Richard Schilke

Richard Schilke is the Chief of U.S. Government Operations for Nishati, Inc., a small business engaged in designing, manufacturing and selling innovative portable and fixed solar products to the U.S. and foreign military and government agencies. Richard joined Nishati in September 2015 and leads Federal customer relations and new business development, develops industry partnerships, defines new product requirements and guides product engineering and development.

Prior to joining Nishati, Richard led projects as a Program Manager and Senior Analyst on DoD programs ranging from military installation encroachment and land-use planning to cyber security systems engineering. Richard is a former U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel who served as an F/A-18D aviator and Environmental Engineering Management Officer during his 20-year military career. During his time in the cockpit, he accrued more than 2,000 flying hours as a Weapon Systems Officer, including 140 combat missions that spanned Operations Allied Force (Serbia/Kosovo) and Iraqi Freedom.

Prior to transitioning to civilian life in 2013, Richard served as the first Requirements and Technology Branch Head in the newly formed Marine Corps Expeditionary Energy Office (E2O). There he helped to develop and implement an enterprise-wide Strategy for enhancing operational capabilities and reducing energy logistics risks, and was the principle author of the Marine Corps’ over-arching capabilities document for expeditionary energy, water, and waste. Richard developed the first military directive and best-practice guidance to integrate capability-based, data-driven energy performance attributes into requirements and acquisition decisions, and led energy performance requirements development for several operational military systems and equipment sets. In 2012, he deployed to Afghanistan to
coordinate portable solar system fielding and hybrid power system evaluations. He then led the joint Army and Marine Corps effort to define operational context and requirements for a family of deployable hybrid and microgrid power systems.

Richard is a distinguished graduate of both the United States Naval Academy and United States Air Force Institute of Technology, and a graduate of the Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN).