Board of Directors

Michael Blitzer has been Chairman of the Board of USA Rare Earth since its 2025 public listing on Nasdaq, for which he was the financial sponsor as Chairman and CEO of Inflection Point Acquisition, II. Mr. Blitzer is also a director of Intuitive Machines Inc. (Nasdaq: LUNR), a leading lunar exploration company and the first private enterprise to successfully land on the moon, and where he chairs the compensation committee and is a member of the audit committee. He is also lead independent director of Merlin Labs, Inc. (Nasdaq: MRLN), a leading AI-enabled autonomous flight company, where he is also chair of the nominating & governance committee. He is also currently the Chairman and CEO of Inflection Point III and Inflection Point V which have announced transactions with Air Water and GoWell, respectively, in the water and energy fields.  

Mr. Blitzer is the Chairman and CEO of Inflection Point Asset Management, the financial sponsor of strategically important assets in the critical infrastructure and national security industries, since 2024. He was the founder and CEO of Kingston Capital Management, which he founded in 2004 and grew to a multi-billion asset manager with some of the world's largest endowments and foundations until 2021.

Mr. Blitzer began his Wall Street career at J.P. Morgan Securities in 1999 advising companies globally in private debt and capital raises followed by work at the investment fund Gotham Asset Management, which was founded by the author and investor Joel Greenblatt. Mr. Blitzer taught courses in investing at Columbia Business School for five years in the 2010s.  He holds an M.B.A from Columbia Business School and a B.S. from Cornell University.  

Mr. Blitzer serves as the Chair of the Strategy, M&A and Planning Committee, as a member of the Compensation Committee and as a member of the Governance and Nominating Committee.

Dr. Thomas Caulfield brings decades of experience spanning engineering, executive management and global operations at leading technology companies. From 2018-2025, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of GlobalFoundries (Nasdaq: GFS), where he led operations, process development, and the expansion and ramp-up of semiconductor manufacturing production, including the company’s successful 2021 IPO, the largest semiconductor IPO in history at that time.

Prior to joining GlobalFoundries, Dr. Caulfield was President and COO of Soraa, the world’s leading developer of solid-state lighting technology, and President and COO of Ausra, a provider of large-scale power generation technology. He has also held various leadership roles at Novellus Systems Inc. and IBM. Dr. Caulfield currently serves as Executive Chairman of GlobalFoundries and is a board member at Sandisk Corp., following its spin-off from Western Digital Corp; he was previously a board member at Western Digital.

Dr. Caulfield holds a B.S. in physics from St. Lawrence University, as well as B.S., M.S. and Doctor of Engineering degrees in materials science and engineering from Columbia University. Dr. Caulfield was also a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia’s Engineering Center for Strategic Materials.

Dr. Caulfield serves as a member of the Governance and Nominating Committee.

Ms. Humpton is Chief Executive Officer of USA Rare Earth, Inc., where she leads the Company’s efforts to build a secure, domestic rare earth supply chain spanning mining, processing, and magnet production. 

Ms. Humpton previously served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Siemens USA from 2018 to 2025, overseeing approximately 45,000 employees across all 50 states and Puerto Rico and more than $21 billion in annual revenue. During her tenure, she led the company’s U.S. strategy across industrial, energy, and infrastructure sectors. 

Prior to joining Siemens in 2011, Ms. Humpton held senior leadership roles at Booz Allen Hamilton and Lockheed Martin, where she was responsible for large-scale system integration programs focused on biometrics, border and transportation security, and critical infrastructure protection. 

Ms. Humpton serves as Chair of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and as Vice Chair of Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. 

Ms. Humpton holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Wake Forest University. Her leadership experience across industrial, infrastructure, and national security sectors positions her to guide the Company’s growth in building a resilient domestic rare earth supply chain. 

Mr. Schwethelm is a skilled finance executive and public company director with over 45 years of experience in accounting, financial leadership, and corporate governance, primarily within the energy and industrial sectors.

He currently serves as Founder and Principal of Schwethelm Financial LLC, a financial advisory and consulting firm, and as a member of the boards of Paint Rock Bancshares and First State Bank of Paint Rock.

Mr. Schwethelm previously served as Chief Financial Officer of MP Materials. He has also held CFO roles at Capital Precast Holdings LLC, Tesoro Corporation, and OQ (formerly Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company), as well as senior leadership roles in international industrial services organizations. Earlier in his career, Mr. Schwethelm held roles in internal audit at Saudi Aramco and with the State Auditor of Texas. Across his career, he has led large-scale financial operations, including over $4 billion in acquisition-related financing, and has overseen enterprise-wide initiatives spanning capital allocation, financial reporting, risk management, and operational transformation. Mr. Schwethelm has also served on the boards of Schreiner University and Peterson Health, where he chaired the Finance Committee for both organizations.

Mr. Schwethelm is a Certified Public Accountant (Texas), Certified Internal Auditor, and Certified Fraud Examiner. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from the University of Texas at Austin. His extensive experience in financial oversight and governance provides critical leadership to the Company.

Mr. Schwethelm serves as Chair of the Audit Committee.

Mr. Senft is a seasoned public company executive and board director with deep expertise in capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate governance. He currently serves as Lead Independent Director of Molekule Group and as a Senior Advisor to Critical Response Group.

Mr. Senft previously served as Chief Financial Officer of KLX Inc., a B/E Aerospace spin-off, where he played a key leadership role through its growth and ultimate acquisition by The Boeing Company in 2018. Prior to KLX, he held senior leadership roles at B/E Aerospace, Inc., and began his career in investment banking at Merrill Lynch & Co. and CIBC World Markets rising to the level of global leadership of Leveraged Finance.

Across his career, Mr. Senft has developed extensive experience in financial strategy, capital markets execution, and organizational transformation, with a strong focus on public company governance, internal controls, and executive compensation. His background in complex transactions and board leadership brings valuable financial and strategic oversight to the Company.

Mr. Senft serves as the Chair of the Governance and Nominating Committee, as a member of the Audit Committee and as a member of the Strategy, M&A and Planning Committee.

Carolyn Trabuco is an experienced business, finance and capital markets professional with a track record spanning more than 30 years of global equity investing. She is the CEO of Thistledown Advisory LLC, a strategic advisory and consulting firm. Ms. Trabuco has held senior investment roles across buy side, sell side, and hedge fund portfolio management focusing on a range of growth sectors including technology, industrials, and resources. She brings deep expertise in the global metals and mining industry having launched and led that sector’s investment effort at Pequot Capital Management from 2002-09. She is a co-founder of Azul Brazilian Airlines where she gained nearly two decades of entrepreneurial experience scaling the startup airline into a national champion and global brand during her involvement from 2007-25 as an investor and board member.

Ms. Trabuco is an adjunct professor of finance at the Welch College of Business & Technology at Sacred Heart University, where she teaches alternative investments, equity research, and valuation. Ms. Trabuco holds a B.A. from Georgetown University and an M.P.A. from Sacred Heart University. She serves on the boards of Merlin Inc. (Nasdaq: MRLN), Athena Tech II, Inflection Point V (Nasdaq: IPEX), and Inflection Point VI.

Ms. Trabuco serves as the Chair of the Compensation Committee and as a member of the Audit Committee.