Dr. Mitchell Thomas

Dr. Thomas is the president and CEO of L’Garde. As president, he guided the company’s factor-of-30 growth from 1975 to 1995, culminating in the Inflatable Antenna Experiment which was the primary payload of the STS-77 shuttle flight. From then untill 2009, Dr. Thomas served as a L’Garde director and consultant. In 2009, L’Garde elected him to resume the company leadership.

Dr. Thomas has served as program manager on several of the L’Garde inflatable space systems efforts, the latest being the USAF-sponsored Red Tigress. Before joining L’Garde, Dr. Thomas directed similar programs at McDonnell Douglas Corp., serving as the Technical Program Manager for the USAF/ABRES Midtech  and other strategic programs. Under Midtech, he directed the development of combined radar/optical penetration aid (decoy) systems for the operational Minuteman II, Minuteman III, Poseidon, and Polaris weapon systems.

His technical specialties are inflatable systems and IR signatures. His PhD in Engineering Science and Physics was from Caltech, where his PhD thesis was on Radiative Properties and Radiative Transfer in Gases.  He also has a MS in physics from the U. of Illinois, and did his undergraduate work at Harvard College. He has over 30 publications in peer-reviewed journals or symposia.