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Victor Caruso is a managing director in the M&A Advisory practice at Duff & Phelps. Based in New York, he specializes in mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance mandates for the aerospace, defense and government (ADG) and industrials sectors.

Victor has over 20 years of combined investment banking and private equity experience, following nearly a decade of other professional experience, which includes service as an officer in the U.S. Navy. He has completed a range of investment banking engagements and played a senior role in numerous private equity investments. His professional experience spans across both sell-side and buy-side roles, including M&A, sales, divestitures, recapitalizations, leveraged buyouts, debt and equity financings, strategic alternative reviews and fairness and solvency opinions on behalf of private equity firms, public corporations and private company clients.

Most recently, Victor spent over a decade in private equity. He joins Duff & Phelps from Blue Wolf Capital Partners, where he was responsible for the firm’s business development and led the aerospace defense government industry vertical. His prior private equity experience includes time at both H Equity Partners and J.F. Lehman & Company.

Victor has played a senior role in many investments, including: North American Rescue (NAR), The State Group, Channel Technologies Group, Drew Marine, Atlantic Inertial Systems, OAO Technology Solutions and 15-Robertson. His private equity transaction experience includes: the sale of North American Rescue to Henry Schein, three add-on acquisitions by NAR including Innovative Tactical Training Solutions/True Mission Training & Services, JTM Training Group, and Two Rivers Medical, the sale of CTG Advanced Materials to CTS Corp., the divestiture of CTG EOI to HGH Infrared Systems, the sale of Atlantic Inertial Systems to Goodrich Corp., the purchase of Drew Marine from Ashland Chemical and the sale of OAO Technology Solutions to Platinum Equity.

Prior to crossing over to private equity, Victor spent nearly a decade in investment banking at firms including Houlihan Lokey, Relational Advisors, Thomas Weisel Partners and Merrill Lynch.

Victor received his B.S. in Ocean Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and his MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA.

Thomas P. Feddo is a senior advisor at Capstone. He is a highly experienced and respected leader in national security, cross-border investment and international trade, government investigations, and technology. Tom most recently served until January 2021 as the first Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Investment Security, leading and overseeing the interagency national security review and clearance process for cross-border investments through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Before his Senate confirmation in September 2019, Tom served the Treasury Department as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Investment Security. Tom led the effective review and clearance of more than 500 cross-border business transactions totaling over $400 billion, including some of the largest in the Committee’s history. These business deals often involved cutting-edge industries, including advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, biotechnology, energy, aerospace, information and communications technology, and sensitive data collection.
From January 2016 until May 2019, Tom practiced law as a partner in the international trade group of Alston & Bird LLP, representing clients that spanned Fortune 500 companies, global financial institutions, investment firms, and other entities. From February 2009 to January 2016, Tom was the Assistant Director for Enforcement at the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), where he led the U.S. Government’s economic sanctions enforcement efforts, including investigations related to major corporations and financial institutions. Before OFAC, Tom served as Special Assistant to the General Counsel of the U.S. Navy, advising on legal and policy matters involving the full range of general business and commercial law for the Navy and Marine Corps.
Tom previously worked as a majority oversight counsel at the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee, leading major investigations related to public health, energy, the environment, consumer protection, telecommunications, trade, and homeland security from 2003 to 2007. He also practiced patent and trademark law at Pillsbury Winthrop LLP, and clerked at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. 

Tom holds a Juris Doctor, with honors, from The George Washington University and a Bachelor of Science degree, with merit, in aerospace engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy.

Charles Miller is co-founder and CEO of Lynk.  He is a serial space entrepreneur with 30 years’ experience in the space industry. Charles has been the founder or co-founder of multiple private ventures and organizations. He is a national leader in the creation and development of public-private partnerships in commercial space to serve public needs. 

One of Charles’ previous startups is NanoRacks, which has delivered more than 700 payloads to space and is the current world leader in nanosatellite launches. Charles served as NASA’s Senior Advisor for Commercial Space from 2009-2012 where he advised NASA leadership on commercial public private partnerships. At NASA, he managed USG teams that developed strategies for commercial development of reusable launch vehicles, on-orbit satellite servicing, orbital debris removal, microgravity applications, lunar development, space communications, and space solar power. Charles’ clients have included NASA, DARPA, the USAF, and many private commercial space firms. 

Senior Executive with a track record in building and growing high performance technology businesses. Extensive experience innovating, developing, and managing leading edge technology products at startup, growth, and Fortune 100 Companies. A serial entrepreneur with strong business experience and technology skills to formulate and execute on strategies that drive growth and create value for customers and shareholders. Strong technical background in geospatial technologies, analytics, location based services, cloud and high performance computing, and enterprise scale architectures. Enjoys developing key talent, building and motivating high performance teams, and driving collaboration. Successful Entrepreneur with C-Level public company experience.

Dr. Greg Autry is an educator, space policy wonk, writer and tech entrepreneur. He researches and publishes on space commerce, entrepreneurship, technology innovation and trade policy. Greg is a Clinical Professor of Space Leadership, Policy and Business with the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University. He teaches entrepreneurship and space policy courses and is working with Professor Linda Elkins-Tanton, Managing Director of the ASU Interplanetary Initiative (II), and Professor James Bell, Director of ASU NewSpace Initiative (NewSpace) to develop a cross-disciplinary Institute of Space Leadership and Management.

He also serves as Chair of the Safety Working Group on the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) at the FAA. Greg teaches space entrepreneurship for the International Space University in the Commercial Space Studies Graduate Certificate Program at Florida Tech. He previously served as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Entrepreneurship with the in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, where he taught entrepreneurship and technology commercialization courses from 2013 to 2020. He left USC when he was nominated by the President to serve as the Chief Financial Officer at NASA (due to circumstances of #2020, the U.S. Senate never held a final confirmation vote on the CFO nomination).

Greg is a firm believer in humankind’s future in the solar system. He has been conducting research in the commercial space field since 2003. He writes and comments regularly on space topics and serves on the editorial board of the New Space Journal and the Space Force Journal. He served on the NASA Agency Review Team and as NASA’s White House Liaison. He was an early advocate of returning to the Moon (now Artemis), of engaging public-private partnerships in space and establishing the U.S. Space Force as a new military branch. He advocates for increasing funding for space science, exploration and development in both the traditional and entrepreneurial models.

Greg serves on the advisory board of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, a non-profit organization dedicated to restoring America’s strength through trade reform and practical industrial policy. Greg’s opinions have been published in major news outlets including the San Francisco Chronicle, LA Times, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal and SpaceNews. He is a regular Forbes Contributor.

Greg holds a BA in history from Cal Poly Pomona as well as an MBA and a PhD (policy-econ & strategy comps) from the Merage School of Business at UC Irvine. Greg’s dissertation research studied the influences of government on entrepreneurial environments within the context of emerging commercial space industries.

Greg entrepreneurial ventures include: HAL Labs, a game developer that coded the Apple version of Pac-Man for Atarisoft; Dr. Micro, a PC services firm sold to CompuCom System; Wired Images, an ecommerce content creator for Planet Rx; Network Corps, a developer of healthcare enterprise applications for Kaiser Permanente and Elevated Materials (121C), an upcycler of aerospace carbon fiber scrap.

Greg is the co-author of the book Death by China and a producer on the documentary film, Death by China, (narrated by Martin Sheen and available on Amazon Prime). Greg is a vocal critic of the U.S. appeasement of state dominated economies and totalitarian regimes. He is an unabashed advocate for global democracy, capitalism and human rights. He strongly advocates exporting the enlightenment model of economic and individual liberty around the globe and into the solar system.

Greg has testified to the U.S. Congress and has presented at the Canadian Parliament. He has spoken at the Heritage Foundation, the National Association of Business Economists, The National Press Club, the Space Symposium, the AIAA Space conference, the California Democratic Party Convention and many other events. He served as Chair of the 2019 International Space Development Conference in Arlington, VA.