Chris has a German aeronautical engineering diploma and accumulated 14 years of experience in composite design and manufacturing before starting at BlackStone Tek. He spent many years in the CSIR, which is South Africa's premier research facility, as head of the composite laboratories. He helped design and build many unmanned and manned composite aircraft as well as a number of other highly loaded composite structures such as the Aerotrak range of composite wheels.

The products that he has developed range from musical instruments to model aircraft. He is the inventor of many unique manufacturing processes, and has numerous patents on wheel design and manufacture.

His vast knowledge of composites allows his team in BST to produce the highest quality wheels from the best materials and manufacturing processes - from the design through laying-up stage right through to the final trimming and presentation.

He is responsible for BST's engineering and composites facilities, for the production in the factory, and he also maintains the ISO 9001:2000 standards and the safety regulations in our factory.

Chris's passions are in the air - he designs and builds model aircraft from composite materials, and represents South Africa in flying competitions all over the world. Above is a pic of Chris flying his model at the World Championships in Slovakia in 2006.

If he isn't doing model aircraft, he's rebuilding small aircraft which he then flies. As a pilot, he understands the concept of testing your own product! These pics show his prowess in this area. On the left is the wreck he started with. On the right is the final product after Chris had finished the job - SAMBA. This craft goes like hell and can fly the 1,400 kms from Johannesburg to Cape Town on a single tank of fuel in 6 hours.