Phillip Friedman has served as CEO of Harlow Aerostructures since acquiring the Wichita, Kansas based company in 1981. During his 32-year tenure, he lead the teams that developed electro mechanical and structural assembly products such as auto throttles and flap actuators for OEM airframers such as Cessna, Hawker Beechcraft, Gulfstream, Learjet, Boeing, Spirit Aerosystems, and Lockheed.

After earning his B.A. in economics, Magna Cum Laude, from Claremont McKenna College in 1974, Mr. Friedman attended Harvard Business School where he received his MBA with honors in 1976. Following his graduation, he worked in Drexel Burnham Lambert’s Corporate Finance Department in New York and eventually moved back to Los Angeles where he served as Vice President of the Corporate Finance Department at Shearson Loeb Rhodes.

In 1980, Mr. Friedman started his entrepreneurial career with the acquisition of Nasco Aircraft Brake Inc. based in Gardena, CA, in a highly leveraged transaction with the minimal equity gathered from the savings from the three years of prior employment. He directed innovative efforts to launch its friction lining R&D team and build a brand new brake dynamometer testing facility. Nasco became the first new entrant in 40 years to receive FAA approval to sell aircraft brakes to large commercial aircraft and break the oligopoly stranglehold of competitors Honeywell, Goodrich and Goodyear in the market place.

In 1988, Mr. Friedman bought a controlling interest in the publicly traded Genisco Technology Corporation. The Anaheim based corporation held government contracts for the manufacturing of military computer systems that ran the North Atlantic Sonobuoy Network that tracked Russian nuclear submarines. He sold his controlling interest in the company in 1994.

Mr. Friedman spent 30 years as Owner and Skipper of three generations of FARR 40 racing sailboats participating in offshore yacht races such as Newport-Ensenada, Los Angeles- Puerto Vallarta, and Los Angeles-Hawaii. After receiving his private and instrument ratings as a pilot in 2006, Mr. Friedman has logged over 1700 hours in his Cirrus SR 22 G3 GTS.