About
Engineers who have run the process, not just modeled it.
Stratos Composites is a Greenville, South Carolina engineering company founded in 2026. Our founders bring complementary experience in advanced composites, digital manufacturing, and engineering software.
The company
Why Stratos Composites exists, and what we are building toward.
Automated fiber placement (AFP) process planning still depends heavily on specialized knowledge. Process planners must interpret part and laminate requirements, account for material and machine capabilities, select layup strategies, and evaluate predicted or observed defects. Much of the reasoning behind those decisions is difficult to document, transfer, and apply consistently.
Stratos Composites was founded in Greenville, South Carolina, in 2026 to address that problem from two directions. Our consulting work gives manufacturers access to founder-led engineering support for current composite and digital manufacturing problems. Strat-OS is being developed to help AFP process planners generate, compare, and document process-plan candidates.
Our starting point is AFP, but our consulting work is not limited to one manufacturing process or industry. We also work in composite design and analysis, manufacturing data, connected production systems, technical research and development, and independent engineering review.
Some problems call for direct engineering work. Others need a tool that teams can use repeatedly. Stratos Composites is building both.
Consulting
Founder-led technical support for manufacturers and engineering teams working through defined problems in AFP, composite design and analysis, manufacturing data, or technical research and development. Each engagement is scoped around the problem, deliverables, schedule, and required on-site support.
Explore consultingIn developmentStrat-OS
Engineering software in development for AFP process planners. Strat-OS is designed to generate, score, and compare process-plan candidates while keeping the inputs, assumptions, and predicted manufacturing effects traceable. A closed pilot is planned for early 2027.
Learn about Strat-OSWhat we believe
The principles behind our company, our consulting work, and the products we build.
Our mission is to make specialized manufacturing knowledge easier to apply, evaluate, and carry forward. We believe engineering judgment should remain visible, technical claims should be traceable, and software should support the people responsible for the process.
Keep the engineer in control.
Tools should help people examine options and understand tradeoffs. They should not conceal assumptions or replace the judgment required to approve a design, process, or production decision.
Make the reasoning traceable.
Whether the result is a recommendation, model, process plan, or software output, its inputs, assumptions, and technical basis should be clear enough for another person to review.
Turn experience into reusable capability.
Specialized knowledge should not disappear when a project ends or remain locked in one person’s memory. We build methods, documentation, and software that teams can understand, maintain, and use again.
Founders
Our founders bring complementary experience across composite manufacturing, structural design, digital manufacturing, and engineering software.
Matt Godbold, PhD
Chief Executive Officer
Matt Godbold is an advanced-manufacturing engineer focused on AFP, process planning, manufacturing optimization, and digital manufacturing. As chief executive officer, he leads company operations, commercialization, customer coordination, and product direction.
His doctoral research at Clemson University developed the Integrated Smart Process Planning (iSPP) framework for connecting design information, manufacturing decisions, predicted defects, and inspection results within an AFP workflow. Before founding Stratos Composites, Matt worked in engineering roles at Electroimpact and Boeing, completed a research internship with NASA, and conducted research at Clemson University and the University of South Carolina. As an Advanced Composites Technical Lead, he led six graduate and nine undergraduate researchers across five projects with approximately $3 million in combined value.
Brian Tatting, PhD
Chief Technology Officer
Brian Tatting is an advanced-composites engineer whose work connects structural mechanics, variable-stiffness design, tow steering, optimization, manufacturing constraints, and engineering software. As chief technology officer, he leads software architecture, systems integration, engineering development, and the technical work required for reliable product performance.
Brian has more than 25 years of experience in composite structures and manufacturing-aware design. He spent more than a decade as a research scientist at ADOPTECH and later worked as a research assistant professor at the University of South Carolina. His academic research also includes Virginia Tech and Delft University of Technology. He served as principal investigator on a NASA Langley Research Center project involving tow-steered panels for tailored wings.
Ramy Harik, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Ramy Harik is a composites and advanced-manufacturing researcher whose work covers AFP, smart manufacturing, digital twins, manufacturing data, and academia. As chief scientific officer, he advises Stratos on technical strategy, product positioning, market development, partnerships, and long-term growth.
Outside Stratos Composites, Ramy is Director of the Clemson Composites Center and a professor of automotive engineering at Clemson University. He previously served on the mechanical-engineering faculty at the University of South Carolina. He has been a principal investigator or co-investigator on more than $15 million in funded research, supervised more than 30 graduate students, and authored three books.