Board of Directors

Our Chairman – Pierre de Broqueville

Count de Broqueville is an enthusiastic aviator. He is a third generation pilot in his family and has done his part with his fourth generation already working in general aviation.

He has been flying since 1972 both as an Airline Transport Pilot and a competition glider pilot. He has experience as captain on Boeing 737’s and Airbus A330’s with over 15000 hours experience. He has also been a line training captain for the 737, the BA 146, and the A330. He has been a member of the Belgian national gliding team since 2003, becoming national champion in 2008. He currently holds the bronze medal for the World Gliding Championship and more than 3000 hours experience.

Pierre is a golf course designer and owns two country clubs in Belgium and France. He has been on the Board of Directors of Sibelco (a multi-mineral mining company with 10000 workers worldwide) since 2004.

Dr. James Jason Murray

From a very early age, James has been drawn to aviation. Growing up in the Bahamas also gave him the chance to learn to navigate and to fly in one of the most beautiful archipelagos in the world.

He consulted in the 1990’s for Reaction Engines Ltd, a British company developing a reusable Orbital space plane called Skylon that has continued the preliminary work initiated by British Aerospace and Rolls Royce in the 1980’s. It was with that team that James was introduced to the world of commercial spaceflight and the challenge of breaking away from a dependence on governments as exclusive investors. James also founded an amateur rocketry group in Britain called AspireSpace that built and flew many high powered sounding rockets, and developed a number of high thrust liquid oxygen – plastic fuel rocket motors.

James has since worked in the European propulsion industry for 9 years principally for Techspace Aero in Belgium that is part of SAFRAN, the French propulsion group. He has held the position of Head of Space Research and Technology, and then Head of Space Development. During this period, he has worked on the major European liquid engines for the Ariane launch vehicle including the development Vinci and continuing the flight qualification status and improvements of the Vulcain. He has participated in a number of genesis projects in European propulsion and for the future launch vehicles of Europe. He has also worked with many international partners outside the European arena in the US, Russia, and in Asia.

It was with this background that James founded BOOSTER Space Industries in 2006 that resulted from a re-assessment of the viability of a commercial space launch project following the breaking of the psychological barrier in 2004 through the X-Prize.

Hans Petscher

Co-founder and shareholder of v-plane engineering GmbH, Hamburg, Germany. Hans is also head of v-plane EASA DOA Office of Airworthiness.

• 65 years old, married, two grown up children.
• Degree in electrical engineering.
• European citizen (German).
• Passion: offshore sailing

Experience:

• Military: technical operations officer: F4 Phantom-fighter wing
• Head of avionics shop: General aviation company
• Vice President (Europe): Aircraft Electronics Association (AEA)
• Head of engineering: General aviation aircraft design company
• 25+ years inspector and certifying staff in JAR 145 organization
• Set up and certification of 3 different EASA design organizations
• Numerous licences and trainings in aviation
• Pilot: single- and multi engine aircraft, IFR rating
• Specialized in certification of aircraft and -systems according to CS/FAR 23,-25,-27
• 43 years experience in aviation

Klaus Harald Fischer

Klaus Harald Fischer has been managing airplane companies for over 21 years with more than 30 types certified and over 4000 aircraft flying in all areas around the world.

His experience has been honed through many a process of certification, industrialisation, and production for a very large range of aircraft. Klaus has overseen the development of gliders, small turboprops, and business piston and commercial jet aircraft. The Egrett / D500 single seater turboprop still holds 4 world records in its class. He has also created some unique prototypes such as the Strato 2C –High Altitude manned aircraft. It was designed to loiter on station with a crew of 4 for 36 Hrs and still holds the altitude record for a piston engined aircraft at 61 000 ft. With a wingspan of 56.5 m (185 ft 4½ in), it is still the “biggest piece of single carbon“ in the air. Klaus has also participated in the development of the Global Observer Unmanned Air Vehicle that is powered by a hydrogen fuel cell supplying four electric motors. This 54 m / 175 ft span aircraft is designed to loiter at an altitude of 65 000 ft for 5 days.

Klaus led the Design Department at Grob and later became Vice President and General Manager. In 1999, he served as Head of Engineering, Research and Development for USG Air & Space, Inc. and consulted for both AeroVironment Inc. (Los Angeles CA) and Safire Aircraft Company (West Palm Beach FL). In 2000 he became Chief Engineer on the 728 program at Fairchild-Dornier. Klaus currently runs a consulting company “KHFischer-Engineering” in Germany.

Kanwarjit Singh

Kanwarjit (KJ) Singh is currently VP Clinical Research Asia Pacific, with Johnson and Johnson. After working as a physician, KJ has had a 16+ year career in the biomedical sector. He worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co. and at Glaxo, Amgen and Bayer, leading teams in the medical affairs, clinical development, planning and business development areas. He also worked at the Gates Foundation, developing and delivering public health solutions to underserved populations, with a special focus on Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in physics from St Stephen’s College, Delhi and a Master’s in economics from Oxford. He received an MBA from MIT and MD from Columbia and is a Diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine.

KJ has an avid interest in scientific innovation and access and policy issues relating to healthcare and is active in several industry groups. He is on the boards of the World Affairs Councils of America and the International Biomedical Research Alliance and was an affiliate assistant professor at the University of Washington. He is active in a variety of sports and enjoys travel and books.

Balvinder Powar

Balvinder is English of Indian origin, resident in Madrid, Spain. He is a Business & Finance graduate who also studied a Masters in Mediation from the University of London. He has extensive experience working on business, social, cultural, media and technology projects in Spain and internationally and his main skills and experience include creative & strategic input, business development & senior management, team leadership, relationship management and business mediation.

Balvinder is passionate about the importance of effective and creative Communication & Marketing, both externally and internally in companies. He looks for projects which push boundaries and for this reason he is CCO (Chief Communications Officer) & MD Spain of BOOSTER Space Industries, aswell as an Executive Board member. He is proud to be a part of the BOOSTER team: a pioneering International Sub-Orbital Space/Aerospace Consortium who are changing the future of luxury adventure travel.

He is also an Associate Professor at IE Business School Madrid, Spain.

He is a strong advocate of self empowerment and pro-activeness to achieve one’s goals, with his favourite quote being that of Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world”