DSSP’s Founder, Wayne N. Sawka holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from UC Santa Barbara and UCLA (respectively). He traveled to Australia for his Ph.D. studies, he attended the Australian National University in Canberra, concentrating on heat flow geophysics, geothermal energy and Sn-W mineralization. Returning from Australia, he was a research physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory supporting nuclear waste and weapons programs there. Moving to Aerojet headquarters he was instrumental in several successful Defense Conversion Programs, which led to spin offs in aerogel nano-materials for super-capacitors and lightweight mirrors, specialty chemical manufacturing and plasma thermal protection. Leaving Aerojet, Dr. Sawka was the founding Director of the UC Davis CONNECT entrepreneurship program. Moving to Reno, Dr Sawka conducted private client consulting until founding DSSP in 2005. He still enjoys being 20 minutes from Lake Tahoe's powder skiing. He has published numerous papers and on geophysics, trace element geochemistry, sensors and rocket motors.

Other Publications:

Robert J. Twiggs,
Engineering Director

Professor Twiggs serves as DSSP’s Engineering Directors and is a retired/active Professor in Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at Stanford University.  He established the Space Systems Development Laboratory (SSDL) in January 1994 at Stanford University with both formal classes and laboratory classes for the development of microsatellites.   The SSDL at Stanford University is a world leader in student satellite programs.  These space projects have demonstrated using a microsatellite (25kg) to launch picosatelleties (<1kg) and using a microsatellite to test new MEMS technologies.  SSDL developed the concept of the CubeSat.  This picosatellite has become an international standard for universities interested in low cost space experimentation.

Other Publications

Advisory Board:
John G. Voeller