Advancing the National Imperative

Dr. Zachary C. Krevor is Chief Executive Officer and President of Stratolaunch, LLC. He is responsible for day-to-day company operations while overseeing the integration of customer requirements with the Stratolaunch product. He leads strategic development of the company offering, ensuring successful business operations that serve the test needs of the hypersonic community.

Dr. Krevor has nearly 20 years of experience leading integration across business and engineering teams to develop alternative aircraft and spacecraft technologies. His leadership has resulted in the development of new technology solutions that have been used by a variety of government and commercial customers. Dr. Krevor has experience developing new business by leading contract opportunities and collaborating with business development on Department of Defense (DoD), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and NASA capture strategy, relationship building, proposal writing, and awards. He worked as an engineer on the Lockheed Martin Orion program and as a member of Lockheed’s Altair Lunar Lander team. He was also a Chief Systems Engineer on the Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser program. He provided technical leadership for Sierra Nevada’s Space Systems Advanced Development group, leading to multiple business awards. Prior to becoming the President and Chief Operating Officer at Stratolaunch LLC, Dr. Krevor was the Vice President of Engineering at Stratolaunch Systems Corporation, with leadership responsibility for launch vehicle development and integration with the carrier aircraft while helping to win new business.

Dr. Krevor has a M.S. and Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UCLA. He is an AIAA Associate Fellow, a member of the Space Systems Technical Committee, and a private pilot.

Aaron Cassebeer has been designing, building, and testing prototype air and ground vehicles for over twenty years. His focus is the rapid prototyping of clean-sheet designs, and he has significant experience across all stages of vehicle development. He is the Chief Product Officer at Stratolaunch, responsible for the Engineering, Manufacturing, and Program Management departments. He was Chief Engineer of the Talon-A hypersonic vehicle development program from concept through Critical Design Review. Previously, Aaron worked at Scaled Composites where he was Director of Engineering. While at Scaled, he brough four clean-sheet aircraft from concept to flight test, including SpaceShipTwo, Roc, and the Model 401. These vehicles included a supersonic rocket powered glider, the world’s largest aircraft, and two subsonic technology demonstrators. His areas of technical depth include rapid prototyping, structures, composites, mechanical systems, fluid systems, flight controls, systems engineering, ground testing, and flight test engineering. Before Scaled, Aaron designed, build, and tested four composite open-wheel racecars in four years and worked at the Skip Barber Racing School as a mechanic and pit crew member. He graduated from Lehigh University with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. 

Andy Benzing is the Chief Financial Officer of Stratolaunch, LLC. He is responsible to drive disciplined execution in the business to yield the company’s targeted financial results. He and the organization work together to plan, track, report, and analyze operational and financial information. Together with the rest of the staff, they use those results to make informed decisions about the direction of the business, risks, investments, and its day-to-day operations.

Benzing has 20 years of experience in the aerospace and defense financial field, and has led a variety of teams across multiple organizations.  Prior to joining Stratolaunch, he was the Chief Financial Officer of Air Power in the Missiles & Defense segment of RTX Corporation. His career with RTX and its predecessor Raytheon Company spanned various other roles in Financial Leadership, Financial Planning, Business Management, Business Transformation, and New Business Capture.

For almost ten years before his career in finance began, Benzing was a U.S. Army Aviator.  His roles in the military included company command, international liaison, a variety of staff roles, and took him across the globe in deployments for both combat and peacetime. 

His education includes an MBA from the Sloan School at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a bachelor’s degree in physics from Duke University.

Jackson Kemper, III is Senior Vice President of Washington Operations at Stratolaunch LLC, is a satellite and cybersecurity industry veteran with nearly 30 years of leading Sales and Business Development efforts to Enterprise and Government customers globally. Mr. Kemper is a proven industry leader with a record of leading Sales efforts and motivating his teams to exceed goals. Prior to joining Stratolaunch, Jackson led the US Government Sales efforts for Mynaric, AG, a provider of optical communications terminals for space, air, and ground applications. Before Mynaric, Jackson spent 5 years as the revenue lead for Tresys Technology, LLC, a provider of government-certified cybersecurity products and services, providing solutions to Enterprise and Government customers globally.

Jackson also established and managed his own consulting practice, JK3 Associates, LLC, where he provided outsourced Business Development and Government Affairs services to a diverse customer set, including COMSATCOM capacity providers and a low profile phased array SATCOM antenna company.

Jackson also led Sales and BD efforts for SATCOM Industry leaders, including Inmarsat Government as the SVP of Sales, and Iridium, as the Vice President of Business Development.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Kemper led Sales and Government Affairs activities for Cryptek Secure Communications and DRS Technologies (now Leonardo DRS).

Mr. Kemper has BS in Management (cum laude) from Boston College and an MA from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

Colonel (R) Mike Hopkins is the Senior Vice President of Operations and Quality at Stratolaunch in Mojave, CA.  Previously he was a Managing Director for Cerberus Capital Management following his retirement on 1 May 2023 from the United States Space Force after a 30-year military career.  His final assignment was the United States Space Force Director of Test and Evaluation, serving as the principal test advisor to Space Force senior leadership and providing oversight of the USSF test enterprise.  Prior to this position, he was assigned to the NASA Johnson Space Center Astronaut Office in Houston, Texas performing human spaceflight training, operations and support. 

Hopkins was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force in January 1992. In April 1993, he was assigned to Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he worked on advanced space system technologies. In 1996, he attended the flight test engineering course at the United States Air Force Test Pilot School, Edwards Air Force Base, California. Following graduation in 1997, he spent the next five years testing aircraft at Edwards AFB and the Canadian Flight Test Center in Cold Lake, Alberta.  Hopkins next served as an Olmsted Scholar at the Università degli Studi di Parma. From 2005-2009, Hopkins worked in the Pentagon with the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office and as a special assistant to the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

Hopkins was selected in July 2009 as one of 9 members of the 20th NASA astronaut class. On September 25, 2013, Hopkins launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station (ISS) where he served as a member of ISS Expeditions 37/38. More recently, the Missouri native served as Commander of the Crew-1 SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience, which launched on November 16, 2020 to the ISS for ISS Expeditions 64/65. This flight was the first post-certification mission of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft – the second crewed flight for that vehicle.  Notable events during this flight include Hopkins voluntarily transferring from the United States Air Force to the United States Space Force, becoming the first Guardian astronaut.  Additionally, Crew-1 broke the American crewed spacecraft mission duration record set by the final skylab crew in 1974 as well as having the first night splashdown of a U.S. spacecraft since Apollo 8 in 1968.  Between the two flights, Colonel Hopkins has spent 333 days in space and conducted 5 spacewalks totaling more than 32 hours “outside” ISS.

Mike was born in Lebanon, Missouri, and grew up on a farm outside Richland, Missouri.  He attended high school at School of the Osage in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, graduating in 1987.  He holds a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Illinois in 1991 and a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering from Stanford University in 1992.