James Neal Blue

Blue is chairman and CEO of $2.7 billion defense company General Atomics. Its 2018 revenues were $2.7 billion, according to a U.S. government database. The company is best known as the manufacturer of the Predator drone, one of the first drones to fly over Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. He and his brother Linden bought General Atomics when it was a nuclear energy company in 1986. In the 1960s Neil and Linden raised $3,000 to fly a single-propeller Piper aircraft around South America. The feat landed them on the cover of Life Magazine. Neal Blue later served in the U.S. Air Force as a nuclear weapons custodian. Mr. Blue is also 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, which produces oil and gas in western Canada. He is co-founder of the General Atomics Sciences Education Foundation, a Board member of Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, and a member of the Center for New American Security and the 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.