Wisk brings in additional experience with new Senior VP of Engineering

Wisk has added more indus­try expe­ri­ence to the com­pa­ny with the appoint­ment of Boe­ing NeX­t’s for­mer Chief Engi­neer Eric John­son, who joins as Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Engi­neer­ing.

As well as join­ing Wisk’s Exec­u­tive Lead­er­ship team, John­son will also be respon­si­ble for exe­cut­ing the company’s tech­ni­cal vision and roadmap, over­see­ing the devel­op­ment of cur­rent and future air­craft, and direct­ing its soft­ware, hard­ware, sys­tems engi­neer­ing, flight test, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and prod­uct man­age­ment teams.

He said: “I’m thrilled to be join­ing a com­pa­ny that’s shap­ing the future of the UAM space. Wisk’s great­est strengths are its peo­ple, it’s safe­ty-first cul­ture and its com­mit­ment to inno­va­tion. I’m proud to now be part of the team that will make safe, every­day flight a real­i­ty.”

John­son began his career with McDon­nell Air­craft Com­pa­ny and has a B.S. in Aero­space Engi­neer­ing and Mechan­ics from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta, a Master’s of Sci­ence in Aero­space Engi­neer­ing from Texas A&M, and is an F‑15 and com­mer­cial­ly-rat­ed pilot. 

In his pre­vi­ous role at Boe­ing NeXt, John­son direct­ed the engi­neer­ing devel­op­ment and prod­uct safe­ty for a joint team. He also served as Prod­uct Devel­op­ment Chief Engi­neer for the Boe­ing 777X pro­gramme and was Chief Engi­neer and Air­plane Lev­el Inte­gra­tion Team Leader for the 777–8 pro­gramme, and has held mul­ti­ple man­age­ment and engi­neer­ing posi­tions in Air­plane Safe­ty, Elec­tro­mag­net­ic Effects, Flight Sci­ences, Flight Test, Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and Sales.

“We are thrilled to have Eric join us,” said Gary Gysin, CEO of Wisk. “Eric brings strong tech­ni­cal and prob­lem-solv­ing skills with a long his­to­ry in deliv­er­ing cer­ti­fied plat­forms to the com­mer­cial mar­ket­place. His demon­strat­ed lead­er­ship in inno­v­a­tive air­craft devel­op­ment, inte­gra­tion, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, test­ing, and cus­tomer engage­ment is a great ben­e­fit to us as we move for­ward.”

Wisk is cur­rent­ly devel­op­ing com­pa­ny the world’s first all-elec­tric, self-fly­ing air taxi, called Cora. Based in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area and New Zealand, the com­pa­ny is backed by The Boe­ing Com­pa­ny and Kit­ty Hawk Cor­po­ra­tion and has a decade of flight expe­ri­ence — with more than 1,300 test flights.

eVTOLInsights.com spoke to the com­pa­ny’s Chief Mar­ket­ing Offi­cer Becky Tan­ner about its future plans in a pod­cast.