A self-described accidental entrepreneur and Unconventional CEOTM, Carol Craig is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Craig Technologies, headquartered in Cape Canaveral, FL. Growing Craig Technologies from one person in 1999 to over 400 associates today with steadily increasing revenues, Craig leads nationwide operations with employees in over 20 different states.
Craig Technologies was listed as one of Florida’s Best Companies to Work For in 2011 and 2013 by Florida Trend magazine. As CEO, Carol oversees corporate operations to ensure quality service-delivery for her commercial and government customers, offering multi-disciplinary engineering and integration, software development, training and courseware development, information technology, modeling and simulation, logistics, and launch support.
In January of 2013, she opened the 161,000 sq ft Craig Technologies Aerospace and Defense Manufacturing Center which currently offers high-tolerance precision manufacturing, specialty production, design engineering, and test and evaluation services in support of customers such as the Department of Defense, NASA, Boeing, SpaceX, Space Systems Loral, Skybox, Sierra Nevada Corporation and Conoco Phillips to name just a few.
Craig’s military experience includes active duty as a P-3C Orion Naval Flight Officer. She holds a BA in Computer Science from Knox College, a BS in Computer Science Engineering from the University of Illinois, and an MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Ms. Craig is pursuing a PhD in Systems Engineering at Florida Tech in Melbourne, FL.
In 2015, Carol was selected as the Small Business Administration’s Small Business Person of the Year for the State of Florida and South Florida District, and was recognized as the national first runner-up finalist in Washington, DC. The National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) recognized Carol with the Kathleen P. Sridhar Small Business Executive of the Year Award in 2013, and she received the prestigious 2013 HENAAC Entrepreneur of the Year Award by the Great Minds in STEM. In 2008, the Society of Women Engineers recognized Carol as Entrepreneur of the Year.
Carol serves as a member of the US Commerce Secretary’s Manufacturing Council, is the Enterprise Florida Executive Committee Military Business Unit Liaison, and is a board member with the National Space Club Florida Committee, Manufacturers Association of Florida, Florida Chamber of Commerce, and Florida High-Tech Corridor Council. She also serves on the boards of directors for Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando, and the Maxwell C. King Center for the Performing Arts in Melbourne, FL.
Carol and her husband, CAPT John W. Craig, USN, a former F/A-18 pilot who now flies for JetBlue Airways and is a Navy Emergency Preparedness Liaison Officer (NEPLO), have two children. In response to her son’s diagnosis with Prader-Willi Syndrome in 2001, Carol is Founder of the Danny Craig Foundation, aiming to raise and administer funds for multiple organizations that focus on researching children’s medical disorders.