Raymond Damadian
Damadian is the company's largest shareholder, with 8% of stock worth $6.5 million. Despite owning only 8% of the stock, he maintains almost 100% control of the company through a separate class of shares (Class C) that only Damadian controls 2007. Damadian later collaborated with Wilson Greatbatch, one early developer of the implantable pacemaker, to develop an MRI-compatible pacemaker. He invented a stand-up MRI system and has 15 MRI scanning centers across the United States. There are a number of independent MRI centers that use this technology both in the U.S. and around the world. The company conceived and built the world's first Upright Multi-Positional MRI, which was recognized as The Invention of the Year in 2007 by the Intellectual Properties Owners Association Education Foundation.
George H. Rieke
Rieke helped develop the first infrared-optimized telescope and constructed a series of state-of-the-art focal plane instruments. Rieke was involved with the Space Lab 2 infrared telescope, a pioneering infrared space mission. He led the Multiband Imaging Photometer (MIPS) instrument team for Spitzer. The highly sensitive MIPS camera was built at Ball Aerospace under Rieke's leadership. It provided very high performance imaging and efficient surveying at 24, 70, and 160 microns; the detector arrays for the latter two bands were developed and build under direction by Rieke, Frank Low, and Erick Young at Steward Observatory. Also, Rieke is the lead scientist on a team to produce a mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) for the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2018. MIRI operates from 5 to 28.5 microns, providing imaging, coronagraphy, and low and medium resolution spectroscopy. Its focal plane and control electronics were developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (detectors from Raytheon Vision Systems), its crycooler at Northrop Grumman collaborating with JPL, and its optical system and instrument testing under Gillian Wright leading a European Consortium of national institutions. See http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/MIRI.