Brian Weimer is a partner in Sheppard Mullin’s Washington, D.C. office and Leader of the firm’s Telecom Team and Co-Leader of the CFIUS Team. Brian provides regulatory and transactional advice across the entire telecommunications ecosystem. He is perhaps best known as a leading lawyer for the satellite industry, and he leads the firm’s Space & Satellite practice as well.

– Brian obtains market access and FCC licenses for space station operators, both GEO and Non-GEO;

– advises companies on obtaining cable landing licenses and the regulatory issues presented by undersea cable companies;

– advises satellite and wireless companies on regulatory proceedings impacting the value, uses, availability and sharing of spectrum resources;

– lobbies the FCC at the highest levels to achieve optimal outcomes for clients on their most important regulatory proceedings;

– assists telecom companies navigate the myriad regulatory approvals necessary to consummate M&A deals, including Team Telecom and CFIUS;

– secures special temporary authority and experimental licenses for telecom companies of all kinds;

– prepares petitions for declaratory ruling to exceed foreign ownership benchmarks under the Communications Act;

– obtains earth station licenses for satellite networks;

– advises on regulatory aspects of business plans to assist fundraising efforts by start-up companies;

– analyzes feasibility of foreign investment in telecom (and other) companies in light of strictures imposed by the Communications Act, Team Telecom and CFIUS;

– prepares applications for 214 authorization at the FCC and similar initiatives at the State level;

– advises foreign companies on the need for and structuring of proxy companies in the U.S. to assist in obtaining specialized U.S. government contracts;

– serves as a trusted advisor to founders and entrepreneurs in their most important strategic decisions as they relate to FCC, ITU and market access actions around the world;

– negotiates and drafts commercial contracts and M&A agreements for telecom companies.
Advises companies through regulatory enforcement proceedings at the FCC and other federal agencies;

– counsels telecom companies through restructuring efforts, including Chapter 11; and

– advises media and other telecom companies with all manner of regulatory requirements for their businesses.

Kim Crider is a Founding Partner of Elara Nova. She brings more than 35 years of experience managing multibillion-dollar global operations and technology programs in space, aerospace, cybersecurity, IT, data, and AI to the core team.

A recently retired U.S. Air Force (USAF) Major General, Crider was the first Chief Technology and Innovation Officer for the newly established U. S. Space Force (USSF) where she oversaw a $2.5B Space Science & Technology portfolio and directed a $750M digital services and cybersecurity portfolio to advance the $15B global military space enterprise for 16,000 personnel. Prior to that, Crider was the Air Force Chief Data Officer, a first in the DoD, where she led the implementation of a $100M enterprise data management portfolio to assure availability of operational and business data to over 850,000 military, civilian and contract users across the Department of the Air Force’s $126B enterprise, and established a strategy for enterprise data management that has seminally influenced other DoD level data strategies and initiatives.

Crider regularly advises US Political Appointees, Service Secretaries, Military Service Chiefs, and Civil Agency leaders, as well as international military, civilian and industry leaders, on the strategic use of technology to achieve competitive advantage. She has extensive international experience having served in Europe, Australia, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, and has been a seminal leader in global space, air and cyberspace operations, coalition and NATO command, control, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and international information sharing. She built and led two multimillion-dollar specialty consulting firms focused on IT/data strategy, cybersecurity, and digital services in the education, architecture & engineering, financial services and health technology sectors. A senior engineer at the MITRE Corporation for over 15 years, Crider led the engineering for global enterprise networks, cybersecurity, and advanced surveillance radar systems across the DoD and Homeland Security.

Crider earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Duke University, an M.B.A. from Western New England University, and a Graduate certificate degree in Organizational Behavior from Harvard University. She graduated with distinction from the USAF Air Command and Staff College and the National Defense University Industrial College of the Armed Forces and has been an executive fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the University of Tennessee.

Ralph Grundler is leading the US Space BD and R&D at Aitech Systems, the leading supplier of rad-hard and rugged embedded electronic systems.

An experienced professional, Ralph has a long history in the engineering, business development and marketing of semiconductors, IP, SoCs, FPGAs, computers and embedded systems. Before joining Aitech Systems, he worked at Flex Logix, the leading supplier of rad-hard eFPGA technology and Synopsys, working with Space and AI ASIC developers, and IP prototyping hardware as well as business development.
He has done many video and live presentations on a wide variety of technical subjects. He has 30 years of computer, semiconductor, space, and AI industry experience.

Dr. Robbie Robertson is the CEO and Co-founder of Sedaro, a cloud software company building scalable, simulation-driven solutions for design, training, and automation in Aerospace, Space, and Defense. His background is rooted at the intersection of hardware and software technology for space, with over 15 years of experience spanning national laboratories, academia, large primes, and early-stage startups. At Sedaro, Dr. Robertson oversees the Growth Team and collaborates directly with prospective customers and users to guide ongoing development of Sedaro’s next-generation digital platform.