Ms. Poynter is a Paragon co-founder. She has served as SPACEHAB’s Chief Scientist for its Ecosystem in Space experiment on the International Space Station, and three experiments with ants, bees and fish, which flew on STS-107, the Space Shuttle Columbia. Ms. Poynter holds a patent for the Autonomous Biological System. She is Chief Scientist for Carbon Sequestration for the Seawater Foundation, a non-profit that is developing untreated seawater-based agroforestry projects in coastal deserts. She developed carbon sequestration models and ground truth methodologies for carbon credit trading, and documentation for the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund and the United Nations. Prior to her work with Paragon, Ms. Poynter was a member of the original team to live and work inside Biosphere 2, for which she led the design and implementation of the Intensive Agriculture. Her book, The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2, is in stores. Her newest book, Champions for Change, Athletes Making a World of Difference, is now available.

Mr. MacCallum has worked at every level of command on a research vessel, sailing to over 40 ports and over 30,000 miles around the world. Training in Singapore, he became certified as a Commercial Dive Master and Advanced Diving Instructor. He served as Dive Master for a project to reintroduce two captive research dolphins to the wild, underwater ship salvage operations, and deep water specimen collecting expeditions in every ocean and most of the world’s seas.

Taber was a founding member of the Biosphere 2 Design, Development, Test & Operations team, and a crew member in the first two-year (and twenty minute) mission living and working inside the three-acre materially closed ecological system which supported the life of the eight human inhabitants. Demonstrating the viability of artificial biospheres, Biosphere 2 was designed for research applicable to environmental management on Earth and the development of closed loop human life support technology for long duration space travel.

Taber was responsible for the design, implementation and operation of the atmosphere and water management systems as well as the self-contained paperless analytical laboratories for Biosphere 2 that tested air, water, soil and tissue. As a crew member he served as Safety Officer, Assistant Medical Officer and Analytical Chemist, responsible for operation of all the analytical systems and much of the medical analysis and health monitoring systems. The analytical and medical laboratories performed all the analysis required to understand and operate Biosphere 2. Both systems operated completely independent from sample exchange or external resources. With a full suite of diagnostic and treatment capabilities from blood analysis and x-ray to minor surgery, medical facilities monitored and maintained crew health in difficult confined conditions without external material resources.

Mr. MacCallum co-founded Paragon in 1993, serving as Chief Executive Officer since its formation. He is also co-designer and patent holder for the Autonomous Biological System (ABS), a long duration plant and aquatic animal life support system. He was also the design lead for the Jet Propulsion Lab Mars Greenhouse Experiment Module (GEM) payload, and Mars GEM payload environmental control and plant life support system. He conceived and is presently involved in the design of a novel Mars space suit portable life support system technology funded by NASA, life support and thermal control systems for commercial manned orbital and suborbital spacecraft, as well as hazardous environment life support technology for U.S. Navy divers, in which he is the test diver. Starting with the design of Biosphere 2 systems, Taber has received numerous patents for space exploration related technologies.

Taber was the Principal Investigator on five microgravity experiments starting in 1988 on the Soviet BioSatellite, then the U.S. Space Shuttle, the Russian Mir Orbital Station and International Space Station. Four-month Mir experiments using the ABS produced the first animals to have completed their life cycle in microgravity, resulting in significant discoveries of innate verses learned animal behavior over multiple generations in space. The series of experiments also resulted in the first aquatic plants to be grown in space and the first completely closed ecological systems to be used in space, enabling truly controlled microgravity biological research. He has published numerous papers resulting from his work at Biosphere 2 on space biology, technology development and medical issues, and on the experience of living and working in an Isolated Confined Environment.

Paragon has design, development and hardware production responsibilities on several NASA flight and technology programs, including the Commercial Crew Transport Air Revitalization System, Crew Space Suit System, Orion Spacecraft, Solid Oxide oxygen production technology, portable life support technology for Mars, ISS Small Payload Quick Return system, and several human spacecraft thermal technologies including radiators, fluids and sublimation systems. For several years in a row now, Paragon has been listed by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing companies in America, and the fastest growing aerospace engineering company. Paragon has won numerous awards for management and innovation, including top honors from the Governor of Arizona for innovation and management.

A founder of Paragon, Mr. Anderson has been designing power, thermal and life support systems for human rated spacecraft since 1985. He is presently the Program Manager for the Paragon Lockheed Martin Orion program. He and his team are responsible for interface control and vehicle schematics, as well as specific design responsibility for the service module radiators and overall spacecraft ECLSS tubing. Since 1999, Mr. Anderson has lead the Thermal Control System and Environmental Control and Life Support System design for every human rated spacecraft program undertaken by Lockheed Martin. He is currently the Principal Investigator for Diver Breathing and Isolations Systems that allow Navy divers to work in contaminated water. This new diving technology is currently undergoing full up dive testing.

He is the PI for the development of a structurally integral CEV service module radiator technology, as well as single loop thermal control system fluids. The fluids are presently being tested in Paragon’s lab. Previous experience includes being Project Design Lead and Cost Account Manager for the ISS Solar Array Program at Lockheed Martin, the largest solar arrays ever built; Cabin design and build of the first CEV mockup, now on display at Johnson Space Center; Engineering lead for experimental flight hardware on five shuttle flights, two Mir missions, a Russian Progress, and the first commercial payload on ISS; he also lead the engineering on a flight qualified Micro-gravity Cell Culture System.

As Project Manager, he was in charge of setting up and staffing the Operations Department of Cargolifter, a large German airship development, which included crew training and simulation, cockpit design, operational scenario and mission rule development. Mr. Anderson holds two degrees from Stanford University in Mechanical Engineering (B.S.) and Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering (M.S.) and is a registered Professional Engineer.

Mr. Johnson has more than 10 years experience in a wide range of professional Accounting and Finance leadership positions.  Prior to joining Paragon Mr. Johnson spent three years at Raytheon Corporation in the Raytheon Missile Systems business unit where he maintained responsibility for the $4B+ Income Statement and was the lead interface for internal Earned Value Management Systems (EVMS) reporting.  Additionally Mr. Johnson worked in the Business Office as the Financial Planner of the Kinetic Energy Interceptor Program during some of its initial development and planning stages and in the Business Office of the Lockheed Martin/Raytheon Javelin Joint Venture.  Prior to joining Raytheon Corporation, Mr. Johnson was the Assistant Controller/Finance Manager at Columbia University’s Biosphere 2 Center overseeing all the Financial Operations of the organization.  Prior to the Biosphere 2 Center, Mr. Johnson spent several years in Big 5 Public Accounting working as an auditor for both Ernst & Young LLP and Deloitte & Touche LLP.  Mr. Johnson holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Arizona with double majors in Accounting and Finance and is also a Certified Public Accountant. 

Dr. Kern is an accomplished professional with experience in large-scale program/project management, process improvement, team leadership, R&D and technology development. He played a key role in securing a 7-year, $315 million NASA contract for Lockheed Martin, led 6 payloads on 2 Space Shuttle flights with team of 100+ scientists from US, Japan, France and Canada, co-managed $170 million-per-year program, coordinating operations at NASA field centers, and led an Independent Assessment team for the NASA HQ Contract Assurance Services (NCAS) Office.

While at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC, Dr. Kern coordinated the proposal review cycle (NASA and International Life Science Research Announcement) including technical, tactical and scientific peer reviews. In addition, he facilitated the creation of a road map for the development of safe life support systems for long-term space exploration.

Dr. Kern received $2+ million grant funding from NASA and German Space Agency and served as Principal Investigator for experiments on 4 US Space Shuttle flights. He is the author of 21 peer-reviewed papers published in scientific journals and is recipient of the NASA Public Service Medal, 2004, Lockheed Martin Space Operations "Top Flight” Award, 2002 & 2003, and the Thora W. Halstead "Young Investigators Award," American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology, 2000. Dr. Kern received a M.S. in Plant Physiology and a Ph.D. in Gravitational Biology.

Dr. Iacomini joined Paragon in 2005, performing research and leading hardware development efforts related to air revitalization systems, portable life support systems (PLSS), spacecraft heat rejection and in situ resource utilization (ISRU). Dr. Iacomini has served as Principal Investigator for several NASA R&D contracts. These include development of metabolic heat regenerated temperature swing adsorption (MTSA) technology for carbon dioxide removal/rejection from a PLSS, investigating solid oxide electrolysis (SOE) with embedded Sabatier reactors for an air revitalization system to regenerate oxygen from metabolically-produced carbon dioxide and water, and investigating fluid stagnation in spacecraft radiator tubes to enable heat rejection in cold environments during low power operations. 

Dr. Iacomini started her career at NASA Johnson Space Center as a cooperative education student while earning her B.S. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Purdue and M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. Her master’s thesis, specializing in orbital mechanics, demonstrated, for the first time, the feasibility of relative positioning between two GPS receivers in low Earth orbit, as well as orbit determination using GPS to a position accuracy better than 10 meters. Dr. Iacomini was hired by NASA Johnson Space Center, serving as one of the X-38 parafoil principal investigators responsible for modeling, simulation, and analysis of parafoil systems and aerodynamics. She also defined flight test maneuvers and participated in drop tests, including remotely piloting the X-38 parafoil as Lead Parafoil Pilot.  Dr. Iacomini left NASA in 1999 to earn her Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering at The University of Arizona, emphasizing thermal sciences. Through her dissertation work, she discovered phenomenon governing exhaust composition of combined water and carbon dioxide SOE, and derived theory verified through experimental investigations that enables more efficient implementation of SOE in terms of power consumption through application of advanced chemical thermodynamics.

Mr. Konopka is the Vice President Safety, Quality, and Mission Assurance at Paragon and he has twenty-five years of diversified work experience in quality management, quality engineering, configuration management, system safety, production, test and flight operations.  He has been involved in manned flight, expendable, and commercial space flight programs.  Mr. Konopka holds a B.S. from the University of Southern Mississippi.

Jenna Elmer, SPHR, is the Director of the People Department and Facility Security Officer.  Under Ms. Elmer's leadership, Support Services provides Personnel Support, Security Support, and Administrative Services Support to Paragon.  As a member of the management team, Ms. Elmer has helped grow Paragon since 2001 and has worked diligently to create an award winning corporate culture that engenders the growth of each employee.  An HR professional since 1995, Ms. Elmer has over 10 years' experience in the aerospace industry. Ms. Elmer has been certified as an SPHR since 1999 and is a graduate of Northern Arizona University. 

Barry Finger has over 17 years’ experience and previously served as an ECLSS design engineer for Honeywell and Hamilton Sundstrand at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) and the Bionetics Corporation at the Kennedy Space Center. He was the lead engineer for the Post Processing Subsystem, which was operated continuously for over one year as part of the JSC Advanced Water Recovery System Integrated Test. While with Honeywell, Mr. Finger served as the company’s ISS Sustaining Engineering program manager, and was responsible for directing the company’s response to on-orbit anomalies with Honeywell-supplied ECLSS and Thermal Control System hardware and systems. Most recently, Mr. Finger served as the Environmental Control System lead for Bigelow Aerospace where he was responsible for designing, manufacturing, and integrating the Air Management System (AMS) that flew aboard Bigelow Aerospace’s first orbital vehicle. The AMS, which consisted of a launch vent subsystem, inflation subsystem, and a pressure relief subsystem, operated successfully during the launch, deployment and on-orbit portions of the mission.