About

Matt develops strategy for the long-term growth of the company through tactical objectives aligned with each team member. 

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Before founding Canopy, Matt was a Captain in the U.S. Air Force and spent an 8-year career as a B-52H Weapons Officer. In this role, he flew, managed, and operated weapon systems ranging from conventional munitions to nuclear armed cruise missiles. As a supervisor and operator of Air Force weapon systems, Matt developed expertise on the technical capabilities and limitations of all weapons in the Air Force’s inventory and adjacent military branches. During this time, he also served as a mission commander on dozens of missions during combat deployments overseas. Matt then took his expertise to Europe as an Air Liaison Officer, advising NATO partners and U.S. military forces on how to utilize U.S. Air Force capabilities. He developed strategy and planned operations at the highest levels, while managing and integrating the Air Force’s special operations tactical air controllers, known as Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs). While his background is rooted in operational experience, much of his career was spent achieving objectives through collaboration and coordination with experienced technical team members.

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Matt is a native of Kentucky, attended the University of Kentucky, holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, and is married with a son.

John oversees product development and research innovations for advanced manufacturing, materials development, and software development.

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Before founding Canopy, John was Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Microsphere Material Solutions (MMS). John led the technical teams to develop prototype manufacturing processes for higher strength hollow glass microspheres and foams for buoyancy and radome applications. In this role, he successfully licensed a patent portfolio for manufacturing lightweight glass foam from a Navy lab, leveraged state and federal funding to scale up manufacturing volume 50x in partnership with the University of Maryland, and secured initial sales to both commercial and federal customers. In the process, MMS raised the TRL level of the technology from 4 to 9 and the MRL from 3 to 7. This initial traction allowed Dr. Howard to secure SBIR awards from both the Navy and the Air Force (>$1.2M to date), building out additional use cases for the foam and evaluating the potential to reduce cost through additive manufacturing methods.

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Dr. Howard completed his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Maryland - College Park. His doctoral research focused on leveraging different environmental microscopy methods to identify failure modes in emerging optoelectronic materials and using the data to build predictive models of their serviceable lifetime. His PhD research contributed to 10 publications and 15 conference presentations, culminating in a best poster award at the 2019 Fall MRS meeting. Prior to UMD, Dr. Howard worked as a software engineer at NIST, building out datasets and related analytics for natural language processing evaluations. Earlier, he obtained his undergraduate degrees in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Massachusetts - Amherst.

Will leads strategy planning, execution, and develops relationships with commercial customers.

His previous roles have cut across diverse sectors including education, engineering, automotive product development, corporate innovation, defense acquisition, the Pentagon, US startup hubs like Boston and Silicon Valley, and startup leadership.

Early in his career, Will served on the program engineering management team for General Motors' flagship trucks, notably the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra. This opportunity gave him a deep understanding of large-scale product development, revealing the intricate workings of an $8B+ product program. Always proactive, Will led General Motors' recruitment and outreach efforts at MIT. His dedication resulted in the creation of a unique role aimed at fostering open innovation in the Cambridge, MA ecosystem, with Will being the solitary GM product development representative in Boston.

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One of Will's standout achievements at GM was conceptualizing a 'hackathon' for MIT students centered on Cadillac software. After securing a remarkable $150k backing from senior leadership, the team turned a Cadillac XTS into a video game controller for Rocket League.

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Transitioning to FedTech, Will was pivotal in shaping the structure and ideation for their deep tech accelerator programs. Collaborating with powerhouses like the U.S. Army’s xTechSearch, BAE Systems, Oak Ridge National Labs, and others, he transformed a nascent pilot program into a multi-million-dollar services portfolio at FedTech. Throughout this journey, Will not only coached a plethora of startups but also navigated the challenges and rewards of leading a burgeoning team.

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Above all, what he cherishes the most is the team he built. Starting his journey as a lone contributor, Will's leadership culminated in a robust team of fifteen dedicated individuals. Discovering and nurturing passionate individuals, all committed to launching deep tech into the broader market, was a career highlight.

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In recognition of his expertise, Will was selected for an advisory council in Cambridge, MA, tasked with reimagining the future of mobility. Outside of his corporate roles, his commitment to community engagement is evident. He coached high school robotics in Detroit, plays basketball at MIT, and offers mentorship to budding startups in his leisure.

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Will grew up in Texas and has moved extensively as part of his career to live in communities like Boston, MA; Berkeley, CA; SE Michigan; and Arlington, VA. Will holds degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT (B.S.) and the University of California, Berkeley (M.Eng).

Ben leads Canopy in developing advanced composites across a number of industrial use cases.

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He brings an extensive background spanning across the aerospace and renewable energy industries, with over a decade of experience in composites manufacturing, quality assurance, project management, and product development.

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Prior to Canopy, Ben was at Blue Origin where he was a Senior Composites Manufacturing Engineer working on reusable composites and integrated thermal protection systems for the New Glenn launch vehicle. In his role, he was integral to creating Blue Origin’s TPS and composite structures, taking the program from early development/qualification all the way through full scale production.

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Prior to Blue, Ben worked at Vestas Wind Systems as a Lead Quality and Production Engineer, working on some of the largest wind blades in the world. He was the engineer responsible for running the production lines from composite lay-up all the way through finishing and final assembly. He has also consulted in the renewable energy industry and worked on a hybrid energy system project with University of Colorado and National Renewable Energy Labs.

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His first job was at SpaceX as a Product Validation and Production Quality Engineer, working on large composite structures and thermal protection systems for the most flown rocket in U.S. history. He worked on early-stage composites development through production and qualified the first F9 landing legs for flight. As the launch cadence increased there was a big focus on quality engineering and build reliability, which he took the lead on during the production ramp up of Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Cargo Dragon and Crew Dragon spacecrafts.

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Ben has a Master of Science in Global Energy Management from the University of Colorado at Denver and a Bachelor of Science is in Plastics, Composites, and Vehicle Engineering from Western Washington University. During his undergrad career, he worked on X-Prize cars, bio-composite materials, and built a hybrid bus from scratch for the Department of Transportation.

Charlie leads Canopy’s additive manufacturing development across a number of advanced materials and industrial use cases.

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He brings a unique background spanning design, analysis, manufacturing, and material development focused on solving difficult problems in the aerospace industry and bringing products from concept to flight, which he will use to lead Canopy’s developments in advanced manufacturing for thermal protection systems.    

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Before joining Canopy, Charlie was at Relativity Space, where he was an early propulsion Additive Development engineer leading copper AM product and process development for propulsion applications. In this role, he was integral to establishing Relativity’s vertically integrated technology stack for metal powder-based additive manufacturing, supporting development on the Terran 1 and Terran R programs. Charlie’s experience in design for additive (DFAM), developing industry-leading print parameters and novel alloy systems for high-performance propulsion applications will be critical to Canopy’s efforts building state-of-the art ceramic AM technologies.  

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Additionally, Charlie brings experience from commercial space and government agencies such as Lockheed Martin Space and Lawrence Livermore National Lab. In his time at Lockheed Charlie developed novel low-TRL spacecraft design, manufacturing, and test concepts for Lunar exploration in the Advanced Development Programs group, in addition to building and evaluating low-cost thermal in-situ monitoring systems for additive manufacturing with the Materials Science Division at Lawrence Livermore National Lab.

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Charlie was awarded a thesis-based M.S. from the Colorado School of Mines in 2020, where he developed print, post-process, and characterization methods for 3D-printed metallic shape memory alloys for medical and aerospace applications. From his undergraduate career, Charlie brings early R&D experience from a wide variety of research and project teams focused on novel concepts such as asteroid mining, lunar exploration robotics, and 3D printing for polymers, metals, and ceramics. As a strong individual contributor with experience leading and growing project teams and a passion for developing early-stage technology platforms, Charlie will leverage his experience to develop Canopy’s additive technology stack and build a team focused on additive manufacturing for high temperature ceramics.

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Charlie holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering with a Materials and Manufacturing focus from the Colorado School of Mines (B.S. and M.S.). 

Matthew is an advanced manufacturing engineer supporting Canopy’s factory setup and production initiation. He designs, operates, and executes all of Canopy’s manufacturing equipment.

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At Baylor, Matthew worked on non-destructive testing (NDT) of CFRP composites and additive manufacturing. On the NDT side, he worked with characterizing internal defects and porosity within carbon fiber and fiberglass components. This also included inducing defects and crack initiation and propagation to find the capable edge of current immersive ultrasonic inspection.

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On the additive side, the scope of work included producing polymer and metal components. Research was done on shrinkage and dimensionality of metal components after debinding and sintering stages. Similarly, he performed UT scans on the components looking for raster orientation and internal defects of FDM parts.

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Matthew attended Baylor University for mechanical engineering. His experiences include materials science undergraduate research at Baylor, multiple M.E. internships with Kiewit, internship at Colorado Serum Company in manufacturing, and various extracurricular engineering clubs and activities.