John R. Hooker

John R. Hooker (Rick) is chief Engineer of VcT. He was previously a Senior Engineer at Lockheed Martin (LM) and led the Aerodynamics and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) organization in Marietta, Georgia. Rick also led Lockheed Martin's entry into NASA'S X-plane demonstrator, a Hybrid Wing Body configuration and was the driving force in the development of Microvanes, an innovative drag reduction technology. He has Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Aeronautical Engineering from Purdue University. After graduation he worked at NASA Langley, McDonnell Douglas and Boeing. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including two prestigious LM Aero Star AWards (awarded for outstanding technical contributions); two time winner of the LM Engineer of the Month Award; 2014 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) APplied Aerodynamics Best Paper Winner (co-author); member of the team that received NASA'S 2015 ARMD Associate Administrator Honorable Mention Award for Technology; Chief Engineer of the 2013 Aviation Week Laurette Awarded Speed Agile Concept Demonstrator (SACD) program; and his work has also been featured on two covers of Aviation Week.