Alumni Spotlight: Amir Blachman ’90 Takes Flight

Amir Blachman ’90 has had a fascinating and varied career since graduating from Windward. He did his B.A. at UCSB and then earned an M.B.A. at UCLA. While at UCSB, he took a three-year break to serve in the Israeli Air Force (his family is from Israel). He worked in finance and dotcoms in the ’90s, then in real estate and pharmaceuticals in the 2000-2010s, and he grew a multinational space investment organization. While his career focused on investing in and growing companies, aviation and aerospace have always been in his heart.

Throughout Amir’s stint in the Air Force, his schooling, and his time managing pharmaceutical companies, one common thread remained ever-present—his love for aerospace.

“I loved flying airplanes, and I loved the whole field of investing and wanted to bring that all back together,” said Amir. He did just that in 2013, when he joined a group of space investors, whose focus was providing funding for various space companies. The group funded lunar landers, satellites, antenna systems, satellites, software companies, and mapping companies, among other space businesses that most people never even thought about—especially before the SpaceX era.

In 2015, while out in the world evangelizing about space investment, Amir met the CEO of NASA’s International Space Station (ISS) program at the annual ISS Conference, where the two were guest speakers.

“We started a conversation where the CEO told me that the ISS was going to be retired by the end of the decade. His idea was to build a commercial successor—privately owned—that would replace the ISS. He asked me about funding a project like that and I met his partner—the two of them are the royalty of human spaceflight. There really are less than five people on Earth that have the depth of knowledge that they have in terms of building and running space stations,” said Amir.

“I saw this as an opportunity to do something that checked all the boxes. It would positively impact millions of people because the research done on ISS leads to new medications, new medical devices, new materials, big step changes in industry and how we manufacture things. A ton of climate science work is also done on ISS, which is obviously very important for how we take care of the Earth. All these causes spoke to my heart. I knew this would take every single skill I have and would be challenging on all fronts.”

A few months later, Amir joined the two men as their junior partner and first full-time employee of the new company they founded, Axiom Space. Over the past six years, they have been

expanding the company, which currently has 550 employees and has signed over $2 billion in customer contracts with countries, companies and individuals around the world.

In collaboration with NASA, Axiom Space is currently working with its partners to build the first commercial space station, Axiom Station. The company sent its first astronaut crew into space 2022 and intends to have its spacecraft modules individually launched and assembled in-orbit, first attaching to the ISS. They target 2024 for its first module to attach to the ISS and late-2020s for completion.

Amir credits his early schooling, including Sinai Temple Akiba Academy, Heschel Day School and Windward, with teaching him the basics that have stuck with him throughout his entire career.

“Even before you get into the whole academic side of things, these schools teach you how to be a person: Friendship. Accountability. Stability. High personal standards. Quality. Taking interesting courses. Those are things that were implanted in me at these wonderful schools. It gave me an appreciation for the creative side of things. Windward had a nice balance and was a secure-feeling place. It was a big confidence builder. It was a really nice community of friends, many of whom I am still in touch with today,” said Amir. The aerospace industry may seem like an intimidating one to enter, but Amir points out that it truly takes a village for any field to successfully function and make progress year after year.

“People think space is about being an engineer. It is not. We have psychologists, doctors, graphic and web designers. We have user interface and user experience people. We have operations people. We have people in finance. It doesn't matter what field somebody studies, if they're interested in space, they can apply what they're studying into space. Inundate yourself with material. There's so much online, and so many great ways to learn about this industry and to get excited about the different parts of it,” said Amir.

“It’s also important to find internships as soon as possible. If students are interested in space, Windward is fortunate because the School is a 10 minute drive from the El Segundo Aerospace corridor. Many space companies have branches there, and so many of these companies have programs for high schoolers. These internships can open the doors to the best colleges and the best education going forward.”

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