Gwynne Shotwell

Gwynne Shotwell at pre-launch briefing for CRS-2 mission

Gwynne Shotwell is the President and Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX (Space Explorations Technologies Corp.), a large United States corporation providing space transportation services to both government and commercial customers. She is second in command behind SpaceX Founder and CEO Elon Musk.

Personal

Shotwell received both a bachelor and Master's degrees from Northwestern University, in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mathematics.

Business Career

Shotwell originally planned to work in the automotive industry and was enrolled in Chrysler Corporation's management training program, but did not remain in that industry.

In circa 1988, she began work at the El Segundo research center of the Aerospace Corporation, and did technical work on military space research and development contracts. She worked there for ten years and did work in thermal analysis while "writing dozens of papers on a variety of subjects including conceptual small spacecraft design, infrared signature target modeling, space shuttle integration and reentry vehicle operational risks."

Wanting to actually "build, and put spacecraft together", in 1998 she left the Aerospace Corp. to become the "director of the space systems division at Microcosm Inc., a low-cost rocket builder in El Segundo."

In 2002, the founding year, she joined SpaceX as the company's seventh employee. As of June 2013, SpaceX has nearly US$5 billion in contracts and more than 3,000 people on its payroll. Shotwell is "responsible for day-to-day operations and managing customer relationships and company growth."