Ron Garan

Ron’s Orbital Perspective Has Made a Profound, Positive Impact on Millions

Taking Ron’s orbital perspective, audiences learn to look beyond what separates us and to recognize that we’re are all in this together, on one common mission.

Ron’s career as an astronaut, decorated combat fighter pilot, commercial space executive, and humanitarian offers a unique perspective to any meeting or event. His lessons from living, working, and spacewalking on the International Space Station, perhaps the most complex structure ever built, serve as a perfect illustration for collaboration.

His approach has a powerful effect, allowing audiences to set aside differences, work as a team, and embrace change for a brighter future. Ron’s long-term and big-picture perspective continues to effect positive change in individuals and organizations across the planet.

Part of a select group of individuals who have been fortunate enough to see the world from space, Ron founded the initiative Fragile Oasis, championing his ‘Orbital perspective’ message to improve life on earth. Ron is celebrated not just for his research in space, but for his humanitarian contribution to life on earth.

Having traveled more than 71 million miles in 2,842 orbits of our planet, Ron has spent 178 days in space and has accomplished four spacewalks. He flew on both the US Space Shuttle and Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and spent 18 days at the bottom of the ocean during a research mission held in the world’s only undersea research lab, Aquarius.

Ron was assigned to the US Agency for International Development, leading the Unity Node project. Their task was to develop a universal, open source platform, enabling humanitarian organisations to work towards mutual goals. In 2007 Ron founded Manna Energy Ltd. Created with the goal of leveraging the Carbon Market to finance humanitarian projects, Manna Energy Ltd is the first organization in the world to register a United Nations Clean Development Mechanism carbon credit program for water treatment.

From representing Manna Energy Ltd as one of ten global innovators in the field of water purification during the inaugural Launch Water Forum to his role as advisor to the Social Business movement, Ron continues to work towards a cleaner, safer and more peaceful planet. Ron’s breakthrough book The Orbital Perspective – Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture from a Journey of 71 Million Miles, is published by Berrett-Koehler.

Elevate Your Perspective


Former NASA Astronaut, Ron Garan, inspires teams and organizations to create exponential progress by turning challenges into opportunities, ideas into action, and fear into focus.

As part of a select group of individuals who have been fortunate enough to see our world from space, Ron champions his “Orbital Perspective” message to inspire individuals and teams to create exponential progress within their organizations.

In his keynotes, Ron takes his audience on an amazing 71 million mile journey as he shares his experiences from orbiting the earth aboard the International Space Station.

The International Space Station is one of the greatest examples of collaboration on or off the planet. What made the ISS partnership work was the incorporation of awe and wonder as a jumping off point to relationship and trust building.

Highly engaging and inspiring, Ron uses the International Space Station and many other examples of profound collaboration to drive home the incredible power of being able to set aside our differences and work together toward a shared goal.

Key Takeaways:

• How to work as one team to achieve overarching goals
• Building a foundation of trust is the key to embracing change
• Turning challenges into opportunities for success

Embracing Change & Technology

The entire business landscape has changed, and trends are developing that, if embraced and accelerated, can have profound positive effects on the trajectory of society.

The business landscape has been changed in part by positive things like revolutionary technical innovations, powerful new ways to reach consumers and customers, an explosion of collaborative tools, and many other positive trends that together are rewriting the fundamentals of business.

Change is also caused by the disruption and uncertainty all around us. We are living through very uncertain times, and many factors impacting our business operations. Change and uncertainty can cause us to shrink and become more conservative in our business approaches, or we can see them as opportunities.

In order to successfully capitalize on the opportunities that are all around us, we need to take a holistic approach and strive to see how everything fits together. In today’s climate, the riskiest course of action is to simply continue to do what worked yesterday.

Key Takeaways:

• Turn problems and challenges into opportunities.
• Take advantage of revolutionary new ways to reach customers and consumers.
• Zooming out allows us to see who has the pieces of the puzzle and what picture they form.

Leadership & Risk Management

The best leaders lead by doing, and they lead by serving their team members. One of the tasks of a leader is to inspire innovative strategies that address risk. Ron shares with audiences real-life stories that have shaped every decision he has made with regard to risk over more than 30 years.

Ron’s strategy allowed him to effectively navigate risk while flying in combat, while pushing the envelope as a test pilot, and during two space missions and four spacewalks. Ron also shares how he has applied his strategy to risk in his many entrepreneurial endeavors.

Key Takeaways:

• Risk is the price we pay for a greater benefit.
• Maintaining the “tried and true” in rapidly changing environments can be the riskiest decision.
• Where’s the way out if everything goes south?

Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility is not something to stick into a silo nor is it simply a box to check. It needs to be infused in the company DNA and must flow into every aspect of the business.

Business enterprise has the incredible power either to destroy our world by clinging to a two-dimensional, us-versus-them, winner-take-all mind-set at all costs, or to save our world by embracing the reality of the interdependent nature of all things and incorporating a new paradigm of long-term thinking and profound collaboration.

Companies that cling to the old models will begin to see themselves being left behind and will have to adapt, evolve, and take on a much more cooperative approach to keep up with the economic growth that true collaboration will spark.

Key Takeaways:

• Learn how to write corporate social responsibility into the DNA of your organization.
• Open and transparent collaboration will fuel tremendous economic growth.
• The three-key pillars are: interdependence, profound collaboration, long-term thinking.

Innovation & Planetary Stewardship

Technological innovations don’t happen by accident. They come from careful planning, collaboration, and shared goals. Protecting the environment and moving our businesses forward are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are complementary.

We can take an environmentally sustainable business approach while developing new and exciting products and services, creating more jobs, and increasing profitability.

Issues such as global warming, deforestation, ocean acidification, and biodiversity loss can’t be addressed as stand-alone issues when in reality, they are symptoms of an underlying root problem, which is that we do not see ourselves as planetary.

Key Takeaways:

• We don’t live on a globe.
• Go after the root cause rather than the symptom.
• Work with our biosphere, not against it.

Social Entrepreneurship

Ron draws upon lessons from his own enterprises and from some of the world’s most impactful social entrepreneurs to illustrate how social enterprise can effect change on a massive scale.

Financially sustainable efforts are able to incorporate long-term planning and play the “infinite game” for the benefit of all.

Key Takeaways:

• People are not one-dimensional; they are motivated by many diverse factors.
• We can do well by doing good.
• Give your contributions multiple lives: invest and reinvest in self-sufficient efforts.