Dr. Peter Banks

Chair, USRA Board of Trustees

Peter Banks is a General Partner of Astrolabe Ventures, a Palo Alto-based high technology venture firm that focuses on investments which support the innovation needs of the aerospace industry. This firm also provided NASA with direct access to VC-funded, early stage technology companies. Dr. Banks is also Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Universities Space Research Association and a Director of Tecumseh Products Company. From 2004-2005 he served as the CEO of the Institute for the Future, a Palo Alto, CA group which uses foresight analysis in support of the needs of industry and government for social and technology planning processes. Prior to this, in 2003 he co-founded and was CEO of Akonni Biosystems, Inc., a micro-array DNA testing company located in San Francisco, CA and Rockville, MD.

In the late 1990’s he was CEO of ERIM International, Inc. of Ann Arbor, MI, a high technology space technology systems provider to the U.S. Government. In this same time period, he was a Partner of XR Ventures, the investment arm of X-Rite Corporation of Grandville, MI. In the early 1990’s, Dr. Banks was Dean of Engineering at the University of Michigan and a Professor of Atmospheres, Oceans and Space Science. Earlier in his academic career, he was a faculty member at Stanford University (Electrical Engineering) and the University of California, San Diego (Applied Physics and Information Systems).

While in academic life, Dr. Banks was the Principal Investigator for NASA’s Shuttle Electro-Dynamic Tether System which was carried into space on three flights of the Space Shuttle to test a new means of generating electrical power in space. In the same time period, he was a Co-Investigator of the Japan-U.S. electron beam based SEPAC experiment, carried into space as part of NASA’s Spacelab-1 Mission. He has received the U.S. Government’s Distinguished Public Service Medal and other awards for his contributions to NASA programs. Dr. Banks is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and has served as Co-Chairman of the National Research Council’s former Committee on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications.