Dr. Tom George applies engineering principles to business models
As an engineer, you don’t get trained in business principles.
LESSONS IN ACCELERATION: One space startup is touting the crucial help it received from a government-backed technology accelerator in landing a three-year NASA contract. “As an engineer you don’t get trained in business principles,” Tom George, CEO of California-based SaraniaSat™ , tells us in touting his experience with the Catalyst Accelerator, the brainchild of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate in Colorado Springs. George, a 33-year veteran of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said he learned marketing, accounting and how to pitch investors. “I’m very grateful the incubator picked us up.”
SaraniaSat™ , which was founded in 2016 and uses remote sensing satellites to analyze intelligence data and monitor environmental developments ranging from deforestation to crop rotation, won a $5.1 million contract from NASA earlier this year to validate its applications earlier this year.
Should NASA have its own accelerator? It could certainly help upstarts like SaraniaSat™ . But George is doubtful. He doesn’t think the space agency has the resources and also considers it more “conservative” than the Pentagon mindset when it comes to untested technology. “Pretty much every dollar in [NASA’s] program is spoken for in terms of being assigned to a mission,” George says. “It does not have as much discretionary money available to try out new things.” (https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-space/2018/08/24/where-are-all-the-asteroids-300569)
