Chris Shank, former senior adviser to the secretary of the U.S. Air Force, has joined the Defense Department’s Strategic Capabilities Office as its new director, Defense News reported Friday.
Shank will lead the SCO and its efforts to explore and develop strategies to counter emerging threats across various domains.
He succeeds Will Roper, who now serves as the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics.
As senior adviser to the Air Force secretary in 2017, Shank helped re-establish the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and the White House National Space Council.
The Air Force vet also held several leadership and adviser roles in other companies and agencies such as Van Scoyoc Associates, Honeywell, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the Department of Defense and NASA.
Related Articles
The Space Development Agency has appointed Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo, most recently deputy director at SDA, as acting director. SDA said Monday Sandhoo will oversee the strategic direction and program execution for the acquisition, delivery and operation of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, or PWSA. He succeeds Derek Tournear, who helped establish SDA as an independent agency within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering in 2019. Tournear, a Wash100 awardee, has joined Auburn University as director of space innovation. “Derek’s vision wasn’t just courageous; it was transformative. His unwavering commitment to innovative space acquisition strategies,
President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War as a secondary title. The department said Friday the EO authorizes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, DOD and the deparment’s subordinate officials to use secondary titles, such as “Secretary of War,” “Department of War” and “Deputy Secretary of War,” in official correspondence, public communications, ceremonial contexts and non-statutory documents within the executive branch. According to a White House fact sheet, the order requires all executive departments and agencies to recognize the secondary titles in internal and external communications and directs Hegseth to
The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, or DEVCOM, Armaments Center has partnered with the CIA and In-Q-Tel to advance Army priorities and accelerate the development and deployment of military capabilities to warfighters in support of national security missions. Army to Leverage IQT’s Tech Scouting Infrastructure “Our relationship with IQT combines specific U.S. Army technology needs with IQT’s global technology scouting and assessment network to ensure that we deliver innovative capabilities when and where they’re required,” Michael Santaspirt, chief futures officer at Army’s DEVCOM Armaments Center, said in a statement published Thursday. IQT is a not-for-profit strategic investor that identifies