Jordan Croom

Jordan Croom has a diverse work experience in various industries. They currently hold the position of VP of Payloads at Varda Space Industries since July 2023. Prior to this, they were the Head of Payloads and Mechanisms at the same company from September 2021 to July 2023. Jordan also has experience as an Investor at Side Door Ventures, focusing on early-stage deep/frontier tech, and as a Mentor/Advisor at Berkeley SkyDeck. They worked at Cruise as a Manager, leading a cross-functional team responsible for vehicle calibration and hardware platform development. At Maxar Technologies, Jordan held roles as Sr Manager of Advanced Systems and Mechanical Design Section Manager, where they led teams and developed various space robotics capabilities. They also worked at Kespry Inc. as a Lead Mechanical Engineer, designing commercial drone systems. Jordan started their career at SSL, where they held roles such as Additive Manufacturing Lead, Mechanical Engineer in New Frontiers, and Associate Mechanical Engineer in Structural Products. They also have research experience as an Undergraduate Researcher at Vanderbilt University MED Lab, where they contributed to the design and building of surgical robots.

Jordan Croom holds a Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) degree in Mechanical Engineering and Mathematics from Vanderbilt University, which they completed from 2008 to 2011. Jordan pursued further education at Caltech, where they obtained a Master of Science (MSc) degree in Space Engineering from 2011 to 2012. In 2017-2018, Jordan also completed a Nanodegree in Robotics Software Engineering from Udacity. In 2020, they attended GoingVC but did not receive a specific degree or field of study.