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He was a small boy, just over three years old, proudly wearing a new US Air Force uniform his parents had purchased for the occasion. It was John Wensveen’s first flight. His parents had saved up to take the family on a Christmas vacation from Vancouver to Honolulu. Wensveen still remembers the bright 747 plane, a model nicknamed “Big Orange.”

But something went wrong as the plane taxied on the runway—an engine fire broke out. The family had to deplane and find another flight to Hawaii. While some children might have been terrified by the experience, Wensveen was fascinated. “I became obsessed with aviation,” he recalls, speaking from his Florida home in a video call.

“I was born with aviation in my blood. I’ve been the adventurer, the traveller. I don’t sit still very long, and I just love travel. But I will say, the older I get the harder it’s getting. I got a few miles ahead of me yet,” he says, with a smile.

These days, Wensveen has what many would consider a punishing travel schedule that sees him fly from Strasbourg, France to Fort Lauderdale, Florida every two weeks. He has already crossed the Transatlantic 15 times this year—and it is only April. Wensveen divides his time between Florida, where he and his wife, Lisa, have a house, and France, where he works as president of the , a multi-lingual, multi-country operation dedicated to the discovery, research and development of outer space for peaceful purposes.

He was wooed to this new position not just because of his knowledge of industry, but his deep experience in the entrepreneurial world. He previously served as Chief Innovation Officer, Nova Southeastern University, and Executive Director of the Levan Center of Innovation, a 54,000-square-foot innovation center known as “The World’s First Theme Park for Entrepreneurs” located in Fort Lauderdale. When he was hired to lead this new multimillion dollar public-private partnership and economic development engine with local, regional, national, and international impact, he told his employers that his only rule for the theme park was “there would be no rules.” One of the first things he would tell students and program participants visiting the Levan Center was “Don’t let anyone say no to you.”  

Taking flight

Born in Vancouver, Wensveen was a curious child, and drew inspiration from his maternal grandmother, who was a global traveller and thrilled him with stories of her trips. “From the moment I was born, I was always a challenge to my parents with my sense of curiosity and wonder,” he reflects.

Wensveen holds a PhD and a master’s degree in International Air Transport and Business from Cardiff University in the UK and a BA from UVic. His undergraduate degree in geography from UVic was far from a mere footnote in his career—it was more like a footprint, a path forward to his destiny.

Following his passion for aviation, he took flight lessons and set his sights on becoming a pilot, but he struggled with how to get there. “How do you become a pilot? And it wasn't through any fault of anybody around me. But nobody knew the pathway of how you do that,” he recalls.

While he never became a commercial airline pilot, he did do a lot of flying throughout his life and eventually, after an uninspiring stint at community college in Vancouver, worked for the discount airline Canada 3000, which was only two years old at the time. It was a chance for him to mature, to be mentored by the company’s CEO, and realize that there were other opportunities around aviation. He became interested in airline operations. “My new dream became not flying airplanes but how you start an airline.”

At 19, he was working for the airline in entry-level positions, including donning the Disney-designed Air Bear mascot outfit, which was the height of an NBA player. He spent considerable time with the CEO, sharing his dream of starting an airline. The CEO, Angus Kinnear, advised Wensveen to go back to school—so he did.

At UVic, Wensveen found mentorship and support concerning his passion for aviation. Professors Drs. Larry McCann and Colin Wood were the among first people to say to Wensveen: “You can do it.” McCann was a particular influence on Wensveen, and they remained connected after graduation until McCann’s death in 2020.

“I owe so much back to this individual, Dr. Larry McCann, who was a faculty member in the Department of Geography who unfortunately has passed away,” says Wensveen. “He recognized that there was something in me, that I had a passion to do something. And he knew that I needed some guidance, and he gave me some recommendations. He allowed me to deviate from the standard curriculum if you will… to be creative with the types of projects I was involved in. I got to do aviation-themed projects in this geography environment and he was really a motivational factor.”

Space is the place

Wensveen did not think he would make the leap from aviation to space, but the gap between the two industries is closing as there is more commercialization of the sector. While Wensveen has worked closely with experts trained as entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists, he says geography was a perfect training ground for him.

“You could look at everything from a 30,000-foot view. Geography technically does encompass almost every single discipline that you could ever imagine, which positions you to be a truly global thinker and look at things from different angles verses just from an engineering mind or just as a finance mind as an example—and I think that really was the launch pad that allowed me to propel into different areas that got me into space.”

He started as president of the International Space University in September of 2024.

The institution was created because the world needed a place for students to study space and pursue peaceful pursuits alongside the observation of Earth. His out-of-office message begins with “Greetings, Earthling…” and concludes with “See you back at base.”

He has an internal role at the university, which is a more typical academic admin role, and an external one that involves constant travel and attention. “This role is 24-7, and there’s not a lot of sleep that comes with it, and there’s zero down time because of all those countries that we are working with, and then having employees scattered around the world as well.”

He reflects that he was hired because the university wanted someone with his experience in the entrepreneurial world as well as his knowledge of aviation—the subject of his two books (Air Transportation: A Management Perspective and Wheels Up: Airline Business Plan Development).

As an applied futurist, he notes that because airlines and airports are so tied to economic engines, the industry goes up and down with the vagaries of the economy, so still operates on some antiquated systems. What he sees in the future of the air transport industry is more use of AI, such as transport vehicles that are not reliant on humans, and planes flying faster and at higher altitudes. Airlines have a huge failure rate, he says, speaking from experience. Along with three co-founders, he started an airline called MAXjet Airways out of Washington Dulles Airport. It flew from 2003 to 2007, before ultimately meeting its demise when bigger carriers undercut its transatlantic route alongside record fuel and oil prices.

Still, he made his youthful dream of starting an airline come true. He still remembers how challenging life as a student was—balancing finances, stress and a social life. He advises students to eliminate those around them with negative energy, the ones who say you can’t do things. He’s a big fan of reverse engineering—walking backwards to figure out how to achieve what you want. “And I'm still asking myself what I want to be when I grow up, because I'm not done,” he adds.

French connection

Wensveen loves living in France, which he describes as “multiple countries in one.” The region he lives in, Alsace, is on the border with Germany, and the culture combines the two. His favourite local dish (which he fears might be a “corny” choice) is escargot—of which there are many variations. He appreciates Florida, where his wife and daughter live, for the weather, the stone crab, and its entrepreneurial spirit. Although he doesn’t live in Canada, he is a proud Canadian. He and his wife recently took a 12-day cruise, though, he admits, he continued working. Many Canadians on the cruise wore blue “Canada is Not for Sale” hats. American passengers wore red ones reading “Gulf of America.” There were some interesting interactions between the blue hats and the red hats, muses Wensveen.

He travels around the world representing the International Space University, and is rarely in one place for more than four or five days at a time.

  —Jenny Manzer, BA ’97

This article appears in the UVic Torch alumni magazine.

For more Torch stories, go to the UVic Torch alumni magazine page.