Engineers

William A. Woodburn
Founder and Chairman of the Board, A Founding Partner, Global Infrastructure Partners
Bill is a Founding Partner of Global Infrastructure Partners—a private equity fund focused on energy and transportation asset investing and ownership. Prior to the formation of GIP in 2006, Bill spent 23 years at GE, where he most recently served as President and CEO of GE Infrastructure.
Before leading GE Infrastructure, he was President and CEO of GE Specialty Materials. In that role, he oversaw key acquisitions including those that led to the GE entry and expansion in the water technology business. Prior to joining GE, he held engineering and marketing positions at Union Carbide and was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Co. focusing on energy and transport industries.
Bill holds M.S. and B.S. degrees in Engineering from Northwestern University and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, respectively. Bill is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering.



Milton started at Goddard Space Flight Center as a Pathways Student in 2000 working with the Navigation & Mission Design (595) and Components and Hardware Systems (596) branches. As a co-op intern, Milton received a co-patent for his work on a demise-able momentum exchange system (reaction wheel) which has flown on the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) missions.Â
In his professional career, he has served in multiple roles in 500 including: avionics deputy lead for the Magnetospheric Multi-Scale (MMS) mission; the mechanical lead of the Navigator GPS receiver on MMS and STP-H6; and, the mechanical lead for the Payload Control Computer on OSAM-1 (formerly Restore-L).Â
Milton has co-patents for the SpaceCube 2 and SpaceCube 3 Reconfigurable Data Processing System. He has also served as a star tracker and inertial measurement unit lead on MMS, NICER, GEDI and PACE, and served as a co-lead, subject matter expert, and study lead of the Avionics Packaging Committee for the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC).Â
Milton served as an associate branch head of the GNC hardware branch from 2014 to 2018 focusing on new business, new technology, and re-chartering branch career paths. He transitioned to OSAM-1 in 2019 to serve as the Space Infrastructure Dexterous Robotics (SPIDER) Payload Systems and Phase lead, and in 2020 he started serving as the OSAM-1 Space Vehicle lead.Â
Milton serves as the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Greenbelt Space Chapter (GSC) President. He holds a BS in Aerospace Engineering from Purdue University, a Masters in Project Management from Johns Hopkins University, and is completing a Masters in Robotics from Johns Hopkins University.


Betsy received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Purdue University. While still in college, Betsy began her career with NASA at Langley Research Center gaining almost 2 years of experience focusing on integration, design, and testing of aircraft and their control systems, such as the F-18 and blended-wing body (BWB).Â
Upon graduation, Betsy began working with NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) as a Guidance, Navigation and Control System (GNC) Instructor for the International Space Station (ISS). In this role, Betsy trained numerous astronauts and flight controllers in the Part-Task Trainer (PTT) and Space Station Training Facility (SSTF) simulators.Â
As Betsy’s career advanced, she worked as a Boeing Systems Engineer testing the US flight software for the GNC System and became a console operator in the Mission Evaluation Room for flights 1R, 1P, 2A.2b, 3A, and 4A, 5A (Shift Lead for 5A). Throughout her career at JSC, Ms. Fortman traveled overseas helping to train astronauts and cosmonauts on the various systems of ISS and the Russian Soyuz Vehicles. She also served as Deputy of Training Operations (DTOR) in Star City, Russia.Â
Upon returning to the States, Ms. Fortman’s career shifted from current spaceflight operations to future spacecraft design analysis. Betsy worked as Chief Engineer of the Astronaut Office Exploration Branch tracking major design changes while assessing habitability and operability for Commercial Crew and Orion. Currently, Ms. Fortman works with Sophic Synergistics integrating the human systems for Axiom Space Station.

Administration & Operations










Interns













Board of Directors

William A. Woodburn
Founder and Chairman of the Board, A Founding Partner, Global Infrastructure Partners
Bill is a Founding Partner of Global Infrastructure Partners—a private equity fund focused on energy and transportation asset investing and ownership. Prior to the formation of GIP in 2006, Bill spent 23 years at GE, where he most recently served as President and CEO of GE Infrastructure.
Before leading GE Infrastructure, he was President and CEO of GE Specialty Materials. In that role, he oversaw key acquisitions including those that led to the GE entry and expansion in the water technology business. Prior to joining GE, he held engineering and marketing positions at Union Carbide and was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Co. focusing on energy and transport industries.
Bill holds M.S. and B.S. degrees in Engineering from Northwestern University and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, respectively. Bill is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Telva M. McGruder
Executive Director, Global Body Manufacturing Engineering, General Motors




Kristine T. Budill
Director of the Architecture, Engineering, and Design for the Common Good Program, School of the Holy Child

Cliff Spiro is an innovative research scientist, research director, coach and consultant, active on public and private Boards of Directors. Cliff’s career has spanned a breadth of technologies ranging from chemistry, plastics, ceramics, diamonds, rubber, lamps and lighting, biotechnology, energy and fuels, water and paper science, aerospace and semiconductors.
Cliff earned a BS degree in chemistry with honors from Stanford University and a PhD degree in chemistry from Caltech. Cliff joined General Electric in 1980 where he held a series of progressively responsible research and management positions.
In 2001 Spiro was named Vice President of R&D, of Nalco/Suez, and then in 2003 as Vice President of R&D and CTO of Cabot Microelectronics. In 2011, Cliff left Cabot to begin coaching innovation and innovation leaders, as well as creating his own medical device startup, Planatome®. Cliff currently consults for the innovation practices at TTIP global and McKinsey.
Cliff has served on 6 corporate and 3 academic boards, on the Naperville United Way board, and was elected to the Niskayuna NY board of Fire Commissioners.
Cliff has written three books on innovation. He holds 24 US Patents and has authored over 150 scientific articles and scientific conference presentations. In 2017, he was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering.