Francis X. Govers

Francis Govers contributed to the design of over 30 manned and unmanned land, sea, air and space vehicles and is an expert in robotics and autonomy. He is an Air Force veteran, spent 10 years at NASA, was a lead engineer for the International Space Station, was deputy Chief Engineer for the US Army Future Combat Systems, participated in the DARPA Grand Challenge, and managed a Zeppelin airship. He worked on the "Yellow Line" for football and designed telemetry systems for NASCAR and IndyCar. He designed RAMSEE, the robot security guard, as CTO of Gamma 2 Robotics. As a commercial pilot, writer, artist, musician, engineer, race car nut and designer, Francis has a serious addiction to building things that frequently gets him into trouble.

He has published 48 magazine articles and contributed to five books. He received five outstanding achievement awards from NASA, the Explorer Award by the National Space Society, recognition from Scientific American for “World Changing Ideas”, and was recognized by the Vertical Flight Society as a "Titan of Autonomy".

He has been married for 40 years to Carol Govers. They have two children: Jessica, married to Peter, and Corbin, married to Ammie, and five grandchildren - William, Oliver, Amelia, Henry and Rowan. The whole crew loves to travel.