Heather Passe
Heather’s broad leadership experience within the space sector, including technology development; market discovery and productization; business development; risk management and operations, make her uniquely valuable as an advisory board member for space technology startups who are ready to raise private funding and to accelerate.
Heather is an accomplished space technology executive and licensed professional engineer with over 20 years of experience guiding technologies from concept through on-orbit deployment across the commercial and government space sectors. She is a subject matter expert in spacecraft mechanisms, with a track record of engineering mission-critical solutions for $1B flagship programs including NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, NOAA's GOES 16–19 weather satellites, and the Emirates Mars Mission. Heather Managed over 12 aerospace projects in senior roles at D-Orbit USA, Redwire Space (formerly Roccor), the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), and founder and business owner of VP Solutions LLC. She co-patented a space flight measurement device, launched two mechanisms now orbiting Mars, four x-ray sensors orbiting Earth and one x-ray sensor for a calibration rocket. Heather brings experience managing multi-million-dollar program budgets, supply chain oversight, regulatory navigation, risk management, and cross-functional team leadership. She is a published AIAA author and technical conference presenter, recognized for building high-performance engineering teams, standing up laboratory infrastructure, and advancing technology readiness across large-area deployable arrays, high-power apertures, and precision metrology systems.
"Michele's course is extremely effective. Not only in preparing us for board work, but more importantly in preparing us to promote ourselves and navigate our networks. My cohort is amazing and so are Michele and Mary!"
Heather Passe