Windlift’s mission is to produce energy for a sustainable civilization. We strongly believe that this is the defining challenge of our time. To meet this challenge, we are designing and building airborne power generators that use 95% less material than a comparable wind turbine. This significant material reduction creates a host of exciting benefits. It’s a big deal! Windlift has been working on this technology for over 10 years. We’ve worked through many models and styles, and we now have line of sight to completing technical development and bringing an airborne wind energy product to the world.

Windlift is based in Durham, North Carolina. Our team of visionaries, quants, and gearheads are currently developing the next generation of airborne wind energy solutions.

If you are passionate about our mission and want to join a team developing a technology with the potential to produce scalable, low-cost sustainable energy, we’d like to talk with you. Current openings can be viewed on our About Us page.

Rob is the founder of Windlift and is responsible for all facets of the business. Under Rob’s leadership, Windlift has consistently produced high-quality, ground breaking technologies while cultivating strategic relationships across both private and government sectors. Since founding Windlift in 2006, Rob has established himself as an entrepreneurial leader and developer of disruptive technologies. Rob has a BS in Genetics and an MBA in Strategic Management from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. LinkedIn

As the Chief Technology Officer, Stough leads Windlift’s engineering team and is responsible for the design and development of Windlift APG. Stough is a natural-born problem solver who leverages a systems approach to balancing the complex — and, at times, counter-intuitive — tradeoffs inherent in AWE systems. Andy has more than 25 years of industry experience spanning Caterpillar, Siemens-Westinghouse, Battelle, and Ericsson. Andy has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from The Ohio State University and an MS from North Carolina State University. LinkedIn

Mark joined Windlift in 2013 and has guided Windlift’s development of analysis and simulation capabilities, resulting in a Hardware-in-the-Loop simulation environment critical to Windlift’s technology development, and a novel analysis and design tool for which he earned a PhD. Prior to Windlift, Mark was instrumental in developing an Airborne Wind Energy technology demonstrator at NASA Langley, and has worked on other autonomous systems, including robot arms, ground vehicles, and gas turbine engine diagnostic systems. Mark has a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Cincinnati. LinkedIn

Thomas joined Windlift as an intern while studying aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University. After several years of building and testing prototypes, Thomas is now the Lead test Engineer responsible for all aspects of aircraft fabrication, transportation, assembly and testing. Thomas has a BS in Aerospace Engineering from NCSU. LinkedIn