Don R. Hartsell, JD, founder and 1st Commissioner for the World Air League. He is organizing the World Sky Race, the historic first race of airships to circle the planet. Hartsell is an advocate for a sustainable path using lighter-than-air (LTA) airship advanced aviation technology.
Hartsell's projects and inventions include: Improved the vacuum sublimation process for dehydrating frozen and wet books in a research partnership with NASA and the curator of the Magna Carta for the largest successful book collection restoration ever, consisting of 1.2 million books for the City of Los Angeles Central Public Library; Consultant on the restorations of the Windsor Castle (UK), Hofburg Palace (Austria) and Reichstag (Germany); Restored the University of Houston faculties after Tropical Storm Allison, including: the Law Center John O'Quinn Law Library Blaffer Art Museum, Science Research Building, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts, and Moores School of Music; Consultant to US Library of Congress, US National Archives, Australia National Library and the Getty Library on institutional mass disaster response and cultural collections triage.
Awards and Recognition
Department of Energy NICE3 Awardee for co-inventing and developing autonomous ultrasonic robotic inspection systems for operations in Class 1 Division 2 explosive environments containing vaporous hydrocarbons.
Department of Transportation SBIR Awardee for developing rapid de-watering systems for cleaning cargo holds of chemical cargo ships.
1999 R&D 100 Awardee co-inventor.
2000 Nominee for the National Medal of Technology, the highest award presented by the President for U.S. developed technology.
Former Chairman for the University of Houston Center for Applied Technology.
Hartsell is an attorney (retired), CPA (retired), and Inventor.
He is a Member of the Explorers Club.
To contact Don Hartsell, email him at: drh [at] worldskyrace.com (drh[at]worldskyrace[dot]com).