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What if the single most critical piece of American infrastructure is something you've never heard of, and the people who know how to build it are nearly gone?

When a $50 drone can take out the power grid and it takes seven years to replace the transformer that keeps the lights on, one founder is betting $500 million that AI and old-school manufacturing can save the day.

In Season 1, Episode 6 of America's Angels, co-hosts Jenny Kaehms and Andrea Kalmans sit down with Bridget Youngs, CEO and founder of Terminus Industrials, and yes, her mom was an astronaut. Bridget shares her extraordinary journey from growing up at Johnson Space Center, to investment banking at Evercore, to utility-scale power investing, to serving as chief of staff at USAID during the DOGE project. Then came the lightning-bolt moment: the realization that America has lost the ability to manufacture high-voltage transformers domestically, leaving the grid dangerously dependent on foreign suppliers with 3-to-7-year wait times and documented security threats.

Bridget breaks down how Terminus is reshoring transformer production to Central Texas using AI-driven design, standardized manufacturing, and a vertically integrated facility that compresses production timelines from months to days. She dives into the national security implications, the supply chain crisis, her Tesla-veteran head of manufacturing, her software-focused co-founder building "Foundation OS," and why she believes private industry, not government, holds the future of the country.

Subscribe, rate, and review America's Angels wherever you get your podcasts. Have a question for Bridget or a topic you'd like us to cover next? Tag us on social and join the conversation, we read every comment.

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Ever wonder how the tools powering today’s AI revolution were built, or how to empower the next generation to lead it? In this episode of America’s Angels, co-hosts Jenny Kess and Andrea Kelmans sit down with tech pioneers Peter Wang (founder of Anaconda) and Andy Terrel (lead of compute and open source at NVIDIA) to explore the future of technology and human potential.

The guests share their inspiring journeys—from growing up in Communist China and rural Texas to shaping the global open-source software landscape—and discuss how Python and AI tools are transforming problem-solving and scientific discovery. They also dive into the founding of the Austin STEM Center, a hands-on community space dedicated to democratizing technology, fostering mentorship, and building real-world skills for kids and adults alike.

Want to help inspire the next generation of innovators? Visit austinstemcenter.org to learn how you can volunteer, bring your school for a field trip, or support their mission! Don't forget to subscribe to America's Angels, leave a review, and share this episode with a friend!

Special thanks to our Law Sponsor: Lowenstein Sandler LLP

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What if the kid failing every class grew up to build one of the world's most successful satellite companies and then bet it all over again?

Gabe Dominocielo went from straight Fs to straight As overnight, found his way to Chico State, and turned a summer job into a decade-long legal tech business that made him a multimillionaire by 30. Then he risked it all to co-found Umbra, a satellite company that captures the highest-resolution radar imagery from space, seeing through clouds, darkness, and weather that blinds every other satellite in orbit. On this episode of America's Angels, Gabe shares how he raised money from crypto believers when traditional VCs laughed him out of the room, how hedge fund legend John Burbank handed him enough capital to fail six times (and only needed him to be right once), and why his angel investing thesis comes down to one rule: if the idea isn't bizarre, he won't touch it. Jenny and Andrea also dig into his move to Austin, his philosophy of helping people "find their exceptionalism," and the one investment he passed on that still keeps him up at night.

Subscribe to America's Angels on your favorite podcast platform, leave us a review, and share this episode with a founder who needs to hear that the best ideas are the ones that look completely broken. Got a question or a pitch? DM us. We might just feature it on the next episode.