Mr. Glessner has a wealth of aerospace engineering experience having worked in varying engineering capacities for Boeing-Vertol, Grumman, Lockheed, McDonnell Douglas, Boeing, XCOR, Sikorsky, Lockheed Martin, CEi, ATK, and Mooney on subjects ranging from accident investigation, aerodynamics, handling qualities and flight testing on such vehicles such as the High Speed Civil Transport, B-717 airliner, the Space Shuttle, the Multi-Stage Supersonic Target, the Mooney M10, fighters such as the F-14 Tomcat, F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II and the CH-47 and S-92 FBW helicopters to various classified projects. He worked as the Chief Aerodynamicist at XCOR where he helped create their aerodynamics department and acquired $1.4M USD of computer hardware, software and services to support computational fluid dynamics at no cost to the company. XCOR’s Lynx space-plane has been in Aviation Week & Space Technology regularly and will fly passengers to space several times daily with its first flight in 2015.
Over his career, he has received awards from Boeing, the U.S. Air Force, JT3, and NASA. He is currently a member of MPG, AARWBA, AOPA, SFTE, and SAE and he has made significant contributions to these organizations as a subject matter expert.
Mr. Glessner has taught Vehicle Aerodynamics at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Roger Penske raced a wing design initiated by Mr. Glessner for both of the cars Penske fielded in the 1983 Indy 500; the cars placed second and third (only three cars on the last lap). Mr. Glessner served as the Lead Aerodynamicist for a U.S. attempt to set the new World Land Speed Record at over 1,000 mph.
He volunteers his time to the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) to speak at universities’ Formula SAE open-wheel programs. Mr. Glessner has spoken at the ‘Triple Crown’ of speaking engagements one year: SAE’s headquarters in Troy, MI., SEMA’s 39th annual Las Vegas convention and Performance Racing Industry’s symposium in Orlando.
He has earned a Bachelor’s of Science degree from Pennsylvania State University in Aerospace Engineering 1984 and a Master’s of Science degree from Polytechnic Institute of New York in Aerospace Engineering 1989. Mr. Glessner is an FAA certificated commercial pilot with instrument and multi-engine ratings and has a California real estate license.