Video Transcript:
Hi, I'm Ken Overton. I'm running for a position on the Tripoli Board of Directors, and I'd like to provide a bit of my background for those of you who don't know me. I'm yet another born again rocketeer having started my rocketry days with Estes and Centauri Rockets in upstate New York. I flew most, if not all, of the Estes kits up to and including a Saturn V that took me forever to build.
Later in life, after university, marriage, and kids, I found high power rocketry here in North Texas. I'm a Level 3 certified flier in both Tripoli and NAR. I've been a member of the Technical Advisory panel or a TAP for a number of years. I chaired the Tripoli Class 3 Review Committee for a year and continue to serve as an Analyst on the Committee, which provides the technical analysis of Class 3 flights for the FAA.
I retired mid-2023. Retirement has allowed me to increase my volunteer work, which is primarily focused in the area of rocketry. I work in the classroom at the middle school level with teams working on their TARC projects. At the high school level, assisting with rocketry, robotics, and assorted engineering disciplines and with multiple universities, both U.S. and international participating in the Spaceport America Cup competition.
I'm also the lead safety officer (RSO) for the competition, which is held in early June of each year. The Cup is run by the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA) and is the largest international intercollegiate rocketry engineering competition in the world.
My interest in joining the Board of Directors of Tripoli is to add additional technical capability and experience to the Board to help address the challenges that face our hobby moving forward. In my mind, these include continued availability of commercial motors, building materials, and watching government oversight of our hobby. And as you may garner from my work with the Spaceport America Cup, I have an interest in the continued safety of our hobby as we push the boundaries forward.
I've been building high powered rockets for quite a while with my interests including avionics (given my background in physics and computer science) and over the last ten years or so, research motors. Living in the country as we do now, has given me the opportunity to have a separate shop for my rocketry work and a large area to do motor testing without bothering the neighbors or the authorities.
Between my introduction to rocketry and my high power rocketry experience, I graduated college and graduate school with a doctorate in Computer and Information Science. Instead of entering academia, I decided to join the General Electric Corporate Research and Development Center in upstate New York. Following my time at GE Research. I joined a division of GE Aerospace, where I ran Independent Research and Development (IR&D for those of you with experience in government contracting). From there I created an entrepreneurial venture where we took technology that we used in the aerospace business and provided it to the commercial marketplace in the form of training, consulting, and project execution. I left GE Aerospace to join E-Systems in Garland, Texas, to head up their research and commercialization activities. I started my own company in 1999 to develop virtual insertion technology for live broadcast TV. I eventually sold the derivative of this company to ESPN and worked for ESPN for three years until leaving to join the University of Texas at Dallas. My final career stop was at True Velocity an advanced small caliber ammunition development company as employee number 8.
I live in North Texas with my wife and partner of 37 years, Karen, and fly in the middle south area from Kansas down through Texas. I'm a consistent BALLS flier and I'm a member of the Tripoli North Texas Prefecture.
For those of you I haven't met, I look forward to meeting you at a launch at some point.
I appreciate your consideration for a position on the Board of Directors of the Tripoli Rocketry Association.
Thank you.