Our Team
Proven management team in commercializing technology, global management, and ocean services.
The people building the autonomous future of subsea operations, from engineering and software to field operations and commercial leadership.
Management Team
John W. Gibson, Jr.
President & Chief Executive Officer
- Decades of leadership in oil and gas and energy, including Gulf, Chevron, Halliburton and Parker Drilling Company
- Chairman & CEO, Flotek Industries, Inc. (2020 to 2023)
- Bachelor's degree in Geology and Earth Science, Auburn University; master's degree in the same field, University of Houston
Brian Allen
Chief Revenue Officer
- 18+ years in subsea robotics, ROV piloting and executive management
- More than a decade at sea across the Gulf of Mexico, Asia, Europe and West Africa
- Founded and led Beam from scratch to 230 people and built an $840M sales pipeline with 40% close rate
- Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50, Deloitte EMEA Fast 500 and Sunday Times Top 100 UK companies recognition
- Harvard Certificate in Executive Leadership
Jimena Begaries
Interim Chief Financial Officer
- 20+ years of progressive finance and accounting leadership, primarily in oil and gas
- Financial transformation, reporting, corporate finance and field operations alignment
- International experience across Latin America, North America and the Middle East
- Senior Financial Consultant at Flexible Consulting LLC since April 2025; previously held strategic finance roles at Weatherford International plc
- B.S. Economics, Lehigh University; MBA, Universidad Catolica Argentina
Michael "Mike" Ferrier
General Counsel
- Senior executive and general counsel with experience in complex commercial transactions, risk management and strategic growth
- 20+ years in-house plus a decade in private practice, with energy, infrastructure and nonprofit sector experience
- Cross-border transactions, compliance, regulatory matters and scalable legal, compliance and HR functions
- B.A. Economics, Boston College; J.D., St. John's University School of Law
Robert "Bob" Christ
President, SeaTrepid Operations
- Dual B.S. degrees in Aviation and Accounting, Louisiana Tech University
- Certified Public Accountant (inactive), ATP-rated pilot and Certified Flight Instructor
- 30+ years in subsea, including Oceaneering, VideoRay and SeaTrepid
- ROV Committee Chair, Marine Technology Society
- Co-author, The ROV Manual
Jason Close
Vice President, Growth & Go-To-Market
- 20+ years in energy and technology across sales, product management, marketing, customer success and software development
- Executive and officer at publicly traded Computer Modelling Group (2019 to 2023)
- Led product commercialization and revenue growth initiatives
- Petroleum Engineering degree, Colorado School of Mines; licensed Professional Engineer
Dr. Kjerstin (KJ) Easton
Vice President, Software
- Ph.D. in Robotics, Caltech, with experience in AI, perception, geospatial data and multi-robot systems
- Former engineering leader at Google, developing AI-driven perception and autonomy systems
- Led intelligent systems across marine, urban, natural and indoor field environments
- Built and led globally distributed engineering teams delivering production-grade systems
Daniel DeHart
Vice President, Field Operations
- 12+ years of global subsea experience in ROV operations, project management, and offshore execution
- B.S. in Ocean Engineering, Texas A&M University
- Helped scale ROVOP's global fleet from approximately 10 to more than 45 ROV systems
- Leads international client delivery, field execution, and offshore operations across the energy sector
Kristin Moorman, PMP
Vice President of Corporate Development & Administration (CDA)
- 15+ years in engineering and project management across aerospace and oil & gas
- Began her career at NASA supporting Crew Healthcare Systems for monitoring, safety, and crew exercise
- Led complex subsea and organizational transformation projects, including supermajor iEPCI delivery, post-merger integration, business unit start-up, and refinery module delivery
Steve Walsh
Vice President, Sales
- Led sales at SeaTrepid International for 18 years and the overall organization for 9 years
- Served as National Sales Manager for leading commercial truck fleet and automotive trade publications at Penton Publishing
- Directed athletic development at Nicholls State University, the University of Kansas and Northwestern University
Chuck Claunch
Chief Software Architect & Principal Software Engineer
- Principal architect of the Nauticus ToolKITT™ autonomy platform
- Leads software architecture and core systems engineering
- 20 years in Software Engineering
- 10+ years working on the Space Shuttle and ISS projects at NASA’s Johnson Space Center
Board of Directors
William "Bill" Flores
Chair of the Board
- Chair of Nauticus Robotics Board since 2024; Director since 2023
- Audit Committee Chair and SEC-recognized audit committee financial expert
- 30 years of energy industry experience, including 20+ years in C-level and board governance roles
- Former U.S. Representative for Texas’ 17th Congressional District, serving from 2011 to 2021
Dr. Jim Bellingham
Board Member
- 35 years in marine robotics
- Bloomberg Distinguished Professor for Johns Hopkins Whiting School Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Applied Physics Laboratory
- Executive Director, Institute for Assured Autonomy
- Founding Director, WHOI Center for Marine Robotics; founder, MIT Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Laboratory; co-founder, Bluefin Robotics
- Led research expeditions and development of small high-performance AUVs used in military, industry and science
- S.B., S.M. and Ph.D. in Physics, MIT
John W. Gibson, Jr.
Board Member
- Decades of leadership in oil and gas and energy, including Gulf, Chevron, Halliburton and Parker Drilling Company
- Chairman & CEO, Flotek Industries, Inc. (2020 to 2023)
- Bachelor's degree in Geology and Earth Science, Auburn University; master's degree in the same field, University of Houston
Dr. Adam Sharkawy
Board Member
- Entrepreneur, investor and inventor with 23 issued U.S. patents and numerous international patents
- Founder and Managing Partner, Material Impact
- Ph.D. in Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, Duke University
- Master's degree, Texas A&M Institute of Innovation and Design in Engineering; B.S. Mechanical Engineering, American University
- Studied pre-medicine and biology at University of Delaware Honors Program
