People
Founded and led by a team of scientists and engineers, GeoOptics focuses on finding answers to some of the most important challenges facing the globe.
Alex Saltman
Chief Executive Officer
Former Executive Director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, representing the fast-growing commercial space industry. During his tenure, he led policy development and business operations to build government support and create an effective regulatory regime. Also served as Legislative Director to Congressman Adam Schiff, advising on science and technology, space, energy, environment, and non-proliferation issues, serving key roles in helping expand the use of nuclear forensics to track nuclear material and in shepherding the 2010 NASA Authorization Act through to passage. Alex holds an AB from Harvard and a PhD from Stanford University, both in Physics.
Thomas Yunck
Company Founder and Chief Technology Officer
Long-time NASA technical manager and researcher; pioneered the use of GPS for civil and scientific applications; past chairman of the Foundation for Earth Science; inductee into the Space Foundation’s Space Technology Hall of Fame. In 1988, Tom wrote the first proposal for exploiting GPS signals to sound the Earth’s atmosphere for weather and climate applications. Since then he has been involved in every aspect of its development and validation. He holds the basic patent on the state space approach to Wide Area Differential GPS positioning, which has grown into a $100M/year industry and received a BSEE from Princeton University and a Ph.D. from Yale University.
Christina McCain
Vice President, Product & Partnerships
Entrepreneur, tropical forest ecologist and climate policy expert. Christina brings 20 years of expertise on nature-based solutions, domestic and international climate, and carbon markets. In 2022 she founded her own consultancy focusing on the intersection of climate and land use. She is former Director for Latin America, Global Climate at Environmental Defense Fund, where she worked with governments, civil society, and scientists to advance market-based solutions. She also served as a Foreign Affairs Officer at the U.S. Department of State. She holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Miami and a B.S. in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology from UT Austin.
