Craig A. Blue

Craig Blue is the Chief Manufacturing Officer for Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In this role, he works to enhance coordination of ORNL’s resources and capabilities across several directorates in support of defense and related manufacturing activities designed to promote US competitiveness and economic advantage. Blue also serves as Defense Manufacturing Program Director for the National Security Science Directorate at ORNL.

Blue is a visionary leader and team builder with a 25-year record of success in creating and building applied research and development teams and programs in materials, manufacturing, energy, and national security at ORNL. Blue has initiated, led, or programatically enabled 10 major initiatives, hubs, and institutes that leverage ORNL’s basic and applied capabilities to address US materials and manufacturing challenges.

Blue was the founding director of the U.S. Department of Energy Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL and the founding CEO of the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI). IACMI was originally a $260M institute and was recently renewed for another 5 years within the White House Manufacturing USA initiative. IACMI is a public-private partnership focused on increasing domestic production capacity, growing manufacturing, and creating jobs across the United States composite industry with approximately 130 members.

Blue has three decades of experience in conducting research in materials and manufacturing technologies, has authored approximately 100 open-literature publications, holds 28 US patents, and has received numerous awards including 11 R&D 100 Awards.

He has served by invitation on numerous scientific and technical review panels, committees, and convocations convened by the National Science Foundation, the Council on Competitiveness, Manufacturing USA, the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, and testified at the US Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Hearing on Advanced Manufacturing.

He is a Battelle Distinguished Inventor, Fellow of ASM International, Fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, and has held adjunct faculty appointments at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the University of North Texas, and the Colorado School of Mines, and was selected by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers as one of the “25 leaders transforming manufacturing.”

Most recently, Blue enable three large DOD initiatives: a national machine tool program, America’s Cutting Edge (ACE), to drive the revitalization of the nation’s machine tool industry, a national hypersonics thermal protection systems program to lower manufacturing costs, and a large castings and forgings replacement program.