Capt. Frank L. Culbertson, Jr., USN (Ret.)

Frank Lee Culbertson, Jr. (Capt, USN, Ret.) is President of Higher Flight, LLC, and a former American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aerospace engineer, NASA astronaut and a 1971 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He served as the Commander of the International Space Station for almost four months in 2001 and was the only U.S. citizen not on Earth when the September 11 attacks occurred. Before that, he commanded the shuttle Discovery, making the first night landing of the shuttle at Kennedy Space Center in 1993, and piloted the shuttle Atlantis on a classified mission for the DoD in 1990. He retired as President of the Space Systems Group at Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (NGIS) in 2018 after a 16 year career in business leadership for several aerospace companies. He was responsible for the execution, business development, and financial performance at NGIS and predecessors for their human spaceflight, science, commercial communications, and national security satellite activities, as well as technical services to various government customers. These programs included some of the company’s largest and most important programs such as NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services initiatives to the International Space Station, as well as various national security-related programs. Since retirement from industry, Capt. Culbertson has served as a board member and advisor to several not-for-profit and commercial organizations.