Keynote speaker · NASA & Blue Origin engineer · Author of Ranch Kid to Rocket Scientist
Travis A. Davis
From Ranch Kid to Rocket Scientist
Show your audience that the work they already do
is the start of the career they thought was out of reach.
We've been taught that the big careers happen somewhere else, in cities, in labs, among people with money and connections. Travis Davis is living proof that it isn't true and that the talent to build the future is hiding in plain sight. He grew up fixing fence in rural South Dakota and went on to test rocket engines for NASA and Blue Origin. Put him in front of your students, your team, or your conference, and he'll show the room that the hands-on work people already know is engineering, and that a door they assumed was locked has been open the whole time.
What Your Audience Walks Away With
A door they didn't know was open.
Students see that an engineering or aerospace career is genuinely within reach. Professionals and teams see untapped talent hiding in plain sight, the hands-on, non-traditional people who already have what the work requires.
A new way to see the work in front of them.
Whether it's a kid's 4-H project or a company's overlooked technicians and field staff, the audience stops seeing "just work" and starts recognizing the engineering instinct that was there all along, and what it's worth.
Proof over pep talk.
No generic follow-your-dreams speech. A working engineer who's tested half-million-pound-thrust rocket engines, holds patents in two industries, and built a company shows the concrete, step-by-step line from where people are to where they could go, with the credibility a professional room demands.
A room that leans in and stays with it.
From a school gym to a conference keynote, Travis speaks plainly, respects what the audience already knows, and tells a story they recognize. No jargon, no condescension, no filler. Just a message that lands and sticks long after the event.
See him on stage
Watch Travis pitch Starling Surgical at Enterprise Ireland's Big Ideas 2019:
THE STORY BEHIND THE PROMISE
Why Travis can make that promise: he lived it.
Travis Davis grew up on a ranch 40 miles from the nearest hardware store.
Today, he runs rocket engine tests, holds patents in aerospace and medical devices, and speaks nationally about engineering, resilience, and the skills the next generation needs.
His story proves that remarkable careers don't start with perfect opportunities; they start with learning to solve hard problems.
Travis fought wildland fires, then earned a Mechanical Engineering degree from South Dakota Mines, interning at John Deere, Caterpillar, and NASA (four times) along the way, designing metal 3D-printed cryogenic valves before he'd even graduated. Selected as a George J. Mitchell Scholar (US-Ireland Alliance), one of the nation's most competitive postgraduate awards, he earned his Biomedical Engineering degree at Trinity College Dublin.
In Dublin, he co-founded Starling Surgical, a Trinity spin-out developing the QuickStitch wound closure device, featured in The Irish Times and backed by Enterprise Ireland and the EU's EIT Health fund. As CTO, he raised over €1 million in grant and investment funding, pitched at Enterprise Ireland's Big Ideas 2019, and helped the company win the MedTech Innovator international investment pitch, the 2019 Medtech Innovator Execution Award, and AdvaMed's Virginia Shimer Rybski Memorial Award.
At NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, he worked as a design and test engineer in propulsion systems and additive manufacturing, earning a NASA patent in propulsion valve technology. At Blue Origin, he led the Engine Propulsion Test team at historic Test Stand 4670, running BE-4, BE-3U, and BE-7 rocket engine tests, sitting on console for engines producing over half a million pounds of thrust.
His fingerprints are literally on display: he reassembled the F-1 engine that stands beside the Bezos Expeditions recovered Apollo engines at Seattle's Museum of Flight, and a BE-3U engine he worked on sits in the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville.
Today, he's back in the Black Hills of South Dakota with his wife, Amanda, and their two boys, flying as a licensed private pilot, working on never-ending hands-on projects, and writing the book he wishes someone had handed him as a kid.
Career Highlights
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
Design and test engineer, propulsion systems and additive manufacturing. Co-inventor on a NASA patent for a cryogenic isolation valve.
George J. Mitchell Scholar (US-Ireland Alliance)
One of roughly 12 chosen nationwide each year, the Mitchell Scholarship is among the most competitive postgraduate awards in the U.S., named for the senator who brokered the Good Friday Agreement and placing recipients alongside Rhodes and Marshall Scholars. B.S. Mechanical Engineering, South Dakota Mines. M.S. Biomedical Engineering, Trinity College Dublin.
Published Researcher
Co-author of a peer-reviewed study on a reinforced venous conduit in the Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials (2017), with Dr. Eimear Dolan and colleagues at Trinity's Centre for Bioengineering.
Starling Surgical | Co-Founder & CTO
Trinity College Dublin medtech spin-out behind the QuickStitch wound closure device. Raised over €1M from Enterprise Ireland and EIT Health. Winner of the MedTech Innovator international pitch, 2019 Medtech Innovator Execution Award, and AdvaMed's Virginia Shimer Rybski Memorial Award.
Blue Origin | HIstoric Test Stand 4670
Led the Engine Propulsion Test team testing BE-4, BE-3U, and BE-7 engines at the same historic stand that tested Saturn V and Space Shuttle engines.
His work is in two museums
Travis reassembled the Apollo-era F-1 engine displayed at Seattle's Museum of Flight, right next to the F-1 engines Jeff Bezos's expedition raised from the Atlantic floor. And the Blue Origin BE-3U engine he worked on now sits in the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Before all that
Ranch kid. Wildland firefighter. Licensed private pilot. Still the guy who fixes things himself.
Patents & Innovation
Patented inventions in both aerospace and medical devices, two industries in which most engineers never work.
Rocket Propulsion | NASA
Co-inventor on a NASA-patented valve technology for rocket propulsion systems, developed at Marshall Space Flight Center and featured in NASA's Technology Transfer portfolio.
Medical Devices | Trinity College Dublin
Co-inventor of patented surgical wound closure technology developed through Trinity College Dublin, the innovation behind Starling Surgical's QuickStitch.
Ranch Kid to Rocket Scientist: The Field Manual
Aerospace science for kids who work hard and think big.
Co-authored with Amanda Davis, NASA-certified Payload Operations Controller, this book connects the dots nobody else connected: the tractor's hydraulics and the rocket engine's control valves. The air compressor and the pressure vessel. The pole barn trusses and structural engineering.
Hands-on outdoor experiments covering structural mechanics, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, propulsion, orbital mechanics, atmospheric science, and engineering design, all using materials from the ranch or the hardware store. No lab required.
Ships Q4 2026. Pre-order before September 2026 and get the free Engineering Test Experiment Logbook.
The talk that only Travis can give
Plenty of engineers can explain rocket science. Travis is the one who can show a room full of kids, or the adults who raise and teach them, that the work they already do with their hands is rocket science. That's the talk he owns, and it's the one he leads with.
Where I'm From Is Why I'm Here: The Straight Line from Ranch Work to Rocket Science
Travis's signature keynote. The tractor's hydraulics and the rocket engine's control valves. The welding torch and aerospace metallurgy. The failed 4-H project he had to rebuild from scratch and the half-million-pound-thrust engine test he'd one day run. A story that reframes rural, hands-on work as exactly the training the next generation of engineers needs, and shows kids a path they didn't know was open to them. Ideal for schools, FFA and 4-H, homeschool conventions, rural workforce and economic development, and STEM programs.
"I equate my childhood to going to a vo-tech school to become a mechanical engineer." — Travis, in Farm Progress
Also available for technical and business audiences
For engineering conferences, universities, and companies, Travis adapts the same story into two focused talks:
Lessons from the Test Stand: Risk, discipline, and leadership from running Blue Origin engine tests.
From NASA Engineer to Medtech Founder: Carrying engineering rigor into a startup that raised over €1M and patented a device in a second industry. Same throughline, different room.
"The path from ranch kid to rocket scientist is not a leap across a gap.
It's a straight line."
Travis Davis