# James Crean

> James Crean is the co-founder and Chief Visionary Officer (also serving as President/CTO) of CREAN Inc, an Austin, Texas aerospace engineering and smart factory firm he started in 2002 with his wife Jennifer. A former satellite systems engineer and program manager at Hughes Space & Communications and Boeing - where he worked on DirecTV, NASA's TDRSS and other communications and weather satellites, and built the Lean Six Sigma group for Boeing Satellites - Crean now leads a team of 600-plus aerospace and defense engineers and champions CREAN's AI-enabled Smart Factory Operating System (SFOS), which aims to make American high-mix manufacturing fast, flexible and competitive enough to bring production home from overseas.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & Chief Visionary Officer (President/CTO) at CREAN Inc
- **Organizations:** CREAN Inc, Boeing Satellite Systems, Hughes Space & Communications
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BS, Mechanical Engineering and Material Science, UC Berkeley, MS, Aerospace Engineering, University of Southern California (USC), MBA, UCLA Anderson
- **Known for:** Co-founded and grew CREAN Inc into a 600+ person aerospace and defense engineering firm, Engineered satellite systems including DirecTV and NASA TDRSS at Hughes and Boeing, Built and led the Lean Six Sigma group for Boeing Satellites

## Career timeline

- **1990s** — Satellite systems engineer and program manager at Hughes Space & Communications, then Boeing - worked on DirecTV, NASA TDRSS and communications/weather satellites
- **1990s-2000s** — Created and led the Lean Six Sigma group for Boeing Satellites
- **2002** — Co-founded CREAN Inc in Austin, Texas with his wife Jennifer Crean
- **2021** — Appeared on The Digital Supply Chain podcast discussing smart factories and reshoring
- **2022** — CREAN raised seed funding (Last Raised 2022-07; total funding ~$1.41M)
- **2022** — CREAN announced partnership with space comms startup Aquarian Space
- **2024** — Spoke at MilSat Symposium 2024 on augmenting MilSat SATCOM with commercial services

## Achievements

- Co-founded and grew CREAN Inc into a 600+ person aerospace and defense engineering firm
- Engineered satellite systems including DirecTV and NASA TDRSS at Hughes and Boeing
- Built and led the Lean Six Sigma group for Boeing Satellites
- Created CREAN's AI-enabled Smart Factory Operating System (SFOS)
- Frequent speaker and podcast guest on smart factories, reshoring and supply chain resilience

## Latest updates

- **2024-10** — Spoke at MilSat Symposium 2024 on augmenting military SATCOM with commercial services
- **2022-07** — CREAN closed seed funding round

## Links

- Website: https://creaninc.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacrean/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/james-crean
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-24