Peter Beck
Peter Beck is a New Zealand engineer, and founder and CEO/CTO of aerospace manufacturer and smallsat launch service provider Rocket Lab. Early life. Beck grew up in Invercargill. His father, Russell Beck, was a museum and art gallery director and gemologist. His mother was a teacher. His family loved machines. He developed an interest in powerful engines as a teenager, and he spent time working on an old Mini and turbocharging it. As a child he wanted to build rockets when he grew up. His high school careers counsellor requested a meeting with his parents because they  were concerned that his dream job didn't fit any "pre-defined boxes" and was "absurdly unachievable". Career. He describes the course of his career as "enabling me to learn more, or provide resources to ultimately build bigger and better rockets". Beck left home at 17 to become a toolmaking apprentice at Fisher & Paykel. While working there he used the company workshop to experiment with rockets. He never attended university. He later worked at Industrial Research (now Callaghan Innovation). He worked on smart materials, composites and superconductors. While working there he met Stephen Tindall, who later invested in Rocket Lab . Rocket Lab. Beck established Rocket Lab in 2006 and in November 2009 it became the first private company in the Southern Hemisphere to reach space, with its Ātea-1 sounding rocket. The company did not continue the sounding rocket launches, instead moving on to orbital launch business. The company developed the two-stage liquid-fueled Electron rocket, whose first flight was in May 2017. The maiden flight was unsuccessful. In January 2018 they reached orbit for the first time, deploying three CubeSats for customers (and one satellite of their own, the Humanity Star). In December 2018 their fourth Electron launch carried  a payload for NASA for the first time. As of December 2021 they have successfully launched in total 20 similar missions out of 23 attempts. Personal life. Beck is married to an engineer, and has two children.