Kirk Hawkins

Founder & CEO
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Before graduating from Stanford Business School in 2005 and founding ICON, Kirk flew F-16s in the U.S. Air Force and 767s for American Airlines. Prior to the USAF, he worked in both aviation and aerospace engineering most of his early career. After earning his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Clemson University, he was the Director of Engineering at an aerospace contractor before returning for his Masters in Engineering from Stanford University in 1995, specializing in manufacturing.

Kirk grew up racing motocross and has been an avid sport and flying enthusiast for 25 years. He has built and flown ultralight and experimental aircraft, and has logged nearly 1000 skydives. Kirk is also a seaplane instructor pilot with hundreds of hours bush flying in Alaska. Today he is an active snowboarder, wake-boarder, and SCUBA diver, as well as a devoted member of the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America for more than 10 years.

Steen Strand

Co-Founder & COO
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Steen Strand is a seasoned sports product entrepreneur with 14 years of hands-on operational startup experience. Steen's expertise is in product design, marketing and brand building. Early in his career he worked at IDEO, one of the world's leading design consultancies before founding Freebord, a skateboard company with a global subculture of fanatical riders. He later served as COO and Director of Product at Secara, a funded healthcare startup. Steen received his MS in Product Design from Stanford University, where he periodically instructs courses in Product Design. Steen's designs have been featured in numerous TV shows, websites and magazines, including Time, Forbes, Newsweek and Wired. He has lectured on design and business in many venues, including Stanford, Yale, MIT's Media Lab, and Xerox PARC. Prior to attending Stanford, Steen worked in finance at Lehman Brothers and co-founded Fletcher Asset Management, an early hedge fund with over $500 million in assets. He received his AB in Economics, magna cum laude, from Harvard.

David Crook

CFO
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David Crook brings a combined background of manufacturing and finance to the role of CFO. David grew up working in his family's contract manufacturing business, and then later graduated from Clemson University with a BS in Mechanical Engineering. Upon graduation he joined the prestigious GE Manufacturing Management Program, which included engineering and finance assignments at GE Aircraft Engines and GE Medical Systems. He gravitated toward finance and later became a Director for GE Capital. During his 10-year stay at GE, David earned an MBA from UCLA's Anderson School of Management with a focus on real estate and entrepreneurial finance, which led to a Senior Vice President position at CWCapital.

Matthew Gionta

CTO & VP of Engineering
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Matthew Gionta began his aviation career while helping friends construct an experimental airplane. After earning his BS and MS in Aerospace Engineering at SUNY Buffalo, Matthew joined Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites and spent his initial six years as Project Engineer for 11 programs including three whole aircraft: Raptor, Proteus and the Williams V-Jet, the predecessor to the Eclipse 500 very light jet. During the next seven years at Scaled, Matthew served as Chief Engineer and Vice President of Engineering, responsible for the technical success of all of Scaled's programs. His team developed the world record-setting Virgin GlobalFlyer, the Ansari X-PRIZE winning SpaceShipOne, and many other air vehicles. He has overseen the design and construction of numerous other aircraft, earning the Aviation Week "Laurel Award" for bringing two new aircraft to flight in under 15 months.

Jon Karkow

Lead Aero Engineer
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Jon Karkow spent 21 years in aircraft development at Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites and over that time rightfully earned the reputation as the most accomplished aeronautical engineer and project engineer in the history of Scaled. He led more than 20 aircraft programs and five complete airplanes including the record-breaking, around-the-world Virgin GlobalFlyer that won him a 2006 Aeronautics Laureate Award from Aviation Week & Space Technology. Most recently, he served as the Technical Program Manager for Richard Branson's commercial space program SpaceShipTwo. A licensed airframe and powerplant mechanic, Jon received a BS in Physics at Kenyon College and a BS in Aeronautical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is an active pilot and experimental test pilot with instrument, multi-engine, seaplane, helicopter, and glider ratings.

Paul Crandell

VP of Marketing
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As one of the first 20 employees in the United States for Red Bull, Paul Crandell started the event marketing department of a company with $5 million in revenue. Within six years, he became the Director of Sports Marketing and the company had grown to over 1000 U.S. employees and $2 billion in annual revenues. In his last 2 years at Red Bull, Paul led a team of 24 managing 300 media events, 120 athletes and several Red Bull Motorsports properties and events including NASCAR, CHAMP Car, Motocross, and Red Bull Air Races. Born and raised in California, Paul received his BA in Law and Society from UC Santa Barbara.