Born in Dresden, Germany, May 15th, 1940. Parents: Gerhard Zenker and Märta Zenker (maiden name: af Sillén). Living in Sweden since April 1944.

Education

Gubbängen primary school 1947-1950.
Gubbängen secondary school 1950-1954.
Gubbängen high school (college) 1954-1958.
Royal Institute of Technology, Engineering Physics, 1958-1963. President of student section 1961. M. S. degree 1963. Graduation thesis on optimization of satellite attitude control.
Post-graduate studies in mathematics 1964.
Military service in the Swedish Air Force (surface-to-air missile unit) 1965-66.
Post-graduate studies in aerospace engineering at Stanford University 1966-1967.

Career

Systems engineer at Saab's Missile Department in Linköping 1965-1970 (interrupted by studies in the U.S. 1966-67). Development engineer and project manager at Space Technology Group at TUAB (later Teleplan) 1970-1971, which became Swedish Space Corporation in 1972. Various leading management positions at SSC 1972-2005.
Swedish delegate in European Space Agency's program committees for remote sensing 1972-2005. Chairman of ESA's Programme Board for Earth Observation 1986-1987.
Board member of Spot Image (Toulouse) and Satellitbild (Kiruna) during their formative years during the 1980s.

Honors

Awarded the Thulin silver medal of the Swedish Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics 1997.

Family

Married 1992 to Araguacema Valente (born in Brasilia 1963). Children: Christofer 1993, Kerstin Amanda 1996.