Owner & Principal Consultant, GPG Enterprises
I am an entrepreneur, Ph.D. engineer, and senior program manager with more than 30 years of experience building companies, leading high-impact R&D programs, and delivering results across defense, federal, and commercial markets.
My consulting practice draws on every chapter of that career — from the research labs at Virginia Tech and NASA Langley, to the flight decks of the U.S. Navy, to the boardrooms of a defense company I co-founded and grew to a successful acquisition.
In 2006, I co-founded Aegisound in Blacksburg, VA — starting in offices at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center, the same environment I now help other founders navigate. We built a defense-focused hearing protection and communications company from inception, doubling revenues annually through 2010, achieving prime contractor status on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, and earning the DoD Mentor-Protégé Nunn-Perry Award in 2010. Aegisound was acquired by Gentex Corporation in 2015.
That experience — building a 20-person operation from zero, managing ISO 9001 certification, implementing enterprise systems, and navigating DoD contracting — is the foundation of everything I bring to clients today.
Before founding Aegisound, I spent a decade at NASA Langley Research Center, rising from Senior Research Scientist to Deputy Manager and then Sub-Project Manager. In that last role I provided full programmatic oversight for technologies reducing community noise impact through low-noise approach procedures and improved airport noise prediction — collaborating with Level 4 managers, delivering executive reporting, and managing risk across a complex multi-center environment.
As Deputy Manager of the Quiet Aircraft Technology project, I helped oversee an $80M/year multi-center, multi-disciplinary program spanning Langley and Glenn Research Centers, encompassing system studies, wind tunnel experiments, flight tests, and computational fluid dynamics.
My Ph.D. is in Mechanical Engineering with deep specialization in acoustics, structural vibrations, active noise control, and advanced signal processing. I am a published author of 11 peer-reviewed journal articles and 46 conference papers, co-author of a Wiley textbook on adaptive structures, and named inventor on a U.S. patent. I have also served as an Adjunct Professor at Duke University and as Director of the Structural Dynamics Section at Old Dominion University.
Through GPG Enterprises I offer consulting services across all of these disciplines — helping startups find their footing, established companies tackle hard technical problems, and organizations navigate the often-daunting landscape of government and defense contracting. In 2025 I also co-founded HG Solutions, a vibration isolation and seismic mitigation firm, which means I remain an active founder even as I advise others.
I am based in Blacksburg, VA — a Virginia Tech alumnus, a VTCRC alumni founder, and a committed member of the New River Valley entrepreneurial community.
B.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, both Summa Cum Laude. Graduate research in active noise control and structural acoustics.
Independent consulting practice established, serving defense, aerospace, automotive, and commercial audio clients.
Rose from Postdoctoral Fellow to Sub-Project Manager. Oversaw $80M/year Quiet Aircraft Technology program. NASA Group Achievement Award, 2000.
Grew from VTCRC startup to 20-person DoD contractor. F-35 prime contractor. DoD Nunn-Perry Award, 2010. Acquired by Gentex Corporation, 2015.
Led acoustic R&D for Virtual Audio program. Designed proprietary spatial audio algorithms. Architected SQL database ecosystem.
Vibration isolation and seismic mitigation solutions for residential, commercial, and government construction. Active founder.
If you're facing a challenge that sits at the intersection of engineering, business, and execution — I'd like to hear about it.
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