Mike Ryan

Background

About Mike Ryan

I can help your team get the job done! I am a very useful team player with many 5 star reviews and decades of experience. From test facilities on the West Coast to Cape Canaveral, I have a proven track record of Spacecraft Assembly, Integration, and Test operations that means there is no situation that can't be remedied. My first career was in aviation as a helicopter pilot and instructor. During this time, I embraced the finer points of aviation safety culture, and became adept at operating both autonomously and within a team to achieve objectives. During this time, I became interested in learning how to fabricate things. Through my local artist and maker communities, I learned how to weld, operate precision machinery, and by extension how to design for a successful outcome. Little did I know, this would become a foundation from which I could embark on my second career. After working several fabrication and machinist jobs, I stumbled into the aerospace industry. I spent 5 years working for a company doing SBIR's, and embraced the opportunity to learn everything I could about metallurgy, thermal design, exotic materials, and exotic fabrication methods like liquid interface diffusion bonding. For the last two years, I have been soaking up all the knowledge I can about the new space industry and propulsion systems at Benchmark Space Systems. While working with the Internal Research and Development Team, I helped to design, fabricate, and test next generation technologies. Awhile ago I was helping to design, fabricate, iterate, refine, and operate small rocket engine development and acceptance facilities. I also assist Assembly Integration & Test with hot firing new thrusters, hot firing at system level, and loading propellent at final integration in Cape Canaveral. I have a cumulative firing time of over 1.8 million seconds! I just got married to my lovely partner last May, with whom I enjoy traveling, camping, and hiking. We own a home in the San Francisco Bay Area's East Bay and enjoy going to our niece and nephews car races!