Axient Fellows Alliance Announces 2023 Fellows

We are pleased to announce our 2023 Axient Fellows! Congratulations to Dr. Craig Morris, Dr. David Jerome, Dr. Will Clement, Steve Martin, Dr. Rusty Powell, and Rick Gamble! The Axient Fellows Alliance (AFA) is a prestigious recognition program established to identify those Axient employees who are among the best in their respective fields and have made significant, long-term, technical, and/or strategic contributions to Axient. The AFA Selection Committee requested nominations from our employees and received thirty-nine deserving candidates for recognition.

While every nomination demonstrated exceptionalism, the committee placed a high priority on technical accomplishments and expertise, career duration, and identifiable contributions to both Axient and our key customer organizations. This year’s AFA Selection Committee (composed of Dan Benjamin, Larry Foor, Patience Samson, and Gerald Burnett) unanimously selected six individuals to be added as Axient Fellows.

Dr. Craig Morris is the Director of Analysis at the Air Force (AF) Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC) in Tullahoma, TN. He is viewed as a key resource by the Air Force, and his expertise is valued by other DoD organizations and several commercial entities. He will be relocating later this year to Colorado Springs to teach at the AF Academy. Craig has provided exceptional analysis with multiple hypersonic programs over the years and has an incredible entrepreneurial spirit.

Dr. David Jerome works at Eglin AFB on the Engineering, Professional, and Administrative Support Services (EPASS) 55 contract. He currently supports the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Agile Weapons Division (AFLCMC/EBX) fielding new weapons systems. David’s extensive engineering background has enabled him to support critical activities, which have included weapons penetration analysis, cyber and intrusion damage assessments, and engineering reviews for the recent SDB-I return to service effort. He is a key advisor to his customer, regularly briefs executive levels of the AF, and is considered a principal chief engineer to an emerging hypersonic program at Eglin.

Dr. Will Clement works on the Omnibus Multidiscipline Engineering Services (OMES) contract at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Virginia. He is a Naval Academy graduate and has extensive experience/expertise designing control systems, robotics, and embedded systems. He has worked on the Roman Telescope, robotic refueling, the NASA Restore Mission, and the International Space Station.

Steve Martin is the Director of Strategic Engineering at our Columbia, MD office. His expertise is invaluable, as are his intimate customer relationships. He was integral in the creation of many of Axient’s threat engineering capabilities that have facilitated steady growth for our company, and he has been a key technical lead, as well as exceptional leader at Axient for 27 years.

Dr. Rusty Powell is Axient’s VP of Engineering and works from our Colorado Springs office. He has extensive expertise in aeronautical, mechanical, and systems engineering, space acquisitions, project management, computational fluid dynamics, combustion, experimentation, and simulation. His expertise has been applied across Axient, and he is a great technical resource for our growth and innovation initiatives.

Rick Gamble is an expert in arc heaters, wind tunnels, and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), has a broad range of test and evaluation experience, and is responsible for building our Hill AFB presence. Over his 40-year career supporting AEDC, Rick has become a recognized authority in ICBM developmental testing, having extensive knowledge and demonstrated expertise in both Minuteman III and the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, Sentinel.

Recently, this year’s Axient Fellows were recognized at an award ceremony. They were joined by the 2022 Axient Fellows:

• Dr. Brent Allen

• Dr. Mimmo De Martino

• Dr. Robert Hiers

• Mr. Eddie Kerns

• Mr. Mickey Bourne

• Mr. Mike Briggs

• Ms. Sheila Brown

• Mr. Steve Cash

• Mr. John Defourneaux

• Mr. Jeff Freyschlag

• Dr. Pat Tobbe

• Mr. Darryl Wortman

Please join us in congratulating these deserving individuals!