Kent Black

Kent Black

Kent Black was the first CEO of the United Space Alliance, a joint venture between Rockwell International and Lockheed Martin formed in 1996 at the behest of NASA to consolidate Space Shuttle programs under one prime contractor. Not bad for a farm boy from Illinois with a yen for electronics.

Chip Off The Old Block

Call it sawdust in his veins. Chip Piazza had known he wanted to build things since he was a kid. There was no doubt construction would be his future. “My father, Pete, was a residential contractor, so I was around building all the time. I liked drawing house plans in the drafting program in high school. Building picked me, I didn’t pick it,” he said. “I pretty much knew what I wanted to be, being around construction so much as a kid.”