Crossing the Valley

About Ryan Westerdahl Before starting Turion, Ryan spent nine years as an engineer at SpaceX, joining not long after the company’s sixth flight and working under Kevin Wu — an engineering leader Ryan credits as one of the best of his generation (now leads engineering at Relativity Space). Ryan’s interest in space dates back to 2002, when he first saw an NPR segment about the discovery of exoplanet...

About Jackie Barbieri Jackie is the founder and CEO of Whitespace. She began her career supporting the counter-IED mission during the surge in Iraq, working as a red-team analyst. She was a threat emulator who studied the tactics, ideology, and bomb-making techniques of adversary networks, often in Arabic on the dark web, then fused that with classified collection. That experience, and witnessing...

About Phil Duong Phil Duong is the CEO and co-founder of Noda AI. The son of Vietnamese immigrants who arrived in the U.S. with little money and speaking little English, he grew up in a family of service members who had fought for their freedom. His heritage left him with a deep sense of patriotism and a drive, as he puts it, to repay the country “multiple lives’ worth.” He won a spot at West Poin...

When it comes to the defense tech sales G.O.A.T. debate, John Doyle is one of the most oft-mentioned names in the business. From his days at Palantir, to his robust advisory portfolio, John is both successful and generous. His appearance on Crossing the Valley has been a long time coming! This week, John joined us to talk about Cape — a privacy-first cellular carrier he started in 2022 after a dec...

How Nominal Turned the Pentagon’s Slowest Gate Into a Growth Engine Featuring Cameron McCord, CEO and co-founder of Nominal About Cameron Cameron McCord has seen the defense ecosystem from more seats than most. He started his career as a young submarine officer, operating, in his words, with “the best of 1980s technology” and learning what it feels like to be beholden to antiquated tech when the m...

How Machina Labs Compressed 4-Year Lead Times Into 1 Week About Ed Mehr Ed Mehr is the CEO and co-founder of Machina Labs. A builder since childhood (he attended a school that emphasized welding, carpentry, and craft) Ed started his career in software before crossing over into hardware as an early engineer at SpaceX in the early 2010s. The cultural shock of moving from “ship a prototype in days” s...

Rebuilding America’s Thermal Imaging Supply Chain About John Hong and Tallis Chang John Hong is CEO and Tallis Chang is COO of Obsidian Sensors. The two have worked together for over 40 years, with backgrounds in aerospace before joining Qualcomm. At Qualcomm, they were part of the team that spent nearly a decade developing low-power displays using MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) built on...

About Brian Spurlock Brian Spurlock is VP of Growth and Strategy at Persistent Systems, and a self-described “boomerang” employee, meaning he’s had two separate tenures at the company. He came up as a Special Operations acquisitions officer at Fort Bragg, which means he’s seen the Persistent Systems story from both sides: as the government buyer evaluating the technology and as the company executi...

Building the Physical AI Platform for the Industrial Base ABOUT ARIYAN KABIR Ariyan Kabir is the co-founder and CEO of GrayMatter Robotics. He started the company in early 2020 alongside two co-founders, building on PhD research conducted at USC’s Center for Advanced Manufacturing, where he and one co-founder studied the intersection of robotics and AI. The third co-founder, chief scientist Satyan...

About Ben Ben Cipperley spent 26 years in the Navy. The first 18 he served as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal office, with three tours across the Indo-Pacific, three years between Iraq and Afghanistan, and command in Guam. Which is to say, he has more experience than most. What makes his background unusual isn’t the operational experience; plenty of veterans make the transition. It’s the Pentagon c...

About Luke Fischer Luke Fischer is the CEO and co-founder of SkyFi. He is a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot and Special Operations veteran who transitioned through DIU (Defense Innovation Unit), Uber Elevate (as Head of Flight Operations), and Joby Aviation (leading government operations) before founding SkyFi in late 2021. He also spent time as an Entrepreneur in Residence in VC, which gave him...

About Todd Stiefler Todd Stiefler is VP of Enterprise at WHOOP, overseeing the company’s B2B and B2G business lines. He brings an unusually cross-functional background to the role: a decade as a Senate defense staffer focused on missile defense and strategic nuclear deterrent, followed by product and commercial leadership roles at GE’s industrial IoT division, LMI, and Palantir. A self-described “...

About Byron Boots Byron Boots is the co-founder and CEO of Overland AI. Prior to starting the company, he was an associate professor in computer science at the University of Washington, where his research focused on machine learning and robot autonomy. Byron served as principal investigator on DARPA’s Racer program, one of the most ambitious off-road ground autonomy challenges the agency has run s...

What happens when a Friday morning coffee turns into a term sheet by Sunday night? In this episode, Forterra CEO Josh Araujo is joined by Ari Schuler, a returning CTV guest , to take us inside Forterra’s acquisition of goTenna. Company Overview About Forterra: Ground autonomy company enabling war fighters to shoot, move, and communicate more effectively. Technical stack includes autonomous driving...

About Dino Mavrookas Dino Mavrookas is the CEO and co-founder of Saronic. He served 11 years in the U.S. Navy SEALs (2004–2015), with his final five years on SEAL Team Six. After leaving the military, he transitioned to private equity at Vista Equity Partners, where he spent roughly five years before the pull of mission-driven work drew him back to defense. Dino describes his transition as a gradu...

How Wirescreen is Turning Investigative Journalism Into a National Security Intelligence Tool About our Guests David Barboza is the CEO and Co-Founder of Wirescreen. Before founding the company, David spent over two decades as a journalist at The New York Times, where he served as Shanghai bureau chief for 12 years and won a Pulitzer Prize for his investigative reporting on the hidden wealth of Ch...

About Our Guests AJ Piplica is the CEO and co-founder of Hermeus, a defense technology company developing hypersonic aircraft powered by air-breathing engines. His technical background centers on aerodynamics and hypersonics, with early career work on rocket engines and re-entry systems. Unlike many defense tech founders who come from software or commercial tech, AJ’s obsession with speed and avia...

About Ian Ian Cinnamon is the co-founder and CEO of Apex Space, which he launched to solve a fundamental bottleneck in the space industry: the lack of available, high-quality satellite platforms. Prior to Apex, Ian worked in aerospace engineering and identified the satellite bus as a critical constraint for the growing commercial and defense space ecosystem. About Apex Space Apex Space is a mercha...

ABOUT BEN Ben Van Roo is the CEO and Founder of Legion Intelligence. He comes from a military family (his brother is currently on active duty), giving him both personal connection to and deep understanding of the defense community’s needs. His career encompasses a combination of academic rigor and operational execution. ABOUT LEGION INTELLIGENCE Legion Intelligence is an applied AI company that co...

About Ben Nicholson Ben is the Chief Business Officer at Ursa Major, bringing over 22 years of government service to the defense tech startup. His career includes 10 years in the Coast Guard, legislative experience as a congressional staffer on appropriations, and corporate leadership at defense giants L3 and Honeywell. At age 50, Nicholson made an unexpected leap from the established defense indu...

Gecko Robotics — From College Project to Critical Infrastructure ABOUT TROY DEMMER Troy is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Gecko Robotics. He started the company 12+ years ago as a college senior project at Grove City College in Western Pennsylvania, alongside co-founder Jake Loosararian. Troy came from a medical background and saw an opportunity to bring diagnostic thinking to industr...

ABOUT DAN SMOOT Dan Smoot is the CEO of Vantor, formerly Maxar Intelligence. He comes from a background in high-tech companies and has led major business transformations before. Since taking the helm, Dan has overseen the company’s transition from a publicly traded satellite imaging business to a private, solutions-focused company. He led the controversial decision to retire the Maxar brand — one...

About Nick LaRovere Nick is the CEO and Co-founder of Pryzm. As a software engineer at Palantir Technologies, Nick worked on both Gotham and Foundry platforms, gaining firsthand exposure to building federal contracting systems and understanding the critical intersection of technology and national security missions. A graduate of Colby College, Nick’s experience selling Palantir’s solutions to DOD...

Friends, This week, we are spotlighting a new podcast in the defense community, Rebuilding the Fleet. This new pod covers all things Maritime Autonomy and shipbuilding, featuring repeat guest Austin Gray . This episode is a discussion between Austin and HII’s Executive Vice President Eric Chewning , a former investment banker, management consultant at McKinsey, and senior advisor to the Secretary...

Case Study: Crossing the Valley of Death in Digital Manufacturing About Nathan Diller Nathan Diller brings a rare combination of operational military experience, government innovation leadership, and private sector execution to the defense technology ecosystem. After 22 years of Air Force service as a test pilot, he transitioned to become Director of AFWERX, where he managed and expanded the SBIR...