Technology Transition and Manufacturing Policy. It’s what we do!

Executive Team

NEAL ORRINGER, President

Co-Founder of ASTRO America, Mr. Orringer is a vital part of the Astro America Leadership Team. He develops and oversees implementation of the long term strategic vision of the organization, in concert with other members of the Board of Directors, which he chairs. He draws on 20 years of experience in the national security and manufacturing fields, including roles as Director of Manufacturing at the U.S. Department of Defense, advisor to two U.S. Secretaries of Commerce and three U.S. Senators.

At the Pentagon, he led Manufacturing Technology and Defense Production programs, and was awarded the Exceptional Civilian Service medal, and Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence. His medal citation credited him for launching key Defense initiatives, such as the Manufacturing USA pilot institute and Defense Production Act Committee. A renowned manufacturing expert, he has testified to Congress and supported standards bodies (video, video). He also served as a guest researcher at the Army Research Lab. In the corporate world, he has held various R&D leadership roles, including Vice President at 3D Systems, and senior technical leader at General Electric.

Today, Mr. Orringer also serves on the Board of Directors of the Advanced Robotics Manufacturing institute.

Specific Areas of Expertise

Manufacturing & Industrial Base Policy
Defense Production and Supply Chains
Economic Development & Public Private Partnerships
U.S. Government Budget Planning

JASON GOREY, Executive Director

Responsible for overseeing ASTRO America staff and administering day-to-day operations, Mr. Gorey is another vital part of the Astro America Leadership Team. He ensures government-sponsored research remains on-budget and on-schedule. He has extensive experience in defense industrial base policy as well as intelligence, cyber security, and foreign affairs. While serving in the Pentagon, he was executive secretary for the Defense Production Act Committee, coordinating across multiple agencies on actions to safeguard and strengthen essential national defense supply chains.

Previously, Mr. Gorey held a career human intelligence position at the Defense Intelligence Agency and was appointed by the White House as a Senior Foreign Affairs Officer at the Department of State. As a military officer, he is now a Defense Attaché (Reserves) assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency. Previously, he served as an Intelligence Officer assigned to 1st Information Operations Command (Land) and deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan. He holds a Strategic Intelligence graduate diploma from the National Intelligence University, an undergraduate degree in Government from Georgetown University, and spent 12 months studying at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, during his undergraduate studies.

Specific Areas of Expertise

Manufacturing & Industrial Base Policy
Public-Private Partnerships
Finance & Capital Markets
Business and Contract Management

MICHAEL MAHER, Chief Technology Officer

Mr. Maher is a co-founder of ASTRO America and oversees its technical team, leveraging decades of technical and managerial experience in defense manufacturing fields. A renowned expert in manufacturing processes and materials, Mr. Maher served as a leading program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), managing a portfolio of programs specializing in advanced materials and manufacturing that included the Tailorable Feedstock and Forming, Materials Development for Platforms, and Open Manufacturing programs. While at DARPA his programs developed new technologies that enabled rapid qualification of new manufacturing technologies and developed revolutionary new composite technologies, novel lightweight multifunctional and specialty material systems.

Mr. Maher came to DARPA from the Army Research Laboratory where he was Chief of the Composite and Hybrid Materials Branch and Materials Applications Branch. While at ARL, he oversaw research and development programs in the areas of armor material, coatings, composite technologies, failure analysis, hybrid material systems, processing and material transitions.

Prior to his work at ARL, he served in various technology and management positions over a 20-year span at Martin Marietta, AAI, and DuPont. In recognition of his distinguished contributions in the fields of materials and processes, he was awarded the designation of Fellow for the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE) and has served on multiple major policy commissions, including the National Academies of Sciences’ Strategic Long-Term Participation by DOD in its Manufacturing Innovation Institutes.

Specific Areas of Expertise

Manufacturing Technology
Advanced Materials Development
Aerospace/Defense Qualification
U.S. Defense Budget

DANIEL BURKE, Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Burke joined ASTRO America full-time in 2024 after serving as an outside accounting consultant since 2022. He brings two decades of experience in finance and accounting with a primary specialty supporting financial service organizations and non-profit organizations. Mr. Burke has extensive experience with financial planning and analysis, budget development and implementation, internal controls, and cost volume proposal writing. In addition to his role at ASTRO, Mr. Burke is an adjunct accounting professor at state colleges in his local area. Mr. Burke is an active Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Certified Management Accountant (CMA), and a Certified Financial Planner (CFP).

Mr. Burke holds an MBA in Accounting from Baldwin-Wallace University and a Master of Organizational Leadership from Malone University. He is in the final stages of completing a Doctor of Business Administration degree from Wilmington University.

Specific Areas of Expertise

Budgeting
Compliance
Financial Planning

Management Team

South

ABDALLA NASSAR, Vice President, AM Forward Technologies

ABDALLA NASSAR
Vice President & General Manager

Dr. Abdalla Nassar works in close partnership with Florida State University, fostering advanced manufacturing capabilities in northwest Florida in support of: regional economic development, job creation, and the strengthening of critical supply chain resilience. At the Institute for Strategic Partnerships, Innovation, Research, and Education (InSPIRE), he is helping develop ground-breaking demonstration facilities for end-to-end manufacturing.He brings over 15 years of experience in advanced research and development, strategic planning, and project management.

Prior to Joining ASTRO America, Dr. Nassar served as Enterprise Additive Manufacturing (AM) Lead for John Deere. In this role, he developed and implemented long-term strategies and roadmaps for AM throughout the global organization and served as the AM competency lead, coordinating research and development, supplier engagement, training, standards development, and product development with dozens of business units worldwide. Previously, he led the department of Process Physics, Analytics, and Engineering within the Materials Science Division of the Applied Research Laboratory at Penn State, a University Affiliated Research Center for the Department of Defense. In this role, he managed and mentored a team of faculty, engineers, and support specialists, facilitating the transition of critical technologies to industry and government. Dr. Nassar also held various academic appointments at Penn State, developed and taught graduate-level coursework, has authored over 50 peer-reviewed articles, secured over a dozen patents and invention disclosures, and co-authored the 2025 IISE Joint Publishers Book of the Year, “Additive Manufacturing with Metals – Design, Processes, Materials, Quality Assurance, and Applications.”

Specific Areas of Expertise

Advanced and additive manufacturing
Materials and process development
Laser-materials interactions
Plasma physics and plasma-material interactions
Process monitoring and control

Mid Atlantic

JARED BLECHER
Director & General Manager

Dr. Jared Blecher is responsible for applied research undertaken in Maryland. His work involves tailoring key advanced manufacturing processes, including metal powder bed fusion, to meet critical aerospace and defense needs. Currently, he supports the Southwest Research Institute in its hypersonic vehicle related research sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense. With a focus on additive manufacturing (AM) and rapid qualification, Dr. Blecher is analyzing and helping refine critical Defense supply chains. Prior to ASTRO, Dr. Blecher was a Principal Engineer in the Advanced Research and Development division of 3D Systems. While at 3D Systems, he led and managed multiple government-funded projects, including corrosion of AM alloys, marine alloy development, exotic and refractory alloy process development (e.g. Mo, Ru, Pt), polymer derived SiC, process monitoring, rapid qualification, and large format printing of inlet cowls and heat sinks. Dr. Blecher received his PhD, MS, and BS in materials science and engineering from the Pennsylvania State University.

He has a wide range of laser processing experience, such as high-power laser welding and hybrid laser-arc welding, laser doping, powder bed fusion additive manufacturing, and vat photopolymerization. He also has experience simulating heat transfer and fluid flow during laser processing.

Specific Areas of Expertise

Additive/Advanced Manufacturing
Alloy Development
Process Monitoring/Feedback Control
Aerospace/Defense Qualification

Midwest

NOAH BARNHILL
Vice President & General Manager

Mr. Noah Barnhill oversees technical teams working both in ASTRO’s Moline, IL advanced manufacturing center as well as on-site at the U.S. Army’s Rock Island Arsenal. In this capacity, he is undertaking applied research to develop large scale additive and advanced manufacturing technologies for the U.S. Army, including project orders under a $95 million OTA contract vehicle with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command – Ground Vehicle Systems Center.

Mr. Barnhill brings with him more than 22 years of experience planning, designing, and executing a wide range of projects, including 12 years as a program manager/engineer for the U.S. Army. He also served as Quality/Manufacturing Engineer for John Deere Harvester Works, where he led a Six Sigma project to improve quality on a major combine sub-system: spearheading a cross functional team of Mechanical Engineers, Manufacturing Engineers, Quality Engineers, and factory operations supervisors in containment, Root Cause Analysis, PFMEA, DFMEA, and supplier quality improvements. He was Deputy/Chief Engineer for the North Carolina Department of Transportation, where he was selected to serve as Chief Resident Engineer and portfolio manager for multiple projects totaling over $400M, managing 5+ engineers and a technical staff of 35. Prior to that, Noah was a Geotechnical Engineer for Law Engineering, where he built and managed the company’s materials testing laboratory, obtaining AASHTO and USACE accreditation within the first 6 months of operation.

Specific Areas of Expertise

Mechanical Engineering
Additive/Advanced Manufacturing
Project Management
Material Testing/Characterization

Indo Pacific

ALEX C. BENHAM
Director & General Manager, Indo-Pacific – GAMMA Program

Mr. Alex Benham leads the Indo-Pacific operations for ASTRO America’s Guam Additive Manufacturing & Materials Accelerator (GAMMA). Stationed in Guam, he is responsible for delivering advanced manufacturing capabilities where they’re needed most: in a remote, strategically vital, and logistically complex region. Under Mr. Benham’s direction, GAMMA supports forward deployed Navy operations, builds local manufacturing resilience, and develops workforce pathways in an environment where failure is not an option.

Mr. Benham brings deep technical range and practical grit to his role. He has worked across every major AM technology (metal and polymer, hardware and software) and built manufacturing operational fluency far beyond additive. He’s been in the pit, turning wrenches, running machines, writing toolpaths, reverse engineering parts, and inspecting final production components, to understand and build scalable end to end workflows. He has led cross disciplinary teams, and shaped programs that align industry standards with real world application. His leadership spans sales, product development, quality systems, process controls, and commercial & DOD program execution. Whether launching software, building systems, or driving use-case applications, Mr. Benham consistently transforms complex ideas into real, repeatable operations.

A mechanical engineer by training and a builder by instinct, Mr. Benham holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology. He operates in Guam where he continues to expand GAMMA’s footprint through local partnerships, educational alignment, community engagement, and direct coordination with DoD operators. Building capability where it counts.

Specific Areas of Expertise