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Personal Profiles: Eric Bartsch and Gwen Lighter
Eric Bartsch co-founded VerdeGo with Erik Lindbergh and Dr. Pat Anderson. Gwen Lighter has been the CEO of GoFly since January 2015.
ERIC BARTSCH, CEO & FOUNDER AT VERDEGO AERO
WORK EXPERIENCES & TIMELINES
- Bartsch co-founded VerdeGo with Erik Lindbergh and Dr. Pat Anderson in 2017. He has been the CEO of the company since July 2019.
- Additionally, Bartsch is also the founder of Chanute Consulting Group LLC and has been its president since January 2012 to present.
- Since September 2013 to date, Bartsch has also been an advisory board member at Powering Imagination, which he co-founded to promote clean, quiet electric flight.
- Bartsch also volunteered at XPRIZE as a visioneering team member for transport challenge in November 2013.
- Over the course of his career, Bartsch has been responsible for leading innovative teams that have launched billions of dollars of new products across a wide array of industries.
- Bartsch has held executive roles as well as general management roles at $250M+ businesses along with extensive expertise commercializing new innovations.
- Not only was he responsible for the first formation electric aircraft team at AirVenture 2013, but Bartsch also led flight test, development, and marketing at Yuneec/GWI.
- Back in February 2018. Bartsch had an interview with Impakter, which is a global platform for news, articles, interviews, and environmentally-friendly products where he talked about how he and the other co-founders started VerdeGo Aero and gave details on the company's VTOL cars.
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND
- Eric Bartsch went to the University of Colorado where he earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering and an MS from the University of Illinois.
PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL INTERESTS
- Eric Bartsch is a commercial, instrument, airplane, and glider pilot with flight experience in electric planes.
- He is very much interested in the aerospace market. Thus, he has been involved in the emergence of electric propulsion technologies, as they have significantly impacted both the drone and manned flight sectors.
- Bartsch's personal and professional interests are somewhat intertwined because they include making the dream of 'flying car' transportation a reality. However, his personal interests lie in piloting, where he is a commercially-licensed pilot.
- He is also working with students and entrepreneurs to build the next generation of innovation leaders.
- Bartsch's profile photo can be found at VerdeGo Aero.
GWEN LIGHTER, CEO GOFLY
WORK EXPERIENCES & TIMELINES
- Gwen Lighter is the CEO and founder of GoFly. She leads a network of 3,600 innovators from 103 countries, creating numerous personal flying devices.
- Lighter and the company have the support of Pratt & Whitney, Boeing, and more than 20 other aerospace organizations to catalyze the creation of flying cars, flying motorcycles, and jet packs.
- Lighter has been the CEO of GoFly since January 2015.
- Before launching GoFly, Lighter built and helped grow an instant messaging platform, and a multi-brand accessories company.
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND
- Lighter has been to both Havard Law School and Brown University.
- Lighter graduated summa cum laude from Brown University and cum laude from Harvard Law.
PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL INTERESTS
- Lighter's both professional and personal interests also seem to revolve around flying — she wants to fly, and if anyone wants to fly too, she wants to help.
- In an interview with the Fast Company, Lighter said that “we expect that there will be human drone racing,” “and quidditch comes to the world.”
- Lighter is a lawyer who turned out to be an entrepreneur with a passion for personal aircraft.
- Notable press coverage by Lighter is her opinion piece at CNN in September 2019.
RESEARCH STRATEGY
After an exhaustive search through news, press releases, articles, and official or governmental reports, the research team found that there is no readily available data about both Eric Bartsch and Gwen Lighter's personal interests. When the search failed to provide information on their personal interests, we opted to look for their personal Facebook profiles, and Twitter handles using their names, but this also proved to be futile. After more thorough research, we did not find anything helpful about Bartsch, but we were able to find a blog that shed a little light on some of Lighter's's personal interests and was able to compile the above findings.
We then decided to look for any information about them on their company websites. When we explored GoFly's website, there was no available information about Gwen Lighter's personal interests. Additionally, in VerdeGo Aero website, the only information about Bartsch that was available was his professional background. We then went ahead to explore the Chanute Consulting Group LLC website where Bartsch is the president and we were able to get a little information about his personal interests that we used to compile the above findings.