, , ,

KMI: The Origin Story

, , ,

KMI: The Origin Story

Liza Fust, Communications Coordinator

Adam Kall, Co-Founder & Director of Science

Austin Morris, Co-Founder & Director of Engineering

Troy M. Morris, Co-Founder & Director of Operations

8.5 minute read

ACT 1, SCENE 1:

[Scene opens on satellite image of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Camera zooms in to focus on a modernized iron town on Lake Superior, and further zooms into a birds-eye view of Northern Michigan University’s campus.]

Narrator: In August 2014, our cast of characters were students at Northern Michigan University. Little did they know, their future selves would be the Co-Founders of Kall Morris Inc. Technically, at this point in the story, some of them didn’t even know each other yet.

[Camera switches to focus on Adam Kall, calico cat in hand, lego Saturn V in background]

Adam: Is this thing on? Okay, so in August 2014 Austin and I moved in as freshman at Northern Michigan University. I got there a couple hours before him, set up the dorm room, and most importantly my desk. At home the wall was covered in too many things and I didn't have room for a whiteboard so one of my main priorities upon getting to college was to have a whiteboard that I could use for rocket math while playing Kerbal Space Program.

As I started figuring, Austin arrived. We weren't exactly roommates, but shared a bathroom between our rooms to form a suite. He came over to meet his suite mate and saw me there. He recognized the game, and I learned he knew the equations as well, and this was the moment I was like, ‘oh wow I could be friends with this person, he likes rocket math.’

From there we became really good friends freshman year. I got to meet Austin’s older brother, also a student at NMU, as Troy would stop in between some classes or organization meetings on campus. We spent more hours playing video games than attending class freshman year, which seemed like a poor decision at the time, but then ended up being some great decisions because we would go on to start a company together with those hours invested as a foundation. So you know, never say no to playing video games with your friends - you may create a successful company out of it.

Narrator: There is no causation or correlation between excessive video games and starting aerospace companies.

Adam: After freshman year, Austin moved out of the dorms and Troy graduated and left the Upper Peninsula, meaning we saw each other less and less. We still connected occasionally, but we were all busy and engaged with our own things. It was after college that we realized, with me ending up in New York City and Austin in Philadelphia, that these two cities are close enough that we could reach each other by train.

Narrator: Adam would eventually have his honeymoon in Japan specifically for the trains.

Adam: Because of my job I was frequently traveling back to New York City on Sunday nights to make it to work on Monday and I wouldn't be able to get into New York because the flights would be too busy, but I could get into Philadelphia. So I would get in, stay with Austin, and then in the morning take the train back up to New York City. It was through that regular interaction that we reconnected and realized we were still good friends.

Narrator: Reunited, a new trouble was waiting in the wings for Adam Kall. But would this new life-change destroy the friendship? …Or save the world?

Adam: It was in October of 2019 that I found myself reminiscing on my time at NASA Goddard and I started to realize my job wasn't going to work out because, while an airline is technically aerospace, my sights were set on being involved in space. I realized that the costs of staying in New York City weren’t worth it for a job that was only tangential to my passion.

But I did know my own limitations. I enjoy working on advanced theoretical work and figuring out the numbers and the equations, but I fall a little short when it comes to building something physically. So I had to find a fantastic engineer who really knew how to build things and that I could work well with, and that search led me to Austin. I made it a point to play more video games over the internet with him and connect more so that we could discuss and say, ‘Hey, if I think of something can you build it?’ and ‘If you build something, can I think of a way to use it?’ and ‘Can this come together to be something really cool?’

Narrator: Spoiler, valued observer: it did come together to be something really, really cool.

[Camera fades to black, and back again on faded video of footage of Austin Morris talking about the growth of engineering roles in space to Tomorrow’s Talent Series. Footage fades to black. Camera cuts to Austin, Star Wars prints behind him, and a Lego Saturn V. He is, once again, wearing a flannel.]

Austin: After graduating from NMU I spent some time in industry down in Chicago and then eventually out in Philadelphia working in aviation research and development for advanced flight concepts and flight prototype demonstrators for the DoD and US Army as a civilian. The work that I was doing was extremely interesting and enjoyable, but there were also aspects of it that I wished could be different. In addition to that, there were aspects about living in Philadelphia, or more specifically in a large city, that I wish could have been different. I missed the outdoors and wilderness of the Upper Peninsula and felt a calling back to Marquette in particular.

 
 

[Camera cut to static image of the founders in the U.P., then back to interview]

Austin: Even though it's not where I was born and raised, the U.P. still feels like home to me. With both Adam and I working our jobs in New York City and Philadelphia during that time, we realized that we had both separately decided we wanted to get into different career paths and especially get ourselves into the space industry. We started looking at different options that we could develop. Different technologies, different business cases, things like that. We also wanted to make sure that we could find our way back to Marquette, Michigan because it was such an important area for us and such a wonderful place to live. And now that we both had explored the world a bit, we wanted to go back, the both of us, to the place that felt like home. So we started spitballing different ideas about space technologies that we could develop and businesses that we could build. With each idea we evaluated what issues and obstacles there might be with those ideas specifically. There was a repeated hole that I continued to poke in every single idea that Adam came up with: space debris.

Narrator: While Austin did not intend that to be a pun, consider what effect debris has on what it runs into.

[Camera cut to sped-up time lapse of debris generation]

Austin: So after poking that hole into many ideas, like skyhooks and space elevators and solar farms in space and asteroid mining, we finally realized there might be something to the idea of stepping back to solve this space debris problem first - and then enabling those future developments. After that we started doing some back-of-the-napkin math, doing some research, putting together some designs, and we realized fairly quickly that there was something here. But if it was left to just Adam and I we would solve this problem as a perfect science project in a basement somewhere and nobody in the world would ever know, so we immediately realized we needed someone else to help bring this from a project into a business. And that's where Troy came in. Bringing Troy into the loop is what allowed us to actually incorporate this as a company and begin our journey that led to us each leaving our corporate jobs and spending the next few years, so far, working on a passion project that has the lofty goal of benefiting humanity as a whole.

[On screen images scroll of Austin and Troy, cuts to image of Troy, Austin, and Adam, cuts to Troy at State of the Space Industrial Base]

[Cut to Troy, the black ball behind him moves and the intelligent observer realizes it is a cat. A shelf in the background is loaded down with Legos and Star Wars artifacts]

Troy: And we’re rolling? So, after leaving Marquette myself and working in my career of critical industry sales at Snap-on Tools, rising in that corporation from a starting position to a tool storage expert to a global expert to sales development for the greater Chicagoland region, I had come to recognize that the current corporation I was a part of didn't have enough future focus for my own interests.

It was around this same time of dissatisfaction that Adam and Austin reached out first, seemingly for playing video games. As we played games and caught up and commiserated about leaving the U.P., I realized that there were also ideas for doing something together, forming some sort of space entity, some sort of enterprise, potentially even going off and just joining one of the established space companies. But as we worked through the problem and began to recognize what we can do and what can't be done, where the limits of reality are, we found ourselves staring down the barrel of orbital debris. With Adam's expertise in determining software and solutions and Austin's ability to build and test physical systems, it left me with the opportunity to scale up this business and organize our energies towards a positive goal; keeping space clear for all. So in late November 2019, the now-Co-Founders formalized Kall Morris Incorporated into the early beginnings of a company.

[Flash on screen Kall Morris Inc logo and Keeping Space Clear for All]

We intentionally discussed where KMI should be located as we were all in different cities. New York City has its advantages but also its noise and its - I'll say passionate hostility. Philadelphia had fewer advantages for a space startup and similar drawbacks. Chicago is close to home for some of us and on a Great Lake, but still not quite where we actually wanted to be, which was back in Marquette, Michigan.

Over the end of 2019 we began discovering what KMI would need to go from zero to one. We began planning our exits from our large city careers, and started putting the first steps together of building the ideas, meeting with customers, and bringing those to a solution.

Narrator: As it all started to come together, the world at large began to unravel. Would the nascent KMI be able to weather the maelstrom that was looming on the horizon, touching even the remote Marquette shore on Lake Superior?

Troy: Adam moved out of New York City on the day of the markets crashing due to the rising COVID-19 pandemic. Austin and I physically moved Austin out of Philadelphia in a truck and trailer the day that governors were shutting businesses and potentially state borders. And I remained in Chicago to shelter in place through what was expected to be only a few weeks.

[Screen fades slowly to black, as black as the black cat behind Troy’s desk]

[Screen shows Earth from space, rotating in distance]

Narrator: Yet here we are. KMI survived and grew despite the turbulence that shook the globe those first few years, in addition to the usual struggles a new startup faces, much less a highly specialized space startup.

Chapter One of KMI’s story ends with the founder’s forging headfirst into the trials and tribulations of the now notorious 2020.

Next time on KMI’s Origin Story: The Co-Founders hire a rag-tag crew with shared brilliance, passion, and drive. Proposals are written and unselected, until finally, the first is won. Investment rounds are closed. And an office and lab is opened. And soon, showing these solutions on the ISS.

[On the screen showing Earth the International Space Station passes by. Camera zooms in to interior of ISS and we see a mission playing out as KMI’s REACCH system is tested by the astronauts aboard the ISS]

[Screen fades to black and white text scrolls on, not unlike the opening to Star Wars]

Understanding these beginnings is important to see why, not only for KMI’s Co-Founders, but for the team and community, that KMI is establishing its headquarters in downtown Marquette, Michigan. With this week's ribbon cutting of the company’s first laboratory and office, KMI is opening its doors to new ideas, new opportunities, and a renewed energy to solve the problems for which the company was first begun, and working with a wealth of partners to get there. As this story plays out, we appreciate all the characters who play a part, including our innumerable partners, supporters, investors, mentors, advisors, and all the others that have helped push forward the idea and dream of keeping space clear for all.

Not The End