Franz Gayl was born and raised in Minneapolis, MN. His father was from Germany and his mother was American. Franz dropped out of high school at age 16 and enlisted in the Marine Corps on his 17th birthday. He left as a Sgt in 1979 and attended the Univ of MN studying political science. He then returned to the Marines as an officer in 1983 and served as an infantry officer, retiring in 2002. During his career he attended the Naval Postgraduate School earning an MS in Space Systems Operations. After retiring as a Major he returned to the Pentagon as a civilian science and technology advisor to one of the deputy commandants, where he works today. In recent years Franz earned another MS in national resource strategy at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (at NDU) and he is a graduate of the Senior Acquisition Course. He has also worked as a Service Chief's intern at DARPA for 5 months and served as a Marine science advisor in Al Anbar province for 6 months, 06-07. Franz is functionally fluent in German and working hard at learning Mandarin. He has one patent to my name. He has been working in support of NSSO on the space transportation tech roadmap, and am concurrently supporting the USMC Expeditionary Energy Office with the development of an energy tech road map. His greatest joy right is in attending the Singularity University GSP11.