"The pilot is always one switch throw away from making a bad situation worse." It's a joke at the pilot's expense, but it's also a saying about the fragility of flight and the importance of being ready for anything. In this episode of ae2,  former NASA astronaut, Col. Greg Johnson teaches us a lesson about problem solving.

I am sure we can all agree that running a company is not an easy task. But, being brought in to run a company in distress – that seems like a nearly impossible endeavor. But not for Eric Kish. In this latest episode of ae² we talk to Kish, an accomplished CEO, author, and speaker, about his work over the last couple of decades running and turning around 12 distressed companies across five industries in an average time frame of just 18 months.

Since he saw his first airshow when he was five, Justin “Hasard” Lee knew he wanted to be a pilot. While the path to achieving this dream wasn’t easy, today, Major Lee serves as the Chief of F-35 Training Systems for Luke Air Force Base located outside of Phoenix, Arizona. He also hosts a '2019 Top Podcast' called "The Professionals Playbook" where experts at the top of their fields share insights based on credibility and experience. 

In this latest episode of ae², Citizen-Scientist Astronaut Candidate Dr. Nadia Maarouf joins us from the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. Maarouf shares her journey from competitive athlete, studying Olympic-style Taekwondo, to Medical Scientist / Crew Medical Officer for an upcoming mission at the Mars Desert Research Station – the largest and longest-running Mars surface simulation facility in the world.

Innovation in personal and commercial aircraft isn't just found in large corporations. Much of what is exhilarating about the future of flight is found in smaller "new aero" companies like HopFlyt. In this episode of ae², we talk to one of HopFlyt’s co-founders, chief financial officer, and chief test pilot, Rory Feely, about the future of aviation.

If Dousic founder Brian Moore wrote an autobiography, it might be called "From Music to Technology and Back Again." Brian grew up in Greenwood, MS where he developed his love of music. Growing up in a deeply religious family with a minister for a father, he was not allowed to listen to the blues at home, but developed a taste for the genre, as well as soul and Motown, anyway.

In this episode of ae², we talk to Product Development Consultant, Business Owner, and Author Don Reinertsen. Don works works with companies who are thinking about process improvement methodologies to apply to their product development cycle. More specifically, he helps people who are thinking about these various approaches in a non-critical way. For example, someone who read in an article or heard at a conference presentation that Method X will improve your product development process and then decides that's what his team will do. Almost inevitably, Method X fails.

That's when these people turn to Don.

A common challenge for our armed forces veterans as they transition out of the military and into civilian life is building their professional and personal network. Kymberli Speight, a former Air Force officer herself, recognized this problem and after a civilian career that included human resources, recruiting, and contract administration, she decided to become a career coach for military executives transitioning to the private sector. As a career coach, she noticed that while everyone recognized the importance of networking, people struggled in learning how to apply it.

This episode of ae² explores networking and the inspiration for Kymberli's new book, I Need To Know You: How to Meet Ordinary, Extraordinary People and Improve Your Life.

If you’ve ever wanted to know what makes a great whiskey great, then this episode of ae² is for you. For this interview, we left the office and traveled a little further into the Texas Hill County to Blanco, TX to chat with world-renowned whiskey expert, author of Whiskey Distilled, and master blender, Heather Greene. Greene has a diverse background when it comes to whiskey, and today, she is the CEO at Provision Spirits, the maker of Milam & Greene whiskies.

For many years, local artist Pat Chapman's beautiful talent was hidden out of fear. She began playing with art as a teenager and even spent time as an oil portrait artist in her thirties, but she was afraid that people wouldn't like her paintings. It wasn't until last year, after constant encouragement from her husband, that Pat truly embraced her gift and began taking classes and working with an art coach. 

This episode of Artists, Engineers, and Entrepreneurs (ae²) explores how Pat conquered her fear by surrounding herself with a community of artists and how she is giving back to that community.