Wahid Nawabi

President and Chief Executive Officer

Wahid Nawabi has served as our Chief Executive Officer and a member of our board of directors since 2016.  Wahid Nawabi joined AeroVironment in 2011 as senior vice president and general manager of the EES business segment. Nawabi joined AeroVironment after a 20-year career as an executive with advanced technology companies in industries spanning clean technology, industrial/electrical equipment manufacturing, telecom, and energy. During his 16 years at American Power Conversion (APC), the company's revenue increased from $50 million to more than $2.4 billion and it became the world leader in power protection. Nawabi started and led the Enterprise/Data Center business at APC, growing revenue to $600 million between 2000 and 2008. Nawabi also led C&D Technologies' Americas business. Wahid earned his undergraduate degree from The University of Maryland at College Park in Electrical Engineering, concentrating in Power.

Teresa Covington

Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Since joining AeroVironment in 2011, Teresa Covington has provided financial leadership to AeroVironment and its EES business segment and has served as a senior member of the company's finance team. Covington served as the company's interim chief financial officer from February 5, 2015 to July 7, 2015. Covington's responsibilities included financial analysis, planning, accounting, credit and collections as well as launching and leading a new product line management organization. Prior to joining AeroVironment, Covington served as senior vice president and chief financial officer at Line 6, a global designer and manufacturer of musical instruments now part of Yamaha. Covington earned her master's in business administration from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, a master's in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Kirk Flittie

Vice President and General Manager, Unmanned Aircraft Systems

Kirk Flittie served in various UAS leadership positions at AeroVironment since joining the company in 1996. Flittie led the company’s High Altitude Long Endurance UAS efforts, including the development, test and demonstration of the Helios solar-powered unmanned aircraft and the $130 million customer-funded development, test and demonstration of the Global Observer hydrogen-powered unmanned aircraft. Flittie served as vice president of AeroVironment’s Large UAS business beginning in 2008. Prior to joining AeroVironment, Flittie managed aerospace programs for Northrop Grumman and American Rocket Company. Flittie earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, a Master of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and completed the AeA/Stanford Executive Institute’s program for high technology executives.

Ken Karklin

Vice President and General Manager, Efficient Energy Systems

Ken Karklin served in a range of functional and customer facing roles since joining AeroVironment in 2007. For the past year Karklin has served as the company’s director of corporate quality systems. Karklin previously held leadership roles at the company in Engineering, Operations, Program management and in the EES services group. Prior to joining AeroVironment, Karklin held engineering and engineering management roles at a venture-funded start-up and at established technology leaders Intel Corporation, Hewlett Packard Company and Agilent Technologies. Ken holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.