Speakers

For 45+ years, Courtney's career path has been a mix of senior government leadership and corporate executive positions - primarily focused on encouraging the removal of policy and reguilatory barriers to the emergence of a competitive American led commercial space marketplace.  In the government, he held a senior policy position within the Office of the Secretary of Commerce (where he helped establish the Office of Space Commerce), the U.S. Department of Transportation (where he was an early Director of what is now the licensing office for commercial rockets in the FAA and issued one of the first licenses for a commercial launch vehicle and advocated non-government owned and operated spaceports (former member of the Boards of Space Florida and the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation), worked directly for three NASA Administrators, including as Chief of Staff and White House Liaison.  As a senior Director for Commercial Space, White House Space Council, Courtney helped draft numerous Presidential directives encouraging a competitive commercial space industry, including directing NASA to purchase commercial space services.

In the private sector, he was associated with pathfinder industries including GPS, high res commercial satellite imagery, commercial launch vehicles, telecommunications, commercial expandable modules (Bigelow Aerospace). 

He is President, Washington Space Business Roundtable, a 35 year volunteer non-profit that invites senior governnent and corporate officials to discuss issues and challenging facing the space industry, as well as donate to STEM programs in underserved schools; Executive Vice President, Beyond Earth Institute, a non-partisan think tank dedicated to the technical, policy and regulatory challenges associted with large scale off planet human communities, and a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' Public Policy Committee. 

In both official and private capacities, various Congressional committees have invited him to testify on a range of space related issues.

He is a recepient of NASA's Distinguished Service Medal.