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.
Carlos Smith
Mr. Smith has more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of Accounting and Finance leadership positions. In this role, he is responsible for oversight of all internal and external financial reporting, compliance, financial planning, financial controls, capital structure, accounting, audit, financial services, tax, and treasury.
Prior to joining Paragon Mr. Smith served as the Chief Financial Officer for DAWSON operating companies. In this role, he was responsible for overseeing financial activities, controllership, audit, tax, and treasury.
Prior to joining DAWSON in 2019, Mr. Smith served as Chief Financial Officer for Israeli Aerospace Industries North America Aerospace (Stark) Division with responsibility for overseeing financial activities and operations, procurement, contracts, pricing, audit, financial services, tax, and treasury.
Prior to joining IAI North America Aerospace (Stark) Division in 2017, Smith served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Leonardo DRS Airborne & Intelligence Systems Division with responsibility for all aspects of the finance function including four manufacturing sites.
Prior to joining Leonardo DRS Airborne & Intelligence Systems Division in 2013, Mr. Smith served as Director of Finance/Controller for L-3 Technologies Vertex Aerospace Division responsible for Finance and Accounting.
Prior to joining L-3 Technologies Vertex Aerospace Division in 2000, Mr. Smith served as Accountant/Financial Analyst for Mortgage Services responsible for preparing all financial analysis, and closing entries for three responsibility centers.
Mr. Smith also served in the U.S. Army Reserves for 14 years. Mr. Smith earned an Executive MBA from New York Institute of Technology, a Bachelor of Business Administration in accounting from the Jackson State University.
Norman Hahn, Sr.
As Acting Chief Engineer at Paragon Space Development Corporation, Mr. Hahn provides technical leadership and balanced oversight of the product development process for the company’s flight programs and emerging technologies. He holds a BS in Aerospace Engineering from Penn State and a MS in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
During his 17+ years at Paragon, Mr. Hahn has served as Chief Engineer and/or technical lead for Paragon’s efforts on the Orion, Inspiration Mars and StratEx programs as well as Program Manager for the FLO1, Brine Processor Assembly and SNC Radiator projects. He has also done extensive theoretical and experimental development of flow stagnation and established highly accurate parametric models of radiator performance and ATCS capability. Mr. Hahn has led the development of Paragon patented xRAD® radiator design from concept to successful proposal through to the delivery of flight hardware. Other duties have included management of the Systems Engineering and Integration team.
Mr. Hahn’s previous experience includes design, analysis and testing of turbomachinery incorporating fluid film bearings. In this work he developed complex models to predict bearing performance and aerodynamic thrust loads. In another position he managed a product development group responsible for designing and developing exhaust gas sensors for automotive applications.
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.
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.