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Pete Bitar is the founder, President and CEO of Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems (XADS) as well as AirBuoyant, LLC, and is also the Team Leader for Team LUNARecon, a competitor for the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a $20 million Grand Prize competition to land and operate a rover on the Moon.

 

Pete is the inventor of the StunStrike® directed lightning system, used in non-lethal and Counter-IED applications.  He has patented the technology for directed energy related products. Pete has founded and sold several entrepreneurial ventures during his business career. Mr. Bitar is a consultant in the Directed Energy sector for the Gerson-Lehrman Group.  He is also the developer of the VertiPod, VTOL flying platform aircraft as well as the inventor of two, patent-pending wind-turbine designs. Additionally, Pete has designed a family of all-electric, manned aircraft, which will fly later this year and has a patent pending on one VTOL, all electric personal helicopter.

 

Pete is a graduate of Portland State University and served in the US Air Force from 1985-1989. He received an Honorable Discharge from the USAF Reserves in 1993.

 

Pete lives with his wife and two children in Anderson, Indiana.

 

Beeaje Quick

 

Margaret Ratcliff became interested in engineering after she was encouraged by a bicycle mechanic/engineering student from LSU to take some engineering classes.  She graduated with a B.S.M.E. from Tulane University (New Orleans, LA.) and an M.S.M.E. from Texas A&M University (College Station, TX.).  She previously worked in California for seven years in the aircraft industry, two years in Mississippi in the rocket industry, and two years in Indiana for the consumer products industry.  From 2005 to 2008, she was an assistant professor in Mechanical Engineering Technology at Purdue University in Columbus, IN. where she taught nine different courses.  While at Purdue she worked with students to design, build, and test devices for different classes in order to gain hands-on experience.  She also led an independent study class to develop a balloon launched UAV with nested wings for near space applications.     

Margaret is now a full time Mechanical Engineering Ph.D. student at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio.  She is doing research to discover new materials for power generation and propulsion.  Margaret is currently working with Team LUNARecon to construct and test small satellites as a preliminary step in the lunar project.  She is also a member of the University of Dayton Advanced Rocket Team (UDART), where the team experiments with both liquid and solid rocket motors.  Airbuoyant, Team LUNARecon, and Universal Transport Systems are the primary sponsors for UDART.  

 

Gregory H. Allison, High Altitude Research Corporation (HARC) Chairman of the Board, is an experienced electrical and systems engineer offering a broad range of leadership and technical qualifications. He has served as a Test Program Set Engineer for PEI Electronics Incorporated (1997) where he designed Test Program Sets for Line Replaceable Units such as the Turrent Remote Switching Module and the Analog Input Module on the M1A2 Abrams tank.  There Mr. Allison  developed methodology to isolate faults within subsystems, specified Automatic Test Equipment resources, and developed Test Program Set software in the ATLAS language.  Mr. Allison also developed Test Program Sets for the F-15 Electronic Equipment Control Display while at Northrup Grumman (1995-1997).  Prior to this, he has served as Electrical Lead Engineer of Industrial Control Systems for Bowden Industries (1994-1995).

 

Mr. Allison served as a Systems Engineer and Chaired three meetings of the Space Station Robotics Working Group for Grumman Corporation (1990-1993).  He also served as the NASA MSFC representative for technical oversight of Canadian robotic elements and enabled the robotic system contractor to proceed towards Critical Design Review.  Mr. Allison also served as Engineering Coordinator for Configuration Subteam in a program-wide review in Reston, Virginia.

 

Outside of work, Mr. Allison has provided tremendous leadership for the grassroots space movement.  He is one of the founders of the Huntsville Alabama L5 Society (HAL5), a chapter of the National Space Society (NSS), HAL5 has become the leading chapter of the NSS.

 

 

Bill Brown (V.P Engineering, High Altitude Research Corp, Huntsville, AL) is a senior electrical engineer with 25 years of experience in the field. His specialty is with sensors, command/control links, embedded microcontroller design as well as RF telemetry and video links. Bill has designed and flown hundreds of  NearSpace balloon systems for over 20 years and is considered a pioneer in the design of lightweight NearSpace payloads. Related projects include the Earthwinds project, Project HALO rockoon, Balloon-Launched Return Vehicle (Dryden SBIR), JPL Mars balloon testing, CATS prize rocket balloon as well as a participant in the Ansari X-Prize. In addition, he has years of experience with Army unmanned ground vehicle design, simulators and interfaces for the MLRS and Patriot missile systems as well as test platforms for avionics. He is the inventor and designer of the first BalloonSat system in the U.S and has mentored countless schools, universities and commercial stratospheric balloon programs.

He holds a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering as well as a Masters degree in Biochemistry, both from U.C. Santa Barbara. In addition, he holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Ohio State University.