Mr. Rich Pang is the Director of Government Product Development for Telesat U.S. Services, LLC and an industry expert in the development and execution of government products and services including hosting government payloads on commercial satellites. He is a retired military officer with 21 years of experience in space operations dealing with missile warning and defense, space control, satellite command and control, launch and early orbit testing, and collision avoidance and electromagnetic interference analyses. He also has a strong background in personnel training and evaluation, personnel and resource management, operational testing and evaluation, and space systems’ acquisition.
Mr. Pang’s prior experience includes serving as the Vice President of Government Segment Market Management at SES Networks where he was responsible for assessing global government and institutional markets, identifying customers’ requirements, and leading the identification and/or development of SES products and solutions to meet customers’ needs.
Prior to joining SES Networks, Mr. Pang worked at SES Government Solutions (SES GS) where he served as the Senior Director for Hosted Payloads. He was responsible for seeking, pursuing, and securing opportunities to support U.S. Government missions around the world through the use of hosted payloads. While there, he managed the Commercially Hosted InfraRed Payload (CHIRP) program for the United States Air Force and captured two other hosted payload contracts: (1) the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) funded by the Federal Aviation Administration; and (2) the Global Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
In May 2010, Mr. Pang retired from the United States Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel after twenty-one years of service. In his last assignment, he served as the Director of Operations at the Program Executive Office for Environmental Satellites in Silver Spring, Maryland, where his duties encompassed leading a diverse team of over a hundred personnel from the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce, and government contractors responsible for the operations and maintenance of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program and the WindSat/Coriolis mission. In addition, his division was responsible for establishing operational policy and procedures for the development, transition, and subsequent operations and maintenance of follow-on meteorological satellite programs.
Mr. Pang was born in Portland, Oregon, and earned his commission as a Distinguished Graduate through the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps program in June 1989. He earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, and a Master of Business Administration Degree from San Jose State University in San Jose, California.