Ron J. Garan Jr.

Astronaut, NASA
United States

Ron is a highly decorated Fighter Pilot, Test Pilot, Explorer, Entrepreneur and Humanitarian who believes that appropriately designed /targeted social enterprise can solve many of the problems facing our world.  Ron traveled 71,075,867 miles in 2,842 orbits of our planet over 178 days in space and 27 hours of EVA during four spacewalks. He flew on both the US Space Shuttle and Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Ron is also an aquanaut and has conducted research in Aquarius, the world’s only undersea research laboratory.  Ron’s last NASA assignment was in NASA's Open Innovation Initiative, which seeks to increase transparency, collaboration, and innovation within government. In this capacity, Ron has been involved in many global mass collaboration and citizen science programs. Ron is also a serial entrepreneur and founded multiple business enterprises/social-impact focused startups including Manna Energy Ltd. which was created to leverage the $120B/year Carbon Market to finance humanitarian projects.