By Ron Faith
Sean McClinton joined RBC Signals in January 2017 to help the team scale and expand operations. He came to RBC Signals with a background in marketing and business operations. Looking to transition to a career in the space industry, Sean founded the Space Entrepreneurs networking group in the Seattle area to help catalyze the growth of the commercial space industry. Through Space Entrepreneurs, he met RBC Signals CEO and Founder Christopher Richins. Being born on April 12, International day of Human Spaceflight, you could say it was destiny for Sean to work in the business of space. Sean grew up in the Seattle area, an area rich in aerospace heritage mostly tied to Boeing and aviation. Sean likes to say “Most people think of Boeing and aviation in Seattle, but Seattle was front and center in the early space race with the World’s Fair in 1962. The Space Needle stands as a landmark that commemorates Seattle’s past in space, and today we have a thriving NewSpace economy.”
One inkling of his interest in space as a kid was his homemade astronaut costume for Halloween in 1986 and his 5th grade state report on Florida, where his teacher implored him to explain more about the space program.
Sean as a first-grader in his homemade astronaut costume, October 1986
Sean in 1998, as a Tight End for the University of San Diego
It ended up being sports that took Sean the furthest. As an all-area tight end and all-league linebacker for Bellevue High School, Sean went on to play for the University of San Diego. Sports taught him many lessons and defined a lot of who he is as a person. Sean says “I have tried to bring the lessons I learned from sports into my business career, specifically things like the value of having a personal philosophy, leadership, and having fun whether times are good or challenging.
Prior to RBC Signals, Sean worked in a variety of sales, marketing, and business operations roles including owning his own small business, The Christmas Tree Experience, one of the first of its kind online Christmas tree delivery businesses in the country. He also worked at large Fortune 500 corporations locally. He was always inspired by entrepreneurship, saying “I love learning about entrepreneurial success stories, whether about Nintendo, Microsoft, Sierra Online, or others. Seattle is a hotbed for those kinds of companies.” The hunt to join the next of those great success stories led Sean to RBC Signals.
“When the opportunity to join RBC Signals presented itself, I was thrilled to not only join an exciting startup, but also a startup in the space industry.” Sean’s primary responsibilities at RBC Signals are in marketing and business operations. You can often find Sean where RBC Signals is exhibiting at conferences in places like Colorado, Utah, and Silicon Valley. In addition to founding Space Entrepreneurs, Sean served on the board of directors for the Space Frontier Foundation and currently serves on the board of the Space Apps Seattle Foundation.
In his free time, Sean coaches his kids in sports and likes to play tennis.