Our Team
Our unmatched experience and innovation is accelerating development time and slashing cost-to-launch in a way no other company ever has. Lesath’s leadership includes former astronauts, top aerospace minds, and award-winning creative— delivering on a value proposition that strikes beyond original IP: a superhuman intellectual collective who are redesigning the speed to successful spaceflight. Lesath’s edge isn’t hardware: It’s human.
LEADERSHIP
Thomas Pawlak III
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Thomas is Chief Executive Officer and Founder of LESATH with over 20 years of business and leadership experience spanning healthcare and aerospace sectors. Leading our corporate vision and strategic direction, he brings extensive entrepreneurial expertise from building companies and advising emerging technology ventures.
Thomas serves on the advisory board of Vicillian, a space technology investment group, and as a board member of GroundWorks Buffalo, a non-profit organization focused on transforming urban spaces into thriving, green environments through community partnerships. Mr. Pawlak holds a B.S./MBA from Medaille College and studied business at the University at Buffalo.
Alexander Taleb
Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer
Alexander is Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of LESATH with over a decade of experience in commercial launch vehicle design. As a technical leader, he brings expertise from roles at Firefly Space Systems, Generation Orbit, Syncroness, and Blue Origin’s propulsion team, where he designed engine components, entire stages, and led contract-winning teams.
Alexander specialized in propulsion systems engineering and spacecraft design across multiple commercial space companies. Mr. Taleb has an unmatched passion for rockets and spaceflight, with deep knowledge spanning early suborbital research rockets to today’s reusable heavy lifters. He is dedicated to building an industry-leading launch vehicle and opening space to a new generation of explorers and adventurers, and is a graduate of Georgia Tech in Aerospace Engineering.
BRIAN SHAFT
Chief Financial Officer
Brian Shaft is a CFO and operations executive with extensive experience leading finance, operations, and enterprise transformation across manufacturing and distribution businesses. He has a proven record of growing EBITDA, improving cash flow and working capital, and guiding M&A valuation, integration, and organizational change across private, public, and private equity-backed companies.
A trusted partner to CEOs, boards, and investors, Brian brings expertise in GAAP and ASC compliance, federal contracting requirements under FAR and CAS, ERP systems including SAP and Costpoint, and global operations. His professional development includes Six Sigma Green Belt certification and executive education in leadership, lean operations, project management, new product development, and mergers and acquisitions through Duke University, the University of Akron, Case Western Reserve University, and the Wharton School.
STEVEN ANDREWS
Marketing & Communications
Steven Andrews is one of the nation’s youngest experienced CMOs, a six-time Telly Award winner, and a veteran of the US Presidential campaigns of Elizabeth Warren (‘20) and Hillary Clinton (‘16). Spearheading our creative and communications leadership at LESATH as Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, he brings more than 15 years’ experience writing and directing narrative-driven, demand-generating content for frontier ventures, artists, politicians, grassroots movements—even a Super Bowl campaign.
Prior to LESATH, he led branded partnerships with acclaimed motorsports teams, produced audio stories for news studios, and managed partnerships with organizations like Covenant House and The Trevor Project. Mr. Andrews is currently the Chief Marketing Officer of Piggybanx Inc., where he has transformed a viral artist collective into a multimillion-dollar pop art hype brand. He began his career as a classically trained musician, screenwriter, and actor, and is a member of SAG-AFTRA and an alumnus of the Cleveland Institute of Music and MIT.
ANDREW WEIR
Co-Founder and Director, Launch Vehicle Production
Andrew Weir is Co-Founder and Director of Launch Vehicle Production at Lesath and brings nearly a decade of experience in rocket manufacturing and production engineering. As a production leader, he brings expertise from his time at Firefly Aerospace, where he worked across Turbo Pump Assemblies and Second Stage rocket engine programs, serving as Design Engineer, Responsible Engineer, and Manufacturing Engineer on hardware that flew to orbit.
Mr. Weir brings specialized expertise in manufacturing engineering and design-for-manufacturability across high-precision propulsion components, driving improvements in lead time, cost, and performance on complex rocket hardware. A native of Austin, Texas, he is dedicated to building an industry-leading launch vehicle and is a graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Aerospace Engineering.
WILLIAM RUDOLPHI
Chief Growth Officer
Mr. William Rudolphi is a business development and capital formation specialist based in Scottsdale, Arizona, currently serving as Chief Growth Officer at Lesath. His work centers on helping frontier technology companies in aerospace, electric vehicles, battery technology, defense, and deep tech secure funding and close strategic partnerships.
Over the past several years, he has built out the infrastructure that early-stage hardware and deep-tech founders often lack, including investor deck architecture, LP outreach strategy, strategic MOUs, and federal proposal development. Mr. Rudolphi brings relationships with a proprietary database of more than 7,000 investor firms, paired with experience supporting substantive conversations with meaningful partners across the industry. A distinguished alumnus of Purdue University, William is a specialized operator who delivers opportunities for Lesath to expand it’s portfolio through gainful utilization of the company’s technical expertise.
Dr. NOAH RHYS
EVP, Propulsion
Dr. Rhys is Founder and President of Huntville-based Yetispace, a mechanical engineering, prototyping, and test company with the capability to work a project from conceptual design, through fabrication and testing, and into a final deliverable.
One of the foremost experts in cryogenic fluid systems, supporting advanced Cryogenic Fluid Management and in-space cryogenic propulsion programs nationwide, his work focuses on in-space propellant storage, transfer, and scavenging, alongside cryogenic laboratory design, fabrication, and testing for next-generation aerospace applications.
Noah has contributed to programs involving combustion instability, combustion physics, solar thermal propulsion, injector spray physics, and high-pressure fluid mechanical systems. He previously served as the Orion Launch Abort System Jettison Motor Lead, guiding motor development and testing throughout the program lifecycle. His technical expertise includes cryogenic and high-pressure systems across a wide range of gaseous applications, as well as advanced imaging and optical diagnostics. For Lesath, Noah brings a meaningful partnership with Yetispace and a multidisciplinary approach to propulsion performance analysis and validation.
JAMES JOYNER
Sr. Integration Engineer
Mr. James J. Joyner, Sr. started working for NASA in 1985 as a pre co-op student at the Kennedy Space Center. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Central Florida in 1992. During his 40 years career with NASA, he has been a voting member on multiple design review boards, oversaw domestic and international manufacturing, and launched five new launch vehicle configurations.
He has severed as the Assistance Chief Engineer for over 20 NASA Missions, NASA Chief Engineer for five launches from Space Launch Complex 2 on Vandenberg Air Force Base, and the NASA Assistant Launch Manager for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites J & K, Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer, Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, and Mars Pathfinder Missions. Mr. Joyner is in an elite group of individuals who have assembled and launched spacecrafts to or landed probes on every planet in our solar system. Mr. Joyner is a recipient of NASA’s Silver Snoopy Award, Exceptional Achievement Medal, Space Flight Awareness Award, and Space Flight Awareness Team Award.
ADVISORY BOARD
Col. Michael Good
NASA Astronaut & Mission Specialist
LT. Gen. Brian T. Kelly
United States Airforce (Ret.)
CDR. Greg Knutson
United States Navy (Ret.)
DR. Steven harvey PH.D.
Non-Profit Leader
Rafael Spears
Space Economy Strategist
DR. Anatoli Borissov, Ph.D.
Advisor & Propulsion Scientist