Taft aerospace and defense attorneys Shawn Cheadle and John Gordon joined Katherine Jerald, host of the Mission Critical: Defense Recruiting podcast, for a conversation on compliance for aerospace and defense startups. They broke down what founders need to know to ensure their business is fundable, acquirable, and legally protected.

Listen to the podcast episode on Spotify HERE. Watch the podcast episode on YouTube HERE.

Cheadle is the co-leader of Taft’s Aerospace and Defense practice group and served 15 years as a general counsel of divisions within Lockheed Martin. He is experienced with a wide variety of areas within the aerospace industry, including corporate governance; mergers and acquisitions; international agreements; litigation, government and corporate investigations, e-Discovery, and records management; government and commercial contracts, satellite and missile defense programs; space law matters; supply chain and compliance – government, commercial, and construction contracts; launch and payload processing; and facility operations, and program and plant security.

Gordon focuses his practice on counseling emerging technology companies in the space and defense sectors, serving as both dependable legal counsel and a trusted and industry-savvy advisor to his clients. His general corporate and venture capital experience includes closing millions in fundraising rounds ranging from pre-seed debt investment to Series C rounds and beyond, drafting and negotiating millions in commercial contracts, forming and governing corporate structures, managing cap tables, and directly advising executives and boards of directors on various issues facing their businesses.