Len Zentz

Len Zentz is Systems Planning & Analysis (SPA)’s Hypersonic Systems Fellow, serving as a Senior Technical Advisor to both the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) program and the Office of the Secretary of War’s Joint Hypersonic Transition Office. He previously held the same advisory role for the joint Army/Navy Long Range Hypersonic Weapon and CPS programs from 2019–2021.

From 2013 to 2018, Mr. Zentz led a multi-organizational team—including SNL, APL, CSDL, and NSWC Crane—supporting the Navy’s CPS effort under VADM Benedict at Strategic Systems Programs. His leadership contributed directly to the first successful U.S. demonstration of a miniaturized common hypersonic boost-glide flight, funded by OSW Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics.

Mr. Zentz began his career at NSWC White Oak in the Reentry Systems Branch, performing high-temperature thermal-structural assessments and pioneering automated nonlinear aero-thermal analyses for large-deforming systems. He later led the Structures Group before joining SSP’s Advanced Reentry Systems section in 1998, contributing to major developments including the Tactical Missile System–Penetrator, reentry body inertial measurement units, and the Mk4/W76-1 refurbishment effort. As section lead, he oversaw the successful 2005 Life Extension Test Bed experiment, demonstrating an advanced hypersonic error-correcting reentry vehicle.