Speaker Bio
Russ Van Der Werff serves as Vice President of Stratospheric Solutions at Aerostar and is a Board Officer and the Treasurer of the HAPS Alliance. Prior to this role, he managed the Stratospheric Platform Design Team. Aerostar has been in the stratosphere since its founding in 1956, building systems for NASA, the U.S. military, and commercial enterprises such as Loon. Aerostar balloons have logged over a million hours in the stratosphere over the last five years. With over fifteen years of engineering and leadership experience, Russ helped grow the Aerostar engineering team from a couple dozen to more than one hundred engineers, designers, and technicians. He also serves as a stratospheric ambassador, spreading the Gospel of Ballooning, and recently presented a HAPS-related TED talk. Prior to Aerostar, Russ was Director of Product Management for Sencore, a private company building video transcoders and satellite modulators for broadcast applications. Russ holds Bachelor's degrees in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Mathematics, as well as a Master's degree in Business Administration.