Neal Blue Bio

Neal Blue

Chairman & CEO 
General Atomics 

Neal Blue is Chairman and CEO of General Atomics (GA), San Diego. GA is a privately-held defense and diversified technologies company acquired by the Blue family in 1986. GA and affiliated companies operate on five continents and include GA Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI), of which Blue is founder and Chairman. 

GA-ASI produces a series of unmanned aircraft and provides electro-optical, radar, signals intelligence and automated airborne surveillance systems. GA’s Electromagnetic Systems Division produces electro-magnetic aircraft launch and recovery systems for the U.S. Navy, satellite surveillance, electro-magnetic rail gun, high power laser, hypervelocity projectile and power conversion systems. 

GA is the principal private sector participant in thermonuclear fusion research through its internationally recognized DIII-D and inertial confinement programs for the U.S. Department of Energy. GA developed the UCSD Supercomputer Center and has constructed 60 TRIGA nuclear research reactors in 22 countries. GA is a leader in the development of next-generation nuclear fission and high-temperature materials technologies. 

Other GA affiliates include Spezialtechnik Dresden GmbH with principal facilities in the German States of Saxony and Brandenburg, Heathgate Resources Pty Ltd (South Australia), GA Uranium Resources Group, Diazyme Laboratories Inc. and the GA-Honeywell uranium conversion partnership. The Group comprises over 15,000 employees. 

Mr. Blue is co-founder and Chairman of Cordillera Corporation, Denver. Cordillera is a private company with investments in real estate, agriculture, natural gas distribution, and oil and gas production including Harvard International Resources, Ltd. which produces oil and gas in western Canada. 

He is co-founder of the GA Sciences’ Education Foundation, is a Board member of Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, and a member of the Center for New American Security and Atlantic Council Advisory Boards. He is a recipient of Caltech’s von Karmen award and is a former trustee of the Salk Institute and the University of California San Diego Foundation. 

Mr. Blue graduated from Yale University, is a pilot, and served in the U.S. Air Force. During his college years, he was a correspondent for the Yale Daily News/New York Times Paris-Calcutta Expedition, and later with his brother was featured in Life Magazine for having flown a single engine Piper aircraft around South America. 

Other activities have included development of a cocoa and banana plantation in Nicaragua and real estate in California and Colorado.