Meet the ZeroAvians

Meet the ZeroAvians: Colleen

I am a mother of two small children, and so I just think about all of the unique cool things that I've gotten to do over the course of my life, different places I've visited, the opportunities just to spend time outside and enjoying being outdoors. And that's something that I really want to be able to share with my children and for them to be able to pass along to their children in future generations as well. My name is Colleen Ober House and I am a senior systems engineer with the EPS or Electric Propulsion System Team. So my role at ZeroAvia is a systems engineer, and so we're ultimately responsible for the design of the system as a whole.

We need to understand how all of the components of the EPS work together and what each component needs to actually do, to support the full system integration. So there's not really a standard day at ZeroAvia. I guess the only thing that could be considered standard is the amount of collaboration that happens between teams here on a daily basis. Some of the skills and knowledge that I'm developing kind of fall into two categories.

The system skills, which are kind of more applicable across system boundaries, skills that you can reuse over and over again for different products and different projects. The other skill is really just gaining the knowledge and understanding of the EPS system and its components as a whole. There's always something new to learn, and I always feel like I am learning something new every single day. I've always been fascinated by flight and the nature of flight, the physics behind it, the fact that you can design something that weighs thousands of pounds and keep it airborne.

I started out, obtaining a degree in aerospace engineering. I knew that I wanted to be an engineer fairly early on, and I knew that I wanted to work with airplanes or spacecraft, just something within the aerospace industry. When the opportunity to join the team at ZeroAvia arose, it was a really interesting opportunity. It was something kind of different than what I have done thus far.

The single best thing about working here at ZeroAvia is being surrounded by like-minded individuals working on a product that has a bigger goal in mind, and that's protecting our environment. I grew up on the game of soccer, as we call it here in the us and I spent my entire youth plus a few years of club team in college playing soccer. It's a sport that I love to watch, a sport that I love to play. And as a good teammate, collaboration is really key.

And so here at ZeroAvia, being a member of a team and being able to collaborate really works towards one of our core values, which is one team, one goal. And that is something that I kind of learned playing soccer over the course of my childhood in young adult life. Working on this novel green technology at ZeroAvia helps me contribute to that end goal in protecting our environment and allowing this place to be as special and beautiful as it was for me growing up for future generations.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Colleen (Social)

I grew up on the game of soccer, as we call it here in the us and I spent my entire year, plus a few years of club team in college playing soccer. It's a sport that I love to watch, a sport that I love to play. As a good teammate, collaboration is really key. And so here at ZeroAvia, being a member of a team and being able to collaborate really works towards one of our core values, which is one team, one goal.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Ertem

I'm a 20 years aviation professional and the idea of having a better future is sustainable aviation. It's so hard to resist and ignore. I'm Erta Magen, head of Supply Chain Strategy and contracts. I'm aligning and bridging our engineering departments with our supply chain.

I'm from Kelli Turkey. It's the northwest of Turkey, the European region. I'm a mechanical engineer by background with a master's degree. I come from a family of engineers.

My dad is a civil engineer. I always wanted to become a civil engineer or an architect, but I ended up being a mechanical engineer. I was part of Aerospace Technologies Institute programme to investigate future sustainable aviation fuel. I came across the area when I was investigating the players in the industry and I got impressed from the very first moment and I wanted to become the part of the journey.

My job is a great combination of commercial and technical skills, so I'm trying to understand what we need to develop for the, our powertrain solution, and I'm trying to build the right supply chain to be able to deliver our product to our customers. Climate change is a very massive problem for the world. Unfortunately, it's not being paid enough attention as it should. So anything I can do to improve the situation is a good move for the future of the world.

Overall, as a family, we try to reduce our impact, but it's very important to make a change in the industry. That's what we are doing in ZeroAvia. We are developing a hydrogen powertrain to reduce the impact on aviation significantly. Hydrogen industry is just growing, especially for aviation.

There is a gap, so we are trying to connect with our suppliers and encourage them for the investment in hydrogen aviation and work together to develop the products so we can deliver our product to our customers. One of the challenges we continues to face is the development of NPI components once we agree on a deal with our selected supplier, that's a great moment. I love working at ZeroAvia. It's a great place to work.

We work with a lot of brilliant minds and you can definitely feel the IQ when you speak to people around here. It's also a very dynamic and a high pace environment, so it's a definitely a very interesting place to work at. Best thing about working at ZeroAvia is working with all these brilliant people around me. Also, it's to help a better future and a sustainable aviation solution.

People are very interested in what we are doing. They ask a lot of questions when they find out what I'm working on, so it's always fun for me to bring them up to speed and encourage them for the hydrogen aviation. My friends and family are as proud as me, for the work I do in ZeroAvia, they're really looking forward to the hydrogen aviation and looking forward to the day they can step in an aircraft which is powered by hydrogen.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Jeri

I like being part of a team that is creating cutting edge technology. And if I can help in any way, well, you don't get much more cutting edge than electric hydrogen, you know, powered engines for jet plane, I'm Jerry Ra Looney. I am the General Counsel for ZeroAvia. Whatever has a legal implication or a risk implication, myself and my team are brought in to assist in finding a legal solution or a less risky solution.

So everything from customer contracts, to vendor contracts, to insurance policies, to leases, to safety issues, you name it. And at some point or another, it probably comes through the legal team. On any given day, I move from an employee issue to a contract to, you know, trying to write new policies. And I enjoy working here with the people.

The team that we have here, people are very motivated, very focused. They're really interested in working with you. The receptiveness with which I've been received, my team has been received. It just makes all the difference.

I've been in instances in which they're basically, they try to put the lawyers in the corner and only bring them out when they really think they needed them. And people here have been super receptive and really willing to listen to what we have to offer. I have been in the aviation industry now for 10 years. I was a business litigator, a partner in a big law firm in the United States here, and I was able to get into aerospace.

And I've had the privilege of working in a really wide variety of companies. This is a very unified team as to purpose. I think almost everyone here wants to make that difference in the climate and in the way we fly. And that kind of purpose really makes a team very cohesive, very focused, and I think that really helps overall team building and morale.

This is something bigger than ourselves and we know will have a dramatic impact in the way people fly and communicate, and that we can keep the things that have made current society better. We can help make it cleaner. When I was recruiting for my team, for the legal team, I pointed that out and said, you will make a difference every day in the business, in the world. We will, we make a difference every day.

This is going to be a global company with global impact. And with that comes global challenges. You know, the laws are different, some places different, you know, requirements for certification, different contracts. So it definitely keeps the legal team on their toes.

If you can make a difference with climate change to really change the way we fly, why wouldn't you come here? It's just, it's too great of an opportunity.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Jeri (Social)

I have been in the aviation industry now for 10 years. I was a business litigator, a partner in a big law firm in the United States. Here. This is something bigger than ourselves.

The things that have made current society better, we can help make it cleaner. When I was recruiting for my team, for the legal team, I pointed that out. I said, you'll make a difference every day in the business, in the world, we will, we make a difference every day.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Jonathan Nutzati Fontaine

Is engineering the answer to everything? No. I think, I think it's part of the answer to everything. To quote some famous science fiction authors and paraphrase, magic is science that we haven't yet discovered.

In our case, I would say magic is a synergy of different types of people and their passion and their minds coming together in harmony. How do you get the best out of different kinds of minds working together? I'd say give, give them an exciting problem to solve and let, let them have at it. Especially if it's a problem that they all love to solve and they're all excited to be there, they'll find a way.

At ZeroAvia, we have a team of passionate and intelligent individuals that love working together and are excited to rush to work every day and begin solving these problems together. I think it's important because every, everybody's here because they want to be, they bring their best selves. And I love working with a team that, that is focused on solving some of the biggest problems that we face today As an industrialized society, finding the right kinds of minds and different kinds of minds is very important. I think we have a good balance of creative types, intuitive types and analytical types balanced within the company.

And it's really fun to watch different kinds of people solve problems together and even, even argue about those problems because, you can move quickly. Everybody learns things quickly. You quickly find, what it is that you're doing and what your contribution is. I work with people who are experts on fuel cells.

I work with people who are experts on motors. I work with people who are experts on certification. And my job in many ways is to look at the things that they've designed, the components that they've designed, and put it together and make it nice and tight and make it as small as I possibly can and put it on a plane. I love to be learning all the time and I've always been interested in physics and chemistry.

I'd say physics always came naturally to me in school. I always enjoyed it. I was always engaged and my friends would come over to my house to study for physics 'cause I had the answers. My first real job after graduate school was a Tesla where I joined the propulsion team, where we made the drive units that that propel the car forward.

Some of the problems that we solved in the early integration, involved things like, noise, balance of rotor, vibrations, and the solutions were all very fascinating and each was an exciting quest. What I've learned working with Elon Musk is the stubborn, relentless pursuit of goals that are part of the big picture goals that maybe most people don't think about, but they're some of the fundamental problems impacting humanity, not just in our lifetimes, but in the big picture over hundreds of years. What do we need to solve as the human race? And a lot of people are not brave enough to think about it.

A lot of people aren't even, they're not thinking about it because it doesn't occur to them, but he's thinking about it and he throws everything down to pursue it aggressively, stubbornly and bravely at extreme cost to himself. And I think what I've learned is you do need to look at the big picture problems and you should devote yourself to pursuing them and solving them relentlessly. I'd say, at a micro day-to-day level, I'm motivated by having exciting problems to solve by being able to use, use physics, use science, use chemistry, and generally be able to channel my creativity to, you know, design things that, you know, look like they make sense, that look cool, that are inspiring and bring in the elements of science, to a holistic engineered solution.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Jonathan Nutzati Fontaine (Social)

My role here was the role that my entire career had built me up towards where I was learning about, electric motors at Tesla. I was learning about, jet engines at MTU Aero Engines and in my master's programme. Then I learned about, the fuel cells at my startup. And here, I need to work with all three of those system types.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Jordi

So I'm from Barcelona, and I can see when, you know, I'm back at my parents' place. The temperatures are rising. Temperature, were, were like 35 plus degrees, which is not normal for the period of the year. I work in the finance team and we're responsible for the corporate development, as well as the investor relationships.

The financing of ZeroAvia is mainly focused on private funding, which comes from investors. Certain parts of the funding it's coming as well from the government. Our technology is a kind of deep technology so that, you know, it requires some years before we actually get our product into commercialization. And that's why the government wants to support us and wants to give us funds from the private side.

You also have to initially go with investors that have the appetite for these kind of businesses. Looking always at the long term and looking at, you know, changing the paradigm because once we basically, we certify our first product, and we enable this transition, this is gonna change completely the rules of the game and will allow us to have this first move and advantage, which, you know, the private investors will capitalize. Being part of a company like ZeroAvia allows you to basically work towards a goal that, you know, is aiming to eradicate, this sustainability problem that we currently have. If you want to enjoy, like a challenging but very fulfilling journey, join ZeroAvia because, we will be at the forefront of this transition and we are gonna make great things for the.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Katya Akulinicheva

I personally think that climate change is the single biggest issue facing our generation today, and that we all should be doing nothing but working on that. My role at ZeroAvia primarily is to ensure that the company's operations are funded. So that consists of going to investors to raise money for them for the future, but also once they've given us money, it's maintaining relationships with them, making sure that they're happy with how we're spending them money, and so hopefully they give us more money in the future. So I joined ZeroAvia from the finance and investment world, and I did not work in aviation previously.

So through my job at ZeroAvia, I've learned a lot about the aviation industry from how engines are made to how they're sold and to how airlines think about their purchasing decisions, which has been really exciting and really interesting. But in addition to that, I've also learned a lot about the function that I'm in finance and how to do that in a company that's always changing, always growing, whose funding needs are always evolving and who is just growing in terms of its footprint. I think what's really helped us is being very results oriented in how we work. So ever since we conducted the first flight of our hydrogen system in September, 2020, the dialogue around us has completely changed.

People started taking us really seriously. Airlines wanna work with us, airframe manufacturers want to partner with us, and the more of those partnerships we have, the more interest there is. So it's really a snowball effect once you get the ball moving. So a pivotal moment in my career at ZeroAvia was closing our series A funding round in November, 2020.

This was the first institutional funding round that we closed and one that took us a really long time to bring together. We had to work through the first wave of Covid to make it happen, which meant that we couldn't meet with investors in person. The aviation industry was in crisis and there was generally a lot of skepticism about what we were doing. So we had to work really hard and educate investors to convince them that our approach made sense, but also that we were the company best place to execute and therefore it was such a relief, but also so exciting to be able to announce that we closed 20 plus million dollars and we had the funding that we needed to bring our vision to life.

When you wanna bring a new technology to market, you have to understand that it'll be three, five, maybe even 10 years before your company's generating profit that you can use to reinvest back into the company and fund your operations. So during that time, you have to find external sources of capital that you can use to cover your costs as when you're a very small company, typically you go to the venture capital community who invest in a big number of startups because they only really expect one or two companies in their portfolio to survive and to deliver huge returns. As your company matures and you have a product that you are either already bringing to market or are right on the cusp, you go to a different set of investors that are not expecting those huge returns, but they're expecting more, more predictable returns from a larger set of companies in their portfolio. Part of the reason I decided to work at ZeroAvia, specifically amongst many other climate technology startups, is that I realized that in my personal footprint, aviation is the single biggest contributor and I can go vegan, I can not buy any new clothes and do all these other things, which I do happen to do, but ultimately that does not move the needle as compared to my flight footprint.

So I have tried to actually reduce how much I fly for the, for the time being because unfortunately ZeroAvia's technology is not available today. But ultimately I really want to find a way to fly that is zero emission. One of the really exciting perks about working at ZeroAvia is that you can take your pilot license at our facility in Campbell and our other facilities in the US as well. So I've benefited from that so far.

I've done two lessons, so I'm still quite far away from actually getting a license, but it's been really exciting to see how a plane works and get a more personal connection to what it's like to fly one. So fun facts is I don't actually have a driving license, so it's possible that I might get a pilot license before I have a car driving license. I actually found flying a lot easier than I thought it would be. So, so far it's looking promising.

I think it's really important to have a diverse workforce because we're working on something that's really difficult and it's new. And the more different perspectives we have on that, the faster we'll get to the answer. And I think in aviation in particular, it's important to make sure that women have a seat at the table because so far women are not very well represented at all the different levels of an organization as ZeroAvia. We're trying to do that through three things.

One is by having more female leaders at the top that can act as role models for women who are thinking about joining the company or already in the company and thinking about how their career might progress. The second is by making sure that we have a very fair and transparent interview process, and that we're looking for candidates sometimes in the less obvious places to make sure that we're getting a really diverse pool of candidates to choose from. And finally, it's to actually feed that pipeline of candidates by engaging with schools and universities and inspiring young girls and young women to pursue a career in science, engineering, aviation, and other adjacent fields. Once I started working on climate change about 10 years ago and realized the complexity and the magnitude of the problem that we're trying to solve, I realize that everybody, regardless of what industry they come from and what skills they have, has something to add and should start working on that as soon as possible.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Parker

I love my job. It's ZeroAvia. It's fantastic. Every day is different and I think the challenges that exist are ones that are really meaningful and the benefit of, so solving something that you think is, you know, potentially very impactful for the greater world is something that gets me excited and keeps me getting outta bed every day.

When I first became passionate about the environment was really when I, discovered the outdoors. So something that near and dear to my heart. My mom and dad and I, we'd go snowmobiling in Colorado, we'd go skiing, we'd really go out and try and experience nature. And that's something I've taken into my personal life and it is just something I'm really passionate about to continue to enjoy that, to leave no trace to try and, you know, leave it as nice as I can for the, for other people to enjoy.

My name is Parker Bryant, the head of product for hydrogen Infrastructure here at ZeroAvia. And before this I was a renewable fuels economist, where I led the economic analysis of various different technologies, hydrogen being one of them. And from that work I found that hydrogen, specifically in aviation, has a lot of room to grow. When I was looking for my next transition role, I wanted to do something that I knew would have great impact and was something that I was personally passionate about.

So travel is something that I really enjoy and I think is something that connects the world. And figuring out how to do that sustainably is really important. Now, there's a couple different ways that you can go about it, but I do believe that hydrogen is the most, credible and in a lot of ways, whether it's the economics of it, whether it's the total emissions package of it, and whether it's the refueling of it. So that's why I decided to put my career into hydrogen aviation.

Hydrogen is a piece of the broader energy mix, which will help us transition from our life today to a zero emission one. And so hydrogen makes the most sense in industries where capital efficiency, where weight efficiency, our first and foremost, and that naturally lends it to aviation. The objections that exist for hydrogen are really about the infrastructure not being built out. But there are places in the world where we see it being built out and we see excellent case studies.

For example, in California there's a light duty vehicle network of refueling stations that's been built out. And today you can actually go out and buy a Toyota Mirai or an Xcient, as a retail consumer and drive that vehicle around. And we see that hydrogen is also permeating into the heavy duty market as well. And that's happening in California.

This is the same thing that we're trying to do in ZeroAvia, and we're trying to bring that infrastructure to the airport in the most capitally efficient, most, unobtrusive manner possible. And a lot of our products that we're developing, whether it's our mobile storage and dispensing technologies for both gaseous and liquid hydrogen, or it's the containerized solutions that we're developing with some of our partners are key steps that we can use to accelerate that adoption. So when we look at what aviation's going to be from where it is today to 2050, it could be double of what our current, demand is. And so when we think about the emissions associated with that today, that could represent, you know, a significant portion of the emissions in the future.

And as we think about the future generations, it's something where we need to be cognizant of the things that we do today have real impacts on the future. And so if we can remove the guilt associated with that that, you know, enjoying our life today and really protect the world for the future, then that's something that I think we can all be excited about.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Phil

I have a background in motor design, starting with piston engines, in aviation. And from there I got into electric motors and eventually worked my way here to ZeroAvia. I'm the head of systems and test engineering here at ZeroAvia. I lead a really talented group of engineers and technicians that are working on the development of the first certified electric propulsion system.

Day to day, I come in and I do a lot of coordinating with the team in the morning. I do, you know, scheduling and decide what kind of work that the team is gonna be undertaking for the day and for the week, and do a lot of the planning for the development programs. Diversity here at ZeroAvia is really important. It brings a lot of unique perspectives and when we're tackling these really difficult technical challenges, having, having these different perspectives or different ways of viewing problems is quite an asset and it's something that really benefits the organization and allows us to move forward even faster.

I've noticed some differences here with ZeroAvia's culture compared to other places I've worked. The key difference with ZeroAvia is the team's, focus and desire to implement, emissions free aviation in the world. It's a really inspiring mission. It impacts a lot of people and it really connects with the people in the communities, because we're trying to do something good for the environment and for the really the industry as a whole.

I went to school on the Space Coast in Florida. I initially wanted to get involved in the space programme, but after working a little bit in some different propulsion projects and a couple different, you know, technical problems that I really found that I like combustion engines and the problems that are there and then what's facing that, that space today. So it really drew me in typically, you know, for your heavier than than air flight, you need a pretty, you know, energy dense power source. A lot of high powered weight ratio, and that's one thing that combustion engines really do provide to an airframe.

Coming up with alternate ways to do that became a fascination for me pretty quickly, especially considering that we can, you know, make this power and make flight without having to produce any harmful emissions. It's been, it's been good being able to help to remove some of that from aviation. Here at ZeroAvia, we face, a lot of different technical challenges regarding the certification of the aircraft, the technical challenges of integration, and an all new novel propulsion system. So it's really nice that we're able to come to work and only focus on the technical challenges every day.

We don't really have to worry so much about the people challenges, the facilities or things like that. We can really focus on the technical challenges and it really makes for a great environment where people can come together and share in the vision of zero emissions aviation. So I hopes for the future with this technology are that we see more and more of the turbine and fuel burning engines of kind of the mid-sized aircraft segment replaced with zero emissions, electric and motors. I hope that at least at the part 23, mid, mid-size aircraft, we can get converted over to electric propulsion as soon as possible.

I think there's a lot of good work to do there and decarbonizing the atmosphere and reducing the impact of operating aircraft in the short, shorter future. I'd like to see that spread to larger aircraft so we can take up more and more of the commercial aircraft space with zero emission aviation and really start to reduce the amount of pollutants that are not only being injected into the atmosphere, but basically being taken like a fine syringe and pushed into the upper atmosphere, right, where they're the most harmful. So I'm always learning every day, and that's kind of a big part of what characterizes zero. Avian makes it great.

Everyone can come here and learn just about every day you learn something new.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Phil (Social)

It's really nice that we're able to come to work and only focus on the technical challenges every day. We don't really have to worry so much about the people challenges, the facilities or things like that. We can really focus on the technical challenges and it really makes for a great environment where people can come together and share in the vision of zero emissions aviation.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Rhys

Be able to say that I've worked at a company and I've worked in an industry where I've made a direct impact is huge. I started off as a stress engineer who is someone who looks at the functionality and performance of components. So looking at things such as materials or thicknesses, the strength of that product. Since then, I've moved into becoming a design engineer, which is more focused on the functional characteristics of the design, things such as size, packaging, volume, and mass.

I was motivated to come to work at ZeroAvia because of the research and development nature, the sort of the cutting edge of engineering, new designs, new developments, things that haven't been done before. I've worked for big companies with well over a thousand employees in the company, and you see that you become a very small cog in a very big machine. There's drawn out processes to everything, so every single stage of the life cycle takes weeks at a time and you need various people aligned to make those key decisions. ZeroAvia is a smaller group of people who are more focused and more directly involved with the process, so you are able to turn around those decisions at a much quicker rates whilst also not neglecting the key functionality of the design.

We are never stuck to, we've always done it this way and living to the processes of the past. So in my personal life, I undertake triathlons, I'm running in training for Ironmans. I can see that same link back into my work life where there's a constant driven challenge to overcome quite difficult design problems and I can see how the two match quite nicely and it's developing in one definitely enhances the other. The team at ZeroAvia is one of the best parts.

We have quite a variety of people with different backgrounds and experience, but what I find really interesting is how everybody gets along, and this is both inside work and outside of work. For example, on Thursday evenings, a lot of the team go to the theater together. There are people who cycle together, run together, play football every week. It's a real interesting social hub of people.

Everyone is on the same wavelength. Everyone is working towards the same goal. People are very sociable in work and outside of work. Having a diverse group of people in a company is beneficial because you get different insights and different backgrounds, different ways of doing things, different cultures, different, different ways of thinking and working.

If you had everyone from one subset, you would just get one way of thinking and it would be really difficult to come up with new ideas and new ways of doing things. I think having that mix and having that variety is extremely beneficial to any culture or any business. It'd be really lovely to see in the next couple years people having the opportunity to buy tickets, to get on aircraft that ZeroAvia have designed, that I have also had a significant part in.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Rhys (Social)

It'd be really lovely to see in the next couple years people having the opportunity to buy tickets to get on aircraft that ZeroAvia have designed that I have also had a significant part in.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Saranya

So I was looking, for a open position in electric aviation field. ZeroAvia was leading, leading that field. And then, I applied for one of their position. I had a combination of education, quite a bit of experience, and then a passion, that helped me to get into this role.

I'm Saranya. I work as a mechanical engineer, with the EPS team, in ZeroAvia as a mechanical engineer. I envision design and perform a thermal, simulation, for our inverter, remote inverter that goes into our zero emission aircraft. ZeroAvia is my dream job, because, we are making a future here.

And being the first few, people, to do this job is kind of like exciting. And so once, when, this technology hits to the other people, we will be the first few people, who knows the technology. My day-to-Day activity at ZeroAvia is likely a combination of design analysis, collaboration with a different team, and documentation, but the primary focus on optimizing the performance and the safety for our power module system. That is going into our future, zero emission aircraft.

The biggest challenge is to put everything together within the available space. Integration means, putting all the sub-components and systems together and make it work, as a whole, as a whole, component together. So we have a inverter, we have a motor, and then a fuel cell. And all the coolings and routings and all that components had to fit into this big nacelle without disturbing, the plane's.

Weight and balance certification is a biggest barrier, for us to adapt to a new, electric, aviation certification process. And safety standards are designed for the traditional, jet fuel, airplane. So designing a new standards and processes for electric aviation, kind of like we need to do more intensive testing, collaboration, within the different industry experts and regulatory bodies and government. We as a company are collectively working, together to overcome these challenges.

ZeroAvia as a company values its employees and creates a positive, work environment that fosters collaboration, innovation, and creativity. I want to learn as much as I can, working, in this field and continue to grow with the company. I strongly believe that this is the future, in a good way. And so if I'm able to contribute to this one, it's good, because I can tell my future generation, that I have made some impact.

I wouldn't describe this as a fantasy because I have done like few things in my college that was not even a reality. And when compared to that we are seeing this. We have, did a, we have done like a very smaller planes and so we have the plan. And so this is definitely not fantasy as engineering, real engineering.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Saranya (Social)

ZeroAvia as a company values its employees and creates a positive, work environment that fosters for collaboration, innovation, and creativity. I want to learn as much as I can, working, in this field and continue to grow with the company.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Smit

This is the technology of the future, the state of art, and all the developments that we are gonna see might be inspired with the things that we are working on today. So everybody's gonna look at to what we are working on today and just develop it at like a bigger scale going forward. I'm Smit Solanki. I'm the electronics and test engineer at ZeroAvia.

So I'm responsible for testing, validation, and verification of the electrical subsystems used in the inverter, which is used to drive the motor, which basically runs the propeller of the airplane. We are currently, right now in Seattle, which is known as the Evergreen State. Evergreen State remains evergreen if we are working on decarbonizing the planet. And sustainability is the only way to go for it.

Ever since I graduated from a grad school, all I wanted to do is work on Tross and it's application in sustainable energies. That's how I landed my first full-time job, which was an electric aviation company itself. And eventually, I came here at ZeroAvia, exactly one year back. So it happens to be my one year anniversary.

Today. We are the pioneers of the technology that we are working on here. So what it requires is, like every day is a new challenge. Every day is like a new thing coming up, while you're designing, while you're testing or, and there's a lot of different things and different domains of engineering that come together to make this thing happen.

And everybody needs to come together to just achieve the one goal that we are working on. And I believe that's the best part. That challenge is so fun that you're just gonna, you just want to come tomorrow and day after tomorrow. And again and again, I basically work on the verification and validation of the designs that actually gonna go into the inverter.

I able to find issues that we can deal with it and make it a better, system as a whole so that every transition that you go through in designing is good enough for flying this guy. So that is something that is pretty much exciting right now. I believe that the standard day at ZeroAvia is not pretty standard. So basically the things that we are working on here, as I said, is like so futuristic.

And we are innovating a lot of things in-house, which probably have never been done before. Like, the things that I've been, I'm working on currently is like the state of our power electronics. So that requires a lot of detail, attention and collaboration with the team. When I first started, my friends and family didn't know like, what exactly was I working on?

But once we tell them our journey that what we are developing here, what the world has seen in just like in a matter of three years, they're pretty stoked to make, to believe it. Like, okay, no, no, this is really possible. So now they are actually asking me questions every time we talk that, okay, where are you guys? What's the development?

Like, what is the electrical side of it that you're working on? We want to keep this environment the same for the future generations next to come so that they can, they could thank us that we are working in direction that is actually helping them. So that is something that is my whole motivation.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Smit (Social)

All I wanted to do is work on power electronics and its application in sustainable energies. That's how I landed my first full-time job, which was an electric aviation company itself. And eventually, I came here at ZeroAvia, exactly one year back, so it happens to be my one year anniversary today. Every day is a new challenge.

Every day is like a new thing coming up, and I believe that's the best part. That challenge is so fun that you just gonna, you just want to come tomorrow and day after tomorrow, and again and again.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Stan

Being, you know, stationed here in this location and living here personally, it's great. I can use my resources and help out my team members and which makes me feel valued as a ZeroAvian, I'm the facility slash, safety manager here at Everett, and I bring the heat, I bring in the cool air in the summertime, and I make sure that we have power and water and everything else in the building. So my career was 20 years of US Coast Guard from 95 to 2016, and I, did 20 years as a diesel mechanic, pretty, pretty much, and with a lot of diversity in my job. So what I did when I was in service of the Coast Guard was I was part of Search and Rescue, which we were rescuing stranded ships, whatever the case may be.

I did, law enforcement where we were drug, it is called drug interdiction. We were catching the bad guys at the sea, those kind of services, you know, being so diverse in the Coast Guard, you know, being just a lowly mechanic to being an escort for you know, generals into, to Baghdad or something like that. Gave me the skills to be a great, I think a great ZeroAvian employee. Part of my job in the Coast Guard was to do fisheries.

So fisheries means that we were patrolling, locations in the Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska to prevent overfish overfishing and illegal fishing in our, in the areas. That meant that we would find the ships that we were that were fishing in the area. We'd board 'em, for compliance inspections, make sure they're fishing the proper breeds. It taught me a lot about the environment and how, how bad it can be if we just didn't do anything about it.

So working here at ZeroAvia also gives me that sense of pride that I shared with within the Coast Guard when I was protecting fisheries. Now we are protecting the skies, and I see the determination of my team members and my coworkers of making that come to fruition and seeing that come to fruition. It's just, it's an amazing feeling. So as a species, we've gone to the extreme and it's time to start looking into other resources.

With the increasing amount of technology improving every day we're gonna see more aircraft in the sky. And if it's with the Hydrogen electric powertrain, I'd rather see that than with a natural turbine engine. You know, raising my children in the past, you know, we were, you know, recycle this, recycle that they were proud of themselves for teaching dad how to recycle properly. If my children had children, I would want them to have the same kind of world that I had when I was growing up, you know, able to go to the, any water fountain and faucet and drink from it.

I want to come out and see a nice sunny day and not worry about global warming or not you know, and not, you know, have to worry about the polar ice caps being, you know, being depleted at a, at an alarming rate. I want them to experience, you know, life, the best way they can as possible.

Meet the ZeroAvians: Stan (Social)

So working here at ZeroAvia also gives me that sense of pride that I shared with within the Coast Guard when I was protecting fisheries. Now we are protecting the skies, and I see the determination of my team members and my coworkers of making that come to fruition and seeing that come to fruition, it's just, it's an amazing feeling.