DURHAM, N.H. - Carl Dietrich, co-founder, CEO and CTO of Terrafugia, Inc., will speak at the next meeting of the University of New Hampshire CEO Forum Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014, at 9 a.m. The program begins at 8 a.m. in Huddleston Hall with coffee and networking, with a full breakfast at 8:30 a.m.

Prior to founding Terrafugia Dietrich was at MIT as a student and research assistant where he in 2006 he won the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for invention. As an aerospace industry entrepreneur, Dietrich raised more than $10 million of private capital from individual accredited investors, grew Terrafugia through the successful development and flight testing of two airworthy prototype vehicles, and built a $30 million order backlog for Terrafugia's launch product, the Transition®.  

Dietrich has been recognized with "40 under 40" awards from the Boston Business Journal in 2009 and Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine in 2012. In addition to his work at Terrafugia, he helps develop the certification standards for light sport aircraft and general aviation aircraft on ASTM committees F37 and F44 respectively. He has been a private pilot and aircraft designer since high school.  

Dietrich's technical background includes liquid bi-propellant rocket propulsion, aircraft design and fabrication, as well as plasma physics and fusion energy. His Ph.D. research at MIT demonstrated a 3X improvement in ion confinement time in an inertial electrostatic confinement device via electrostatic ion focusing. In 2000, he was recognized by the MIT Aero/Astro Department as the youngest of 16 alumni who have shown "extraordinary accomplishment." He is the author or co-author on three issued patents and three pending patents.

Initiated in 1997, the UNH CEO Forum is an outreach program of the UNH Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics serving CEOs, presidents, and senior managers of companies in northern New England. The forum provides its members with opportunities to meet and exchange ideas with their peers in business and industry in an informal setting. The UNH CEO Forum is sponsored by the law firm of Pierce Atwood, Optima Bank and Trust, Sprague Operating Resources, and Crystalvision. For more information about the CEO Forum, visit http://www.unh-ceoforum.org/.

To register or become a member of the UNH CEO Forum, contact Barbara Draper at 603-862-1107, or barbara.draper@unh.edu. The event is free to members and $49 for first-time attendees.

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 12,200 undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students.