Steve Shelby announced his retirement effective April 27, 2021, after 17 years as VP of Sales and Marketing at Cross Technologies, Inc. "Steve has always done an excellent job providing quotations and technical support to customers world-wide over his 17-year career at Cross, and sales increased substantially as a result of his sales and marketing efforts," said a company statement. 

Sheppard Mullin announced that Steve Chernow has joined its Telecom team as Special Counsel, based in their Washington, D.C. office. Chernow joins Sheppard Mullin following a distinguished career serving in senior roles for satellite communications companies, including as General Counsel at OneWeb and Deputy General Counsel at Intelsat.

Viasat Inc. (NASDAQ: VSAT), today announced the appointment of Former National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Chief and former Oklahoma Congressman James "Jim" Bridenstine to its Board of Directors. Bridenstine will serve as a Class II director, with an initial term expiring at the Company's 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. With the appointment of Bridenstine, the Board now consists of eight members, six of whom are independent directors.

At the Satellite 2023 show in Washington, D.C., Satellite Markets and Research Editor-in-Chief Virgil Labrador spoke with Chris Carella, Chief Commercial Officer of small satellite manufacturer Benchmark Systems.

Inmarsat announced the appointments of Barry French as Chief Marketing and Communications Officer (CMCO) and Jat Brainch as Chief Commercial and Product Officer (CCPO).

To explain the features and benefits of ST Engineering iDirect's newly-launched Mx-DMA Multi-Resolution Coding (MRC technology, Satellite Executive Briefing spoke with Bart Van Poucke, Vice-President of Product Management, ST Engineering iDirect.  Excerpts of the interview follows:

Avanti Communications Group  announced the appointment of Vikas Grover  as its new Chief Technology Officer.Grover was recently the founding Chief Information Officer at OneWeb, where he led Global Networks, IT Platforms and Security.  Grover will succeed Scott Richardson in the role, who will be leaving the company.

Kleos Space' US subsidiary; Kleos Space Inc., has appointed experienced satellite software and systems engineer Vincent "Vinny" Furia as Technical Director. In the newly created role,  Furia will report to the CTO, with responsibility for effective and efficient development and deployment of the Kleos space based systems (progressing towards a constellation of satellite clusters), ground support, analytics and data delivery.

Astra Space today announced that Giovanni Greco joined the company as Vice President of Vehicle Engineering. Greco comes from Blue Origin, where he served as Chief Engineer of the New Shepard program.

“I’ve spent my career working on all kinds of vehicles, and am excited to apply this experience at Astra to build a new generation of space services,” said Greco. “I’ll be joining a world-class team of engineers whose work will help unlock the countless benefits of connecting our planet through space.”

Iridium Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: IRDM) today announced that Tony Frazier has been elected to the Iridium Board of Directors, effective March 9, 2021.  As a director on the Iridium Board, Frazier will help with strategic oversight of Iridium’s business enterprise.