Leadership
Grant Anderson, P.E.
Mr. Anderson co-founded Paragon in 1993. From the time of inception of the company until fall 2014, he was the VP of Engineering and Chief Engineer of the company and was responsible for the design and implementation of not only many of Paragon’s technical achievements, but also its processes of engineering rigor in a stepped approach of requirements, design, build, test and delivery. This process has been cited by many customers as unique, disciplined and highly productive. Coming from a background of not only technical but financial and managerial training, he has held diverse positions at Paragon including Treasurer/Secretary, CFO, Sr. VP of Operations, Chief Operating Officer and Director of Manufacturing.
Recognized as a leader in the life support in extreme environments field, Mr. Anderson has led the systems and conceptual design of multiple spacecraft under contract to Lockheed Martin, NASA, Inspiration Mars Foundation and others. He holds multiple patents in a diverse range of disciplines including testing systems, isolation systems, radiator systems and overall systems design. He has led development and qualification of experimental flight hardware for five shuttle flights, two Mir missions, a Russian Progress, and the first commercial payload on ISS. Prior to starting Paragon, Mr. Anderson was the Chief Design Engineer for the International Space Station Solar Array Program–the largest solar arrays ever built–while employed at Lockheed Martin, Sunnyvale, CA.
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 in the state of California. His diverse education/training included non-technical roles such as Controller for a Palo Alto, CA real estate firm during college where he implemented some of the first computers into the company’s financial systems to track and monitor property financial performance. Working at an aviation consultancy, he participated in the start-up of two airlines through route analysis, equipment analysis and strategy advice. One went on to be America West, now part of American Airlines. Mr. Anderson is also a graduate of the International Space University 1991 summer session with emphasis on space business and management.
Mr. Anderson’s passion for excellence drives him to support the next generation of engineers and leaders through participation in educational work outside of Paragon. A former Treasurer and member of the board of Trustees of the Tucson Waldorf School, he lead the financial growth of that entity from a small struggling school to a robust, diverse and thriving school today. Mr. Anderson also oversees a non-profit tuition scholarship organization which provides approximately $250,000 of scholarships to deserving children throughout southern Arizona. He is also on the Industry Advisory Board for the College of Engineering at the University of Arizona
In his spare time, Mr. Anderson is an avid bicyclist and is known to ride solo for hundreds of miles to clear his mind.
Mr. Anderson lives in Tucson with his wife of almost 30 years, Ines, and their three children.
Joel Johnson, CPA
Mr. Johnson has more than 15 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.
Barry Finger
As the VP of Engineering at Paragon Space Development Corporation, Mr. Finger provides technical leadership and balanced oversight of the Engineering Development process for the company’s flight programs and emerging technologies. Mr. Finger received a B.S. and M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Florida. A 14 year Paragon veteran, Mr. Finger and his Engineering Leadership team maintain the technical excellence of the company’s and Life Support and Thermal Control products. Other previous roles at Paragon include Director of Advanced Concepts, Commercial Crew Transport–Air Revitalization System Project Manager, and ECLSS Chief Engineer on the Inspiration Mars and the Rocketplane Kistler programs. Prior to joining Paragon, Mr. Finger served as the ECLSS Manager for Bigelow Aerospace where he led a lean team of engineers and technicians that developed ECLSS for commercial human spaceflight vehicles. During that time, the team successfully launched the world’s first two long-duration inflatable habitat prototypes into low earth orbit. Prior positions include International Space Station (ISS) Sustaining Engineering (SE) Program Manager for Honeywell where he managed ISS SE activities related to the support of company flight hardware and systems aboard ISS and ECLSS design engineer for Hamilton Sundstrand at the Johnson Space Center (JSC).
Leslie Haas
Ms. Haas directs the business development and marketing efforts for Paragon. Prior to joining Paragon, she had more than 25 years of global business experience with Fortune 100 and startup companies in diverse industries including aerospace, energy and entertainment. Her aerospace experience includes engineering and project management roles on the Space Shuttle and International Space Station as well as program management roles on several programs at Moog (formerly Schaeffer Magnetics).
Her corporate background includes stints as Vice-President and General Manager at the Sony DVD Center which launched the DVD format worldwide and Vice President Business Development for the Sony Pictures Digital Studios Division. Ms. Haas has been recognized in several areas, including the NASA Silver Snoopy Award, Engineer of the Year honoree, and the President’s Leadership award at Rockwell International/Rocketdyne (now Boeing). She is the recipient of the Sony CEO Award in Tokyo and the Sony 50th Anniversary Innovation Award. Ms. Haas is a member of the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences and served on the Susan G. Komen Board of Directors. Leslie received her B.S. degree in Industrial Engineering from Texas A&M University and her MBA from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.
Emily Kose
Ms. Kose is a seasoned Program Management professional, serving in the defense and government industry for over 20 years. Prior to joining Paragon, she was with Raytheon Technologies for 18 years, in progressive management roles within multiple business divisions. During Ms. Kose’s tenure in the industry, she has held roles in business finance, engineering leadership, proposal and strategy management, development program management, production program management, growth management, and overall portfolio leadership and management. Her specialty in program leadership roles include instituting rapid development processes and procedures while establishing fundamental program management and production principles, transforming troubled programs and finding efficiencies for legacy business programs and process. This role leverages her extensive experience in team building and collaboration, efficient program start-up and production and financial/business acumen. Ms. Kose is a recognized industry expert at Earned Value Management, business and technical planning, new business and growth fundamentals and strategy deployment and implementation, as well as master team change agent and difficult culture transformation through innovation and collaboration in execution and integrating vertical (customer through supplier) relationships as well horizontal team alignment and execution.
Ms. Kose holds dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Finance and Economics from the University of Arizona, graduating Cum Laude. In addition to professional attributes, Ms. Kose is a regular guest speaker and lecturer at colleges, universities and leadership forums and events and serves on several non-profit organization leadership teams.
Virginia Yancy
Bio coming soon.
Toby Jones
Mr. Jones has over 25 years of space, defense industry and aerospace experience with leading roles in Mission Assurance and Safety Systems with such companies as Honeywell, Space Systems Loral, and the United States Marine Corps among others. As a certified Manager of Quality, he has applied standard methodology and techniques of continuous improvement to every aspect of a functional organization. Mr. Jones has been empowered to administer and facilitate the SQMA policy for Paragon in ways that are consistent with leading industry AS9100 standards of compliance and reliability. The mission of SQMA at Paragon is to provide robust space based products with traceable and continually improving process capabilities. Mr. Jones holds a M.S. in Management Science and a B.S. in Professional Aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Tom Wilson
Mr. Wilson is Head of People for Paragon Space Development Corporation. As a member of the leadership team, he leads and shapes our efforts to fuel our growth strategy with our most valuable asset – our people.
In this role, he leads the company’s efforts in recruiting, total rewards, diversity and inclusion, learning, development, and employee engagement. Before joining Paragon, he held roles in human resources and in business for over 28 years with companies like Fed By Threads, Zona Fitness, Vector Launch and the United States Air Force. Mr. Wilson also served 20 years active duty in the U.S. Air Force, honorably completing his military service obligation as a Master Sergeant in 2010. Mr. Wilson holds a degree in Management and Human Resources from Park University and an MBA from University of Phoenix.
Volker Kern
As Senior Director, Business Operations, Dr. Volker D. Kern serves as Deputy to Paragon’s Business Operations Officer. Dr. Kern oversees Paragon’s enterprise resource planning and corporate strategic forecasting with focus on labor talent requirements across the entire corporation, matrixed skillset demands and allocation, analytical digestion of tool outputs and information, and resulting facilities requirements/expansion needs. In addition, Dr. Kern manages Paragon’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for a 200+ personnel aerospace engineering corporation.
Prior to this position, since May 2007, Dr. Kern served as Senior Director of Programs/Director of Human Spaceflight Programs overseeing all of Paragon’s internal and external programs.
For over 30 years, Dr. Kern has been engaged in international human spaceflight and space-based research studying the effects of microgravity exposure on higher basidiomycetes, fungi, and mosses. Serving as Co-Principal Investigator on four Space Shuttle flight experiments, Dr. Kern led international research teams and managed day-to day activities related to experiment preparation and readiness, flight hardware design and testing, flight crew training, and operations during and post-flight.
At NASA field centers, Dr. Kern managed six international Space Shuttle payloads encompassing microgravity research on bacteria, higher plants, rats, and mice. In addition, Dr. Kern served as NASA Ames Research Center’s liaison to the development team designing the European Space Agency’s European Modular Cultivation System (EMCS), successfully deployed to the International Space Station. Between 2003 and 2005, Dr. Kern served as Enterprise Scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, serving as NASA’s interface to the scientific community for plant research and microbial/cell biology in the Fundamental Space Biology program.
Dr. Kern holds a Ph.D. in Plant Gravitational Biology from the Technical University of Munich, Germany, and a M.S. in Plant Physiology from the Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg, Germany. Dr. Kern is the author of 35 peer-reviewed papers published in scientific journals and edited two volumes for Advances in Space Research. In 2004, Dr. Kern was awarded the NASA Public Service Medal.
Thierry Carriere
Dr. Carriere has over 20 years of experience in Research and Development, Engineering and Technology Transition to commercial and government markets. Following his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, he started his professional career at the United Technologies Research Center (UTRC) developing new industrial and military technologies for the company’s business units. In particular, he led the technical development and program management of innovations in the area of toxic gas sensing and fire suppression systems. After 8 years at UTRC, he joined ADA Technologies, a small technology incubation business as Director of Technology. In that capacity, he was responsible for capturing funding and leading technology development for ADA’s NASA and DOD customers. For the first five years, his main project was the research, engineering, implementation and qualification of a novel fine water mist fire suppression technology for the International Space Station. After the portable extinguishers were successfully delivered to the ISS, Dr. Carriere assumed the role of Vice President and oversaw all aspects of projects focused on a variety of critical defense areas including jet fighter fuel tank safety research for the Air Force, high-pressure scuba and ultra-safe battery enclosure products for the US Navy, and austere environment wearable sensors for the US Army. He joined Paragon in April 2021 following an 11-year tenure at ADA.