Banquet Speaker

Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
Banquet Reception 6:30pm
Banquet 7:30pm in the Grand Ballrooms B & C
Followed by the Paragon Dessert Reception

"Enabling New Opportunities in Space Through Lower Cost Launch"
Lawrence H. Williams
Vice President, International and Government Affairs
Space Exploration Technologies

Lawrence is an executive with a unique combination of international experience in technology, regulation, strategy and business. Lawrence has helped found numerous technology start-up ventures, successfully built organizations and completed private equity financings.

Lawrence currently works with serial entrepreneur Elon Musk, who has founded numerous successful companies including PayPal, Zip2, Space Exploration Technologies ("SpaceX") and Tesla Motors. Elon was recently named Inc. Magazine's 2007 Entrepreneur of the Year. Lawrence is responsible for SpaceX's governmental affairs and developing the base of international customers and strategic partners. Since he has been at SpaceX, Lawrence has assisted the company's efforts in greatly expanding its revenue base, specifically leading the effort of diversifying its customer base into NASA and the international market. His accomplishments to date include assisting in the completion of multiple multimillion dollar contracts with international customers, negotiating a major investment in an international satellite manufacturer and reversing a $227M sole-source contract granted to a competitor, which ultimately resulted in SpaceX receiving a $278M competitively awarded contract to provide resupply services to the International Space Station.

Prior to SpaceX, Lawrence served as Senior Vice President for Business Development for ICO Global Communications. Prior to ICO, Lawrence was a founding team member in charge of securing international market access for Craig McCaw and Bill Gates' "Internet in the Sky" system, Teledesic.

Lawrence is currently a member of the U.S. Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) and member of the Board of Directors for the Washington Space Business Roundtable. He also previously served on the Boards of numerous startups, including Chairman of DesignCenter360, an online interior design center he helped found and develop.

He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Colorado and Masters in Business Administration with honors from Georgetown University.

The following awards will be presented at the banquet on Wednesday evening: Seventh Annual ICES Award for Technical Excellence The ICES (International Conference on Environmental Systems) Award for Technical Excellence recognizes technical contributions to the ICES-related industries as demonstrated in ICES participation. Criteria: Contributions to ICES, organizing sessions, writing technical papers, etc. Strong technical contributions to the field of environmental control: thermal control, life support, extravehicular activity Recipient may not currently be a member of the ICES Steering Committee or a past ICES Award recipient Past Recipients: 2007 Michael N. Rouen 2006 John W. Fisher 2005 Keiji Nitta 2004 Richard L. Olson 2003 Alan Drysdale 2002 John B. Hall, Jr. SAE Forest R. McFarland Award This award recognizes individuals for their outstanding contributions toward the work of the SAE Engineering Meetings Board (EMB) in the planning, development, and dissemination of technical information through technical meetings, conferences, and professional development programs or outstanding contributions to the EMB operations in facilitating or enhancing the interchanges of technical information. 2007 Recipients: Burkhard Behrens, Astrium GmbH Ed Hodgson, Hamilton Sundstrand Alex Hoehn, University of Colorado AIAA Jeffries Aerospace Medicine and Life Sciences Research Award Recognizing the importance to aeronautics of scientific endeavors in the field of medicine, the Jeffries Aerospace Medicine and Life Sciences Research Award was established in 1940 to honor the memory of the American physician, John Jeffries, whose scientific investigations were published in a "Narrative of Two Aerial Voyages" in 1796.