Recorded live at IREC 2026, this episode of ProtoPod features Roberto Rodriguez of Blue Origin and Joshua Kaufman of Mercury Space Systems for a conversation about aerospace careers, hands-on engineering, and life after university.

YouTube version: https://youtu.be/tRp4NKAc6mo 

Today, we’re joined by Adam Trumpour, founder of Launch Canada, the organization behind Canada’s biggest student rocketry competition.

Adam’s spent years in propulsion and aerospace engineering, and now he’s helping build a pipeline of engineers who are learning rocket science by actually launching rockets.

In this episode of the ProtoPod, Jordan sits down with Paul Ziadé, Co-Founder and CEO of North Vector Dynamics, a Canadian aerospace and defense technology company building next-generation capabilities in areas like counter-drone systems, air defense, autonomy and hypersonic technologies.

Paul shares his journey from academia into the fast-moving world of defense tech, and offers a candid look at what it takes to build advanced technology in Canada today.

Together, Jordan and Paul discuss the urgency of accelerating project timelines, why Canada needs to move faster on innovation, how sovereign defense capability is evolving, and what the future holds for North Vector Dynamics.

From research labs to real-world defense challenges, this conversation is about speed, execution and building what matters.

Today on the ProtoPod, we’re joined by Kevin Sloan, Director of the University Rover Challenge. For nearly two decades, Kevin has helped build one of the most impactful hands-on engineering competitions in the world.

For more information on this year's competition, visit: https://urc.marssociety.org/

For more information on ProtoSpace Mfg, visit: https://protospacemfg.com/ 

Today on the ProtoPod, we’re joined by Ashton Meginnis, Head of Space Systems at AstroForge. AstroForge is a startup focused on building spacecraft to chase down asteroids—and ultimately mine them.

To learn more about AstroForge: https://www.astroforge.com/

To learn more about Protocase & ProtoSpace Mfg: https://www.protocase.com/  & https://protospacemfg.com/ 

In this episode, we’re joined by Jim York from Elliott Machinery to talk about metrology, GD&T, and why so many engineering drawings break down in the real world.

Today on the ProtoPod, we’re joined by Fernando Romero — a turbomachinery repair engineer at Sulzer, co-founder of Iron Age Audioworks, and the mind behind All About Turbo.

Fernando lives in the real world of keeping critical machines alive — and he’s also the kind of engineer who goes home and builds beautiful hardware for music studio.

On today's episode, we’re joined by Karthik Gollapudi, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Sift.

Sift is building the telemetry backbone for mission-critical systems — helping aerospace, robotics, and defense companies make sense of massive streams of real-world data.

We’ll talk about innovation at the intersection of software and hardware — and what it takes to build infrastructure for the physical world.

On today's episode, we’re joined by Dave McQuinn from Allen-Vanguard.

Dave has spent nearly two decades developing technologies designed to stop improvised explosive devices and protect people in some of the most challenging environments in the world.

We’ll talk about engineering under pressure, rapid innovation in the field, and what it takes to design systems that literally save lives.

In this episode, we’re joined by Jarrod Barker, founder of RealSimGear. Jarrod started the company while training for his private pilot’s license, frustrated by the gap between great flight sim software and unrealistic hardware.

What began as a personal project has grown into a global brand bringing realistic avionics hardware to pilots everywhere.

To learn more about RealSimGear, head to their website: https://realsimgear.com/

To learn more about Protocase & ProtoSpace Mfg: https://www.protocase.com/ & https://protospacemfg.com/