[Editor’s note: “Tech Vets: Profiles in Leadership and Innovation,” is a GeekWire series showcasing U.S. military veterans leading companies within the Pacific Northwest tech industry. The series explores how military experience fosters leadership, resilience, and innovation in tech.]
Jonathan Pan didn’t come from a navy household, however rising up in New York Metropolis, he was deeply affected by the occasions of Sept. 11, 2001, so he signed up and finally joined the U.S. Military.
Pan was in his second or third week at New York’s Baruch Faculty when the assaults occurred. He accomplished his training and entered officer candidate faculty in 2005. An infantry officer stationed at Washington state’s Joint Base Lewis–McChord, Pan deployed to Afghanistan with the fifth Stryker Brigade Fight Group, 2nd Infantry Division and served in an financial improvement position.
Fifteen years after he left the Military as a captain, Pan’s expertise remains to be impacting his present position as co-founder and CEO of Exia Labs, a Seattle-area startup constructing AI software program to enhance navy wargaming — the analytical video games used to simulate elements of warfare for tactical and strategic decision-making.
The “gaming” facet of Pan’s present work is according to the route he took after the Military and grad faculty.
“I’ve been enjoying video games ever since I used to be a child,” he mentioned. “I grew up with PCs and on-line gaming that every one began after I was in junior excessive. It actually damage my grades in highschool, and I performed a bit bit in faculty. After I was within the navy I had no time.”
Getting a job within the online game trade wasn’t even on Pan’s radar. However throughout an internship at Riot Video games he found how enjoyable it might be and that there’s a complete enterprise and craft behind making and promoting video games.
“That obtained me hooked,” Pan mentioned.
After a pair years he moved on to begin his personal e-sports crew referred to as Ember, satisfied that the longer term was in that type of leisure. He even tried to get Mark Cuban to take a position, to no avail. However the expertise did assist him land a video games position at Amazon, the place he spent 4 years in California.
After games-related jobs at Meta and Walmart, Pan reconnected with a buddy who he used to serve with and picked his mind about protection tech and wargames.
“It simply blew my thoughts that the navy is spending a lot effort and time and cash on board video games to make actually essential choices,” Pan mentioned.
So in 2024, again within the Seattle space, he joined forces with Serj Kazar, a former colleague at Riot Video games, and based Exia.
The startup’s preliminary product, Blue, options numerous AI brokers that analyze paperwork and automate every step of the U.S. Military’s Army Resolution Making Course of (MDMP). It will possibly additionally simulate potential schemes to perform a mission. A more moderen product, referred to as Recon, was launched this summer season.
In September, Exia received a $50,000 prize within the Military’s xTech AI Grand Problem, an initiative to formalize AI processes and insurance policies that improve efficiency, cut back lifecycle prices, and scale affect throughout the pressure. The corporate raised a $2.5 million seed spherical earlier this yr.
Pan is a giant believer within the Protection Division’s Hero Skillbridge Program, which he mentioned he used at Amazon to personally rent 9 junior officers transitioning out of the navy.
“They’re nice at drawback fixing,” he mentioned. “They only want an opportunity at a tech firm to show that.”
Reconnecting with navy contacts and innovating on behalf of the Military has had its rewards, and Pan looks like he’s a part of the mission once more.
“Folks’s lives are on the road. That basically fires me up. That motivates me,” he mentioned.
However the navy’s lengthy gross sales cycles will be tough and dealing in protection will not be a get-rich-quick alternative, in keeping with Pan. If he needed to do it once more he’d in all probability begin with industrial functions first. Exia has been wanting into the place it may discover a market match — regulation enforcement or pure catastrophe response are prospects.
And he calls drone supply planning “tremendous thrilling,” noting that Exia is in talks with Amazon and Walmart, although nothing official has been signed.
