Rocket Lab

Peter Beck grew up in Invercargill, New Zealand and is a self-taught engineer who never attended university, instead beginning as a tool-and-die-maker apprentice at appliance manufacturer Fisher & Paykel, where he taught himself rocketry and built experimental rockets, a rocket bike, and a jet pack in the company workshop. He later worked at Industrial Research Limited from 2001 to 2006 on smart materials, composites, and superconductors. After a self-guided 'rocket pilgrimage' across the United States visiting NASA, Lockheed Martin, and other aerospace organizations, Beck founded Rocket Lab in 2006. In 2009 the company launched Ātea-1, becoming the first private company in the Southern Hemisphere to reach space, and Beck has since built Rocket Lab into the second-most-frequent US orbital launch provider. He was knighted as a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2024.