Charles “Lee” Thienel is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Libration Systems. He has a broad business background with over 35 years combined experience in satellite and payload integration and test, space technology development, and project management. He has held senior roles in corporate and division management over the last 20 years. He earned his BS in Physics from Lafayette College in 1981, his MBA – Technology Management at the University of Phoenix in 2007, and his Project Management Professional (PMP) certification in 2008.  He has authored or co-authored many technical papers/journal articles on satellite systems, photonics for space, and heat transfer components and experiments.

Mr. Thienel provides corporate management, business development employee development, and project management for Libration Systems.  As a principal engineer he performed system engineering and integration and test on the AFRL Communication/Navigation Outage Forecast System (CNOFS), and the NASA Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope.

Mr. Thienel’s experience includes project manager for: Bright Light photonics qualification protocol development effort, Cryogenic Heat Pipe Flight Experiment (CryoHP), Cryogenic Two Phase Flight Experiment (CryoTP), Cryogenic Flexible Diode Heat Pipe Flight Experiment (CryoFD), and the Missile Alternative Range Target Instrument (MARTI). He served as the Project Engineer for prototype and spaceflight heat pipes (CCHP, VCHP, and LTD). Mr. Thienel performed a Systems engineering role on the AFRL Innovated Space-Based Radar Antenna Technology (ISAT). He performed integration and test on Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO). Mr. Thienel was responsible for GSACE component development on Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) and Tropical Rainfall Monitoring Mission (TRMM).