Keenan Ward, USN (Ret.) — President & CEO

Keenan Ward is the founder of Forward Engineering LLC and serves as its Principal Advisor, providing strategic vision, technical leadership, and operational oversight to guide the company’s growth and ensure disciplined execution of its commitments. 

Prior to founding Forward Engineering, Mr. Ward served as a U.S. Navy Commander and Aerospace Engineering Officer, supporting major acquisition and test and evaluation (T&E) efforts across air, space, and maritime mission systems, including fixed-wing and unmanned aircraft platforms.

As a former Chief Engineer at Northrop Grumman, Mr. Ward led Systems Engineering, Integration & Test (SEI&T) execution for complex aerospace, mission and defense systems—guiding requirements, architecture, integration, verification, and technical readiness from Development - to - Lab - to - Flight test.

Mr. Ward is a DAWIA-certified acquisition professional and holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Science in Systems Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology, with an emphasis in Systems Architecture and Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE).