Grant Anderson Named President and CEO of Paragon Space Development Corporation

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http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/11/03/grant-anderson-named-president-ceo-paragon-space-development-corporation/

Grant Anderson Named President and CEO of Paragon Space Development Corporation
Posted by Doug Messier on November 3, 2014

TUCSON, AZ, Nov. 3, 2014 (Paragon PR) – Just prior to the record-breaking, near space dive by the Paragon StratEx team and Google Executive, Alan Eustace, Paragon’s Board of Directors announced that Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum had resigned from their positions as President and CEO in order to become leaders of World View Enterprises, a space tourism vanguard opportunity incubated within Paragon.

Grant Anderson, former Paragon COO, has since been named Paragon’s new President and CEO while Ron Sable, a member of the Paragon Board of Directors, was elected Chairman of the Paragon Board.

“We are thankful for Jane and Taber’s leadership over the past 21 years as Paragon has grown to be a premier supplier of life support systems and technology and achieved great technical advancements and industry firsts,” said Mr. Sable. “We wish them both the best success in building this ground-breaking new company.”

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1. World View key people: Jane Poynter, Taber MacCallum, Alan Stern, Mark Kelly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_view_enterprises

World View Enterprises, Inc., or World View, is a private American near-space exploration company headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, that plans to use high-altitude balloons to gently lift people and scientific payloads twenty miles (approximately 32 kilometers) above earth for the purposes of space tourism, scientific research, and a wide range of other commercial applications.[1]

World View plans to offer private citizens views of the curvature of the earth amidst the blackness of space from inside a pressurized space-rated vehicle suspended beneath a high-altitude balloon. The space-rated capsule, which will hold six passengers and two crew members, will ascend during a nominal flight profile to an altitude of 100,000 feet (20 miles, or 32 kilometers) above earth.[2]

During a test flight in June 2014 World View broke the world record for the highest parafoil flight ever conducted, successfully deploying and remotely navigating a parafoil back down to earth from an altitude of 50,000 feet.[3]

In filings with the Federal Aviation Administration, World View stated that it planned to launch its commercial flights from Spaceport America in New Mexico, but CEO Jane Poynter has maintained on several occasions that no final decision has been made on where to base the flight operations.[4]

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Key People

Jane Poynter, Co-founder and CEO, was one of the original eight Biosphere 2 crew members. After two years inside Biosphere 2 (a three-acre, hermetically-sealed environment in the Arizona desert,) she went on to co-found Paragon Space Development Corporation, which designs and manufactures life support technologies rated for extreme environments, including outer space.[5] Paragon has supplied hardware to more than 70 spaceflight missions, including ones to the International Space Station and Mir.[6]

Taber MacCallum, Co-founder and CTO, was also one of the original Biosphere 2 crew members and went on to co-found Paragon Space Development Corporation alongside Jane Poynter. Taber MacCallum was named Popular Science Inventor of the Year in 2008 for a toxic water diving suit that helps hazmat divers safely navigate contaminated waters.[7]

Dr. Alan Stern, Co-founder and Chief Scientist, was appointed NASA's Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, essentially NASA's top-ranking official for science, in April 2007. In this position Stern directed a US$4.4 billion organization with 93 separate flight missions and a program of over 3,000 research grants.[8] He is also the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express.[9]

Capt. Mark Kelly, World View's Director of Flight Crew Operations, is a retired NASA Space Shuttle Commander and U.S. Navy Test Pilot. During his tenure with NASA, he piloted two Space Shuttle flights and commanded two others, including Space Shuttle Endeavour on its final mission.[10]