AIRCO Co-Founder & CEO Gregory Constantine Named EY Entrepreneur of the Year®
We're proud to share that AIRCO Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Gregory Constantine has been named an EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2026 Award winner.
For over four decades, the Entrepreneur Of The Year program has recognized ambitious founders and business leaders building companies with the courage, resilience, and execution required to transform industries. Winners are selected by an independent panel of past award recipients, CEOs, and business leaders, and are evaluated on entrepreneurial spirit, purpose-driven commitment, growth, impact, and long-term value creation.
For Gregory, this recognition reflects the mission behind AIRCO: to build the next generation of advanced technologies for energy security and global resiliency.
Since co-founding AIRCO, formerly known as AIR COMPANY, Gregory has helped lead the company from an early-stage carbon conversion technology platform into one of the leading companies at the intersection of synthetic fuels, energy security, advanced manufacturing, carbon utilization, and distributed fuel production. AIRCO’s technology converts carbon dioxide (CO₂) and hydrogen (H₂) into high-value fuels and chemicals, with applications across aviation, defense, space, and industrial energy systems.
Under Gregory’s leadership, AIRCO has secured more than $110 million in private capital and strategic financing from leading investors and partners across energy, aviation, defense, carbon technology, and industrial innovation. The company has also secured more than $80 million in publicly announced U.S. defense contract value and non-dilutive government funding, including work with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), AFWERX, the U.S. Air Force, and other U.S. defense organizations focused on strengthening operational energy resilience.
AIRCO’s work has progressed from a breakthrough concept to an operational demonstration. The company has completed first-of-their-kind AIRMADE® Fuel demonstrations across air, land, and sea, showing that CO₂-derived synthetic fuels can support tactical vehicles, unmanned aircraft, and marine applications. These demonstrations represent a major step toward a more resilient energy future: fuel produced closer to where it is needed, with fewer logistics constraints and greater flexibility for defense and commercial customers.
Most recently, AIRCO announced its new U.S. manufacturing and integration hub in New Britain, Pennsylvania. The facility will serve as a critical base for AIRCO’s next phase of manufacturing, engineering, operations, and deployment, including production of the MAD Fuel System™: a modular, containerized platform designed to produce synthetic fuel for jets and ground vehicles on demand.
Gregory’s recognition by EY comes at a pivotal moment for AIRCO as the company advances into deployable fuel infrastructure, with a focus on manufacturing, defense readiness, and global energy security. What began as a radical idea—that carbon dioxide could become a resource rather than only a liability—has become a platform for producing fuels and chemicals for some of the world’s hardest-to-abate and most strategically important sectors.
“This recognition is a reflection of the entire AIRCO team,” said Gregory. “We started with a simple but difficult belief: that carbon dioxide could be transformed into the building block for a new energy system. Today, that belief is becoming real through the work of our engineers, scientists, operators, partners, investors, and customers. AIRCO is building technology that can strengthen energy security, expand domestic manufacturing, and change how the world produces fuel.”
Congratulations to Gregory and every member of the AIRCO team. This award recognizes not only entrepreneurial leadership but the years of work, resilience, invention, and execution required to build a company capable of changing the future of energy.
Learn more about the award here.
