Francis X. Govers III Biography

francis govers biography portrait

Francis X. Govers III

Francis Govers involvement in the space program began in 1978 when he was a Space Communications Specialist in the Air Force. After the military, he was Vice President of a small computer firm in San Antonio, TX. Later, he was the Lead Engineer for Command and Control for the Space Station (McDonnell Douglas). He was the founder of the Virtual Reality Laboratory for TASC Inc., and has been program manager on a number of large simulation research projects. Now at SGI, he is the Systems Engineer for the NASA Johnson Space Center, where he contributed to programs like the Shuttle Mission Simulator. Mr. Govers is one of the co-founders of the Space Station Freedom Fighters, an instructor at the Houston Space Camp, and a long time space activist. He lead SGI to be a major sponsor of the International Space Development Conference, and is a member of the executive committee of the Clear Lake Area NSS chapter. He is a former Search and Rescue pilot with the Civil Air Patrol, an amateur astronomer, a bad artist, and an avid sailor. Francis Govers grew up in Houma, Louisiana, is married to the former Miss Carol Maxey, and has two children (Jessica and Corbin). He has degrees from San Antonio College and Southwest Texas State University. He is the author and photographer of magazine articles in publications like Sport PilotIEEE Micro, and Virtual Reality World, as well as the author of many technical papers on Command and Control, Virtual Reality, Collaborative Engineering, and Artificial Intelligence. Francis currently resides in Houston, Texas.