Sierra Space Appoints Industry Veteran Jen Splaingard to Lead Transformative Engineering and Test Organization

Sr. Vice President Jen Splaingard brings two decades’ experience to her new role, leveraging company’s commitment to excellence

Sierra Space, a leading commercial space company building the first end-to-end business and technology platform in space, today announced the establishment of a new, world-class engineering and test organization designed to innovate, inspire and deliver unprecedented breakthrough technologies and products to the company’s commercial and government customers.

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Jen Splaingard, Sr. Vice President Engineering and Test at Sierra Space (Photo: Business Wire)

CEO Tom Vice has appointed two-decade industry veteran, Jen Splaingard, to lead this substantial initiative, which will continue Sierra Space’s commitment to excellence, relentless pursuit of driving technological advancements and tireless resolve to maintain its preeminent industry position at the forefront of commercializing space in the Orbital Age™.

The newly formed organization will operate under a set of defining principles that align with Sierra Space’s core values including: disruptive innovation that will significantly reduce the cost of accessing and maintaining microgravity research facilities in Low Earth Orbit; a culture of continuous learning that embraces curiosity and inspires the team to push boundaries and explore new ideas; and collaboration and empowerment to drive shared responsibility, leveraging collective intelligence to bring out the best engineering ideas and solutions.

“Sierra Space has always been committed to pushing the boundaries of innovation and technological excellence,” said Sierra Space CEO Tom Vice. “The formation of this world-class engineering organization is a major milestone that marks our unwavering commitment to creating industry-leading solutions. Jen will empower our valuable engineering team members with the support, tools, processes and resources they need to do their very best work.”

Splaingard, who joined Sierra Space in October, now serves as Senior Vice President, Engineering and Test, reporting to Vice. Her top priority is nurturing the career growth and skill development of Sierra Space’s talented team of engineers. She will focus fostering resolute mindsets for end-to-end life cycle digital transformation and revolutionizing our business through artificial intelligence and machine learning.

“Our Engineering and Test culture is one committed to learning, growth, and a relentless drive to uncover breakthrough innovations and discoveries,” Splaingard said. “It is an honor to be able to harness that tremendous ‘can-do’ spirit that resonates so clearly at Sierra Space and vector it to support our ongoing growth trajectory. My goal is to grow our team by providing exciting, diversified career experiences, while engineering Sierra Space’s vision of building a platform in space to benefit life on Earth.”

Prior to joining Sierra Space, Splaingard spent 19 years at Boeing, holding multiple engineering, managerial and executive leadership positions. She most recently served as Vice President, Program Manager for the F/A 18 and EA-18G programs. In this role, she led an annual $2 billion production and development portfolio supported by 2,000 team members. She led large-scale, multi-disciplined teams to execute complex technical designs, while balancing cost, schedule and technical performance. She was promoted to Vice President having previously served as Director and Senior Director of the F/A 18 and EA-18G programs.

Other noted positions throughout her Boeing career include: Senior Manager, Systems Engineering Capability; Radar Cross Section Engineer, Boeing Defense Systems; and Enterprise Auditor. She began her career as a mechanical engineer at Kimberly-Clark.

Splaingard holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology, as well as an executive MBA from the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.

About Sierra Space

Sierra Space is a leading, pureplay commercial space company at the forefront of innovation and the commercialization of space in the Orbital Age™, building an end-to-end business and technology platform in space to benefit life on Earth. With more than 30 years and 500 missions of space flight heritage, the company is enabling the future of space transportation with Dream Chaser®, the world’s only commercial spaceplane, and is bringing LIFE™ (Large Integrated Flexible Environment) to low-Earth orbit with its modular, three-story commercial habitation and science platform. Both Dream Chaser and LIFE are central components to Orbital Reef, a mixed-use business park in LEO being developed by principal partners Sierra Space and Blue Origin, which is expected to be operational by the end of the decade. Sierra Space also builds and delivers a host of systems and subsystems across solar power, mechanics and motion control, environmental control, life support, propulsion and thermal control, offering myriad space-as-a-service solutions for the new space economy.

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