tooling to verify parts fabricated in-house meet SAE/AS specifications.- Updated large CAD assemblies to reflect as-built hardware and prevent future part interference.

San Marcos, California, United States

Internship working as a general engineering intern. Supported active contracts, filling in as a flexible team member who completed a diverse set of tasks to help the company reach deadlines.Specific Accomplishments and Duties:- Designed tooling, supporting apparatus, and operational procedure for casting a large hybrid fuel grain for a hypersonic motor test. Sourced off-the-shelf components and created drawings for outsourced manufacturing.- Reformatted documentation detailing past contract proposals to improve usability, display relevant metadata, and provide direct links to the referenced documents.- Designed and built low-cost equipment for component processing on an accelerated timescale.

Master Of Science - Ms, Aerospace, Aeronautical And Astronautical Engineering, 3.61 Final Gpa

Research focus: Computational analysis of combustion instability in rocket engines with pintle injectors.

Bachelor Of Science - Bs, Aerospace, Aeronautical And Astronautical Engineering, 3.64 Final Gpa

Activities and Societies: Tau Beta Pi California Xi, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), SDSU Rocket Project.