David W Thompson

Early life

Thompson is the son of Robert H. (born 1919) and Nancy W. (born 1923) Thompson. He grew up in New Jersey, Georgia, Massachusetts and South Carolina, graduating from Dorman High School in Spartanburg, SC in 1972. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1972 to 1976, graduating with a B.S. degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics. He attended the California Institute of Technology from 1977 to 1978, from which he received a M.S. degree in Aeronautics and Jet Propulsion. During college and graduate school, he worked as a summer engineering intern at NASA’s Langley Research Center, Johnson Space Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Early in his career, Thompson worked as an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL from 1978 to 1979, during which time he conceived the original plan for a commercial space company that would focus on privately managed, privately funded rocket development and manufacturing. To pursue this idea, he attended Harvard Business School from 1979 to 1981, graduating with an M.B.A. degree and forming friendships with classmates and future business partners Bruce W. Ferguson and Scott L. Webster. Following business school, Thompson worked in strategic planning at Hughes Aircraft Company in Los Angeles, California, from 1981 to 1982.

Business achievements

Together with partners Ferguson and Webster, Thompson founded Orbital in April 1982. The basic concept for their company was to “bring the benefits of space down to Earth” by providing lower-cost launch vehicles and space systems that would expand the market for space applications from a small set of major government agencies to a wider range of scientific, commercial and international customers. Orbital planned to develop these products with private capital and to design and manufacture them using highly efficient “skunk works” management techniques.

The company raised seed capital in 1982 and venture capital in 1983, with the proceeds applied to start-up activities and to preliminary design of Orbital’s first product, the Space Shuttle-compatible Transfer Orbit Stage (TOS) vehicle. The private placement of a $50 million R&D partnership followed in late 1983 and early 1984, which funded the full-scale development of TOS and represented the largest private investment in commercial space transportation to that time. Strategic investments by larger aerospace companies, including Hercules Aerospace Company, followed in 1986 and 1988, leading to Orbital’s initial public stock (IPO) offering in 1990, the first for a commercial space company since Comsat’s IPO in 1963. Proceeds from the IPO and the other investments were used to develop and manufacture the company’s second project, the Pegasus air-launch rocket, which became Orbital’s first $1 billion-plus product during the 1990s and 2000s.

With business expansion driven by increasing production and launch rates for Pegasus and its other small rockets, along with the introduction of lightweight satellites for commercial and government customers, Orbital grew from less than $3 million in annual revenues in 1985, to $100 million in 1990 and then to over $360 million in 1995. In the second half of the 1990s, additional new product developments and several strategic acquisitions broadened the company’s business into markets for satellite ground systems, space-based sensors, satellite navigation equipment, and satellite communications and imaging services, pushing annual revenues to about $725 million by 2000. After several years of retrenchment from its capital- intensive satellite services businesses as a result of a market downturn in 2000-2002, Orbital reestablished growth in the mid-2000s, ending the decade with revenues of nearly $1.3 billion in 2010.

From 1985 to 2014, Orbital’s revenues have grown at a 24% compound annual rate while its workforce has expanded more than 100-fold, from about 30 people then to approximately 3,400 employees today. The company’s customers include NASA, the U.S. Air Force and Navy, the Missile Defense Agency, DARPA, major commercial satellite communications and imaging companies, and leading universities and research labs.

Space missions

During the three-plus decades of Thompson’s management of the company, Orbital carried out 482 major space missions and 359 smaller research rocket launches (as of March 2015). These missions consisted of the following types:

Moreover, Orbital built and delivered over 70 additional launch vehicles and space systems (including 30 national missile defense interceptors on operational alert) for missions to be conducted in the future. The company also is currently designing and manufacturing approximately 95 more satellites and rockets to be delivered to customers between early 2015 and the end of 2018.

Space program innovations

Under Thompson’s leadership, Orbital engineering and business teams pioneered numerous space program “firsts” over the last 25 years, including these major technological innovations:

Mergers and acquisitions

To establish or expand engineering and manufacturing capabilities and to broaden its customer base and product lines, Orbital acquired several other space-related companies between 1988 and 2010:

In April 2014, Orbital and Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) entered into a merger-of-equals agreement to combine ATK’s aerospace and defense groups with Orbital. The merger closed in February 2015, with the new company now known as Orbital ATK, Inc. Orbital ATK is a $4.4 billion (2014 pro-forma revenue) space, defense and aviation systems manufacturer with a workforce of over 12,000 employees in 17 states and a contract backlog valued at more than $12.1 billion. The new company's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "OA".

In addition to Orbital’s legacy satellite and rocket businesses, Orbital ATK designs, builds and delivers space, strategic and tactical rocket propulsion systems; precision guided munitions and other advanced armament systems; small-, medium- and large-caliber ammunition; defense electronics and related products; and advanced aerospace structures and spacecraft components.

Awards and activities

Thompson’s major awards include the U.S. National Medal of Technology (1991); the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum Trophy (1990); the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ (AIAA) Robert Goddard Astronautics Award (2012), Barry Goldwater Education Award (2007), George Low Space Transportation Award (1994) and Lawrence Sperry Award (1988); and the Aerospace Historical Society’s International von Karman Wings Award (2011). He also received the Virginia Outstanding Industrialist Award (1991), National Defense Industrial Association’s Bob Hope Distinguished Citizen Award (2014), the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2008), Via Satellite Magazine’s Satellite Executive of the Year Award (1990), and the National Youth Science Camp’s Alumni of the Year Award (2014).

Thompson is an Honorary Fellow of AIAA, a Fellow of the American Astronautical Society and the British Royal Aeronautical Society, and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and the International Academy of Astronautics. He received Caltech’s Distinguished Alumni Award (2009) and Harvard Business School’s Alumni Achievement Award (1999). He is a member of Caltech’s Board of Trustees and was AIAA’s President for the 2009-2010 year.

Personal life

Thompson is married to the former Catherine Jensen (born 1956), whom he met in 1981 and married in 1983. They have a daughter, Maggie Thompson (born 1994), who is a student at Princeton University studying astrophysics. They live in Northern Virginia near Washington, D.C.