Dr Paul Scully-Power
Chairman
psp@sensorconnect.com
Dr Paul Scully-Power
Chairman
psp@sensorconnect.com
Dr Paul Scully-Power is the Chairman of Prime Solutions Pacific. He was formerly the CTO of the Tenix Group, the largest Australian Defence & Technology company, and now sits on the Tenix Technology Advisory Council. He is well-known as an innovator and corporate strategist and became Australia’s first astronaut, as a crew member on flight STS 13 of the space shuttle Challenger in October 1984.
He has extensive commercial, government and academic experience in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and is widely recognised in the fields of defence & national security, aviation & aerospace, marine science, communications & systems analysis, and education.
Dr Scully-Power has served as a Director of a number of public and private corporate and advisory boards worldwide, including the Australian Trade Commission for five years, and the Australian Institute of Company Directors for eight years.
Dr Scully-Power is past Chairman of the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority and the Federal Government’s International Space Advisory Group, a former Chancellor of Bond University, and was the inaugural Chairman of the Queensland Premier’s Science and Technology Council. Prior to that he spent over twenty years in the United States where he managed and led many high technology and defence industry programs. He served with the U.S. Navy, NASA, the Pentagon, and the White House, where he was the Head of a Government-Industry partnership for the development of advanced communications systems as part of the White House National Technology Strategy Program. He was also responsible for the funding of major programs at universities and research institutions on behalf of the U.S. government. Additionally, he held the Distinguished Chair of Environmental Acoustics, was a Research Associate of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Chairman of Membership of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, served on the University & College Accreditation Board, and was President of the Fort Trumbull Federal Credit Union. Before going to America, he was the inaugural Head of the Royal Australian Navy’s Oceanographic Group, deploying to sea on 26 cruises and qualifying as a ships diver.
Dr Scully-Power is considered a world expert in remote sensing: visible, infra-red, radar and acoustic and has earned the highest degree in science, a Doctor of Science in Applied Mathematics for his work. He has published over ninety international scientific reports and technical journal articles, including the Bakerian Lecture to the Royal Society. He has been a major contributor to the US Navy’s warfare appraisal and surveillance strategies, and was recognised by the University of Sydney in 1995 as its Distinguished Graduate. He discovered the phenomenon of ocean spiral eddies.
Dr Scully-Power was the first President of the U.N. International Commission on Space Oceanography. He is US Air Force qualified for full pressure suit flying, and was a flight crew instructor in the Astronaut Office, Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas. Dr Scully-Power is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, a Liveryman of the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators, and a Freeman of the City of London.
He is involved in many business and community groups through his roles as Patron of the Australian Aviation Museum, the Royal Australian Navy Laboratory Association, and the League of Ancient Mariners; past Vice President of the Naval Warfare Officers’ Association; a member of the International Trade and Government Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce; and a Director of the Australia Youth Trust set up by the late Princess Diana. He is also a founding member of the advisory board of Environment Business Australia. A larger than life-size oil painting of Dr Scully-Power hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.
Among his awards are the Distinguished Service Medal (the highest honour awarded by the U.S. Navy), NASA Space Medal, Casey Baldwin Medallion of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute, United States Presidential Letter of Commendation, US Congressional Certificate of Merit, United Nations Association Distinguished Service Award, Laureate of the Albatross (Oceanography’s ‘Nobel Prize’), Order of the Decibel (the highest award in the field of Underwater Acoustics), and Australia’s highest aviation award the Oswald Watt Gold Medal. He was appointed a Member in the Order of Australia on Australia Day 2004.