Zach Shore ’06 is the CEO of Hermeus, and he's leading efforts to build the world's fastest autonomous aircraft. Photos courtesy of Hermeus.

As chief executive officer of high-speed aircraft company Hermeus, Zach Shore ’06 leads the effort to push the boundaries of what’s possible by building the world’s fastest autonomous aircraft. His career journey is one of drive, risk, and ambition — and one he could never have anticipated when he first considered what the future might hold for him.

From F&M to the Front Lines

Growing up, Shore remembers being drawn to history, politics, and government. His parents, Eric ’73 and Stacey Shore ’76, met at F&M. He considered the College’s strengths in those areas a plus, especially considering he knew where he wanted to be when he graduated, and the small size reminded him of what he enjoyed in his high school experience.

Shore was a senior in high school when the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks took place. He had always been interested in the military, recalling photos of himself as a young child wearing camouflage pants to preschool. He hadn’t thought of it as a career path until he witnessed the attacks on television at school, but he made the decision then that he wanted to enlist. His parents supported his decision, with a caveat — he would graduate college first and enter service as an officer.

Zach Shore '06 (left) outside F&M's Shadek-Fackenthal Library on the day of his graduation. Shore reported for United States Marine Corps duty immediately after commencement.

He found his home at F&M as a member of Chi Phi fraternity, an experience he considers a social anchor and focal point for the friendships he’s maintained in the two decades following graduation. In addition to Shore, Chi Phi had several other students who would join the Marines after graduating, something he didn’t see happening in other fraternities.

While a student at F&M, he began reaching out to recruiters to see what branch of the military would be a good fit. When he was told he’d have to apply and then be considered for the Marine Corps Officer Candidates School, he saw it as a challenge. He completed the program between his junior and senior year, and he reported for duty immediately following graduation. 

Leadership Under Fire

Shore sees his military service, which included three combat tours, as the single most defining moment in his early career. In Iraq, he served as a signals intelligence officer.

“It was very technical and incredibly rewarding, acting as the very tip at the pointy end of the spear,” Shore said. “We knew everything that was going on in combat spaces. I probably had a better view of what was going on in Iraq, in Saudi Arabia, in Syria, throughout the region, than almost anyone anywhere. And to do that at 24 years old? It was incredible.”

At the age of 27, Shore was leading foot patrols in Afghanistan, a very different (and significantly more dangerous) assignment than intelligence work. He worked alongside Afghan police units to monitor, protect, and secure villages and the traffic that went through and around it. The role required intense discipline, situational awareness, and an understanding of the complex relationships between citizens, opposition forces, and his military colleagues.

In the last days of his final combat tour, Shore uncovered a plot by one of his Afghan colleagues to smuggle and resell confiscated opium. The attempted retaliation required he spend the last 96 hours of his deployment under armed Marine protection, an experience he still looks back on in disbelief. 

Risking to Reset

Shore immediately went on to graduate school, earning masters in business administration and international relations from Boston University. He remembers conducting his admission interviews from the roof of a Humvee, with plans to use his GI Bill benefits to figure out what comes next. There were significant pressures and limited opportunities for those leaving military service at the time, and he could only see two reasonable pathways based on his experience: banking or consulting.

After earning his masters, Shore landed a job at Deloitte, where he took it upon himself to learn as much as he could about the world of consulting. He accomplished that task, but found himself disillusioned with the work, particularly when he compared it to the pace and challenge of military service. He moved on to sales and software consulting before stopping and asking himself what truly fueled his passion.

“I remember thinking, ‘You have a chance to reset. If you were reading a newspaper, what articles would you choose to read?’ That brought me back to history, to political science, to government,” said Shore. “I realized I didn’t have to get my path correct-correct right away, but I should try to get it at least directionally correct. I’m military, I’m policy, I’m business. So I started to learn a lot about the defense industry: How does the defense budget work? What does the defense industrial base look like? What are the technologies and IP? I started to understand defense as a technology space.”

"Listen to your instincts, and don’t be afraid to do a hard correction...time is the only thing we don’t have more of."

- Zach Shore '06

That exploration would inspire his entry into defense venture capital. Then a budding field, defense tech has since grown into a massive industry. Shore became one of the earliest employees at Anduril Industries, a sector-defining software and systems company with expansive US military contracts now valued at more than $60 billion. His intelligence work, combat experience, software consulting skills, and private equity work made him uniquely qualified in his role supporting the company’s core product, Lattice.

Shore joined Hermeus as vice president of growth in 2022 before his promotion to chief revenue officer, president, and, this May, chief executive officer. He leads a team in the race to build the world’s fastest autonomous aircraft. Hermus completed its successful supersonic flight early this summer, a feat no other company has achieved as quickly since founding. The success and promise of the test aircraft and the engineers who built it has resulted in more than $219 million in funding by the Defense Innovation Unit, the largest such contract in history.

Defining Aviation’s Future

Shore says leading Hermeus is the most demanding and satisfying job he’s ever had, one that challenges him every day and constantly requires him to reference important lessons from his military service: knowing how to operate under pressure, being outcomes-focused, thinking creatively, and maintaining flexibility. 

“You see so few companies like ours because it’s really that hard,” said Shore. “Our new employees often have to throw away 80% of what they know from previous jobs, because we’re asking them to do something that’s never been done. Not everyone can accept that mindset, and that was a leadership challenge I hadn’t faced before.”

In his role, Shore has realized opportunities to structure his leadership team and promote talent in ways that might buck the status quo. After all, if no one has done what you’ve set out to do, why should you trust traditional models? He sees agility and opportunities to challenge norms as necessary for Hermeus to thrive in a world historically dominated by giants like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. 

To Shore, the path from Franklin & Marshall to CEO of one of the aircraft industry’s most ambitious startups is one that would be impossible to plan from the start. But it is one that makes sense looking back, following that directionally correct path.

“Listen to your instincts, and don’t be afraid to do a hard correction,” said Shore. “If you get off your path, it’s going to be really hard to find it again. The second you lose direction, turn around and go back. Time is the only thing we don’t have more of.”