Charles grew up in Russell, KY and graduated in the first class of Materials Engineers from the University of Cincinnati. He was a Co-op student for the Air Force Research Laboratory and continued working on high-temperature carbon composites as a contractor for the University of Dayton Research Institute. He moved to Houston and began working as a NASA support contractor at Johnson Space Center in 2000 and returned to federal service in 2010 performing materials control for human spaceflight hardware development as well as composite structures and non-metallic materials specialty activities including R&D. He moved to the Nantahala National Forest to start a sustainable farm in 2012 and when telework and commuting to Houston became difficult, took a product development manufacturing engineering position for MOOG Components in Murphy, NC. There he learned the design, manufacturing, and testing, of motors, syncros, resolvers, and RVDT's and applied composite processes to future applications. In 2014, Charles began participating in on-line design challenges by Local Motors and joined the company in 2015 where he was embedded at the ORNL Manufacturing Demonstration Facility for nine months developing large scale additive manufacturing materials, performing characterization, structural evaluation, and process simulation. He helped establish the flagship micro-factory, design, and build the Olli 2.0 3d printed autonomous shuttle. In 2021 Charles moved to Sheridan, Wyoming to take over two carbon fiber development projects funded by the National Energy Technology Laboratory and has continued to generate new processes for advanced materials from Carbon Ore feedstocks and novel application of the products.