Peter Beck

Beck grew up in Invercargill, New Zealand[3] with two brothers: Andrew and John. His father, Russell Beck, was a museum and art gallery director and gemologist,[4] and his mother was a teacher.[5] As a teenager, he spent time turbocharging an old Mini and launching water rockets.[2] Beck did not attend university.[1]

In 1995, Beck became a tool-and-die-maker apprentice at Fisher & Paykel company. While working there, he taught himself and used the company workshop to experiment with rockets and propellants. Using these tools and materials, he created a rocket bike, rocket-attached scooter, and a jet pack. Later, Beck moved into product design department and bought a cruise missile engine from the United States.[2] He then worked in New Plymouth as a project engineer on a yacht.[6]

He later worked at Industrial Research Limited between 2001 and 2006,[2] working on smart materials, composites and superconductors.[6] While working there, he met Stephen Tindall, who later became an early investor at Rocket Lab.[7] While his wife worked as an engineer in the United States, Beck traveled to Minnesota and met with a rocketeer that he had contacted beforehand. After this travel, he founded Rocket Lab.[6]

While contacting potential investors, Beck met New Zealand internet entrepreneur Mark Rocket, later becoming a key seed investor to Rocket Lab.[2] Among other early investors into Rocket Lab was Stephen Tindall, Vinod Khosla, and the New Zealand Government.[7] Three years later, in November 2009, Rocket Lab successfully launched the multi-stage rocket Ātea-1, becoming the first private company in the Southern Hemisphere to reach space.[2]

Around 2013, Rocket Lab moved its registration from New Zealand to the United States, and opened headquarters in Huntington Beach, California.[2] The company then developed and first launched the Electron rocket unsuccessfully in May 2017.[8] The rocket's first successful launch happened in January 2018, deploying two CubeSats and the Humanity Star.[9] In May 2022, the company attempted to recover an Electron booster with partial success.[10] As of October 2023, the company has successfully launched in total 37 similar missions out of 41 attempts.[11]

In 2015, Beck received the New Zealander of the Year Award in the Innovator of the Year category.[12] In 2019, he was appointed as an adjunct professor for the University of Auckland.[13] Both Rocket Lab and Beck are awarded the Pickering Medal by the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2020.[14]