Dr. Firebaugh is a retired Rear Admiral.  He graduated from MIT and was commissioned as an Engineering Duty Officer in the Navy in 1961. He was a ship superintendent in the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, overhauling submarines and building the deep-diving USS Dolphin. He managed the design of the SSN688 Class Vertical Launch System deployed on 32 ships. He was then selected to initiate the Seawolf Class submarine program. He managed the program through the design and award of contracts to construct the first two ships of the class. He then became Chief Engineer of the Naval Sea Systems Command, serving until retiring from the Navy in 1995. In 1997 he returned to submarines at the Electric Boat Corporation, retiring in 2005 as Vice President Innovation and Chief Engineer. From February 2005 through May 2006, he was President and COO of SatCon Technology Corp, working in power electronics for alternative energy. He is now a consultant in energy technology and the Minta Martin Professor of Practice at the Center for Engineering Concepts Development, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland.