Senator Gilmer N. Capps
Gilmer Capps of Snyder, Oklahoma was a State Senator who left office a few years back as a result of term limits. He served Oklahomans for 37 years. He was also a Delegate to Democratic National Convention from Oklahoma in 1980. He was one of the founders of the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority for the Oklahoma Spaceport and he proposed the legislation for tax credits to attract space businesses to Oklahoma if they could meet the $10 million valuation requirement. He is still active in Oklahoma and serves as a Space Authority Board Member.

Jeff Krukin
Jeff Krukin’s space career began with boyhood evenings in the back yard gazing at the Moon. He has been an IBM Systems Engineer at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Executive Director of the Space Frontier Foundation, Chairman of ProSpace and award-winning Director of its annual March Storm Congressional lobbying event, and now an aerospace & defense consultant. He provides leadership, marketing & communications, strategic planning, and business and economic development services. Clients have included Caterpillar, Blue Force Technologies, Strategy Analytics, North Carolina State University, SpaceWorks Engineering, the North Carolina Aerospace Alliance, Presence Displays, and the State of North Carolina. He has been a frequent conference speaker in the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and has been interviewed for newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. Jeff is a published author since 1979, and most recently wrote the second edition of his industry primer, NewSpace Nation: America’s Emerging Entrepreneurial Space Industry. He was the lead author of The Aero/Space Economy in North Carolina: A Preliminary Assessment of Current Performance and Future Prospects, and a key contributor to North Carolina's Strategic Plan for Workforce Development in the Aviation and Aerospace Industries. He has written numerous articles, Op-Eds, and white papers, as well as book chapters. Current organizational involvement includes the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Commercial Space Group, and the Suborbital Transportation Working Group of the US Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC). He created The Human-Space Connection® concept to re-frame the conversation about space exploration within a human-centric context. With his diverse experience and Master’s Degree in Future Studies, Jeff brings a unique and insightful perspective to space exploration, settlement, commercial development, and its economic value. His website is www.jeffkrukin.com.

Taber MacCallum
Mr. MacCallum has worked at every level of command on a research vessel, sailing to over 40 ports and over 30,000 miles around the world. Training in Singapore, he became certified as a Commercial Dive Master and Advanced Diving Instructor. He served as Dive Master for a project to reintroduce two captive research dolphins to the wild, underwater ship salvage operations, and deep water specimen collecting expeditions in every ocean and most of the world’s seas. Taber was a founding member of the Biosphere 2 Design, Development, Test & Operations team, and a crew member in the first two-year mission living and working inside the three-acre materially closed ecological system which supported the life of the eight human inhabitants. Demonstrating the viability of artificial biospheres, Biosphere 2 was designed for research applicable to environmental management on Earth and the development of closed loop human life support technology for long duration space travel. Granted a patent for the analytical systems of Biosphere 2, Taber was responsible for the design, implementation and operation of the atmosphere and water management systems as well as the self-contained paperless analytical laboratories for Biosphere 2 that tested air, water, soil and tissue. As a crew member he served as Safety Officer, Assistant Medical Officer and Analytical Chemist, responsible for operation of all the analytical systems and much of the medical systems. The analytical and medical laboratories performed all the analysis required to understand and operate Biosphere 2, completely independent from sample exchange or external resources. The medical facility had a full suite of diagnostic and treatment capabilities from blood analysis and x-ray to minor surgery. Mr. MacCallum co-founded Paragon in 1993, serving as Chief Executive Officer since its formation. He is also co-designer and patent holder for the Autonomous Biological System (ABS), a long duration plant and aquatic animal life support system. He was also the design lead for the Jet Propulsion Lab Mars Greenhouse Experiment Module (GEM) payload, and Mars GEM payload environmental control and plant life support system. He conceived and is presently involved in the design of a novel Mars space suit portable life support system technology funded by NASA, life support and thermal control systems for commercial manned orbital and suborbital spacecraft, as well as hazardous environment life support technology for U.S. Navy divers, in which he is the test diver.Taber was the Principal Investigator on five microgravity experiments starting in 1988 on the Soviet BioSatellite, then the U.S. Space Shuttle, the Russian Mir Orbital Station and International Space Station. Four-month Mir experiments using the ABS produced the first animals to have completed their life cycle in microgravity, resulting in significant discoveries of innate verses learned animal behavior over multiple generations in space. The series of experiments also resulted in the first aquatic plants to be grown in space and the first completely closed ecological systems to be used in space, enabling truly controlled microgravity biological research. He has published numerous papers resulting from his work at Biosphere 2 on space biology, technology development, medical issues and on the experience of living and working in an Isolated Confined Environment. Paragon has design, development and hardware production responsibilities on several NASA flight and technology programs, including the Commercial Crew Transport Air Revitalization System, Crew Space Suit System, Orion Spacecraft, Solid Oxide oxygen production technology, portable life support technology for Mars, ISS Small Payload Quick Return system, and several human spacecraft thermal technologies including radiators, fluids and sublimation systems. For several years in a row now, Paragon has been listed by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing companies in America, and the fastest growing aerospace engineering company. Paragon has won numerous awards for management and innovation, including top honors from the Governor of Arizona for innovation and management.

Sam Ximenes
Exploration Architecture Corporation (XARC) is part of the team designing the commercial Spaceport America. In particular, they are designing the Virgin Galactic Terminal and Hanger Facility. XARC is responsible for program analysis as space consultant in the areas of operations assessment, crew training and astronaut experience, space education technology, and future growth considerations.