Acquisition professional Keith DeVries has been named the new director of the Department of Defense’s Manufacturing Technology, or ManTech, a unit within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.
Immediately before his appointment, DeVries served as ManTech’s deputy director who oversaw top-priority defense technology investments and facilitated access to emerging technologies, the DOD said Tuesday.
As ManTech director, he will lead the department’s initiatives on the speedy adoption of innovative manufacturing methods to ensure that the U.S. military continues to be at the forefront of technological advances.
The projects that DeVries previously handled as deputy director include the GAMMA-H initiative, an endeavor geared to encourage nontraditional contractors and small businesses to advance additive manufacturing processes for producing complex parts of hypersonic weapons systems.
Before his assignment as ManTech deputy director, DeVries managed the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Manufacturing Science and Technology Program aimed at advancing the DOD’s modernization priorities and reducing acquisition and sustainment costs of advanced technologies.
The executive’s previous experience also includes various roles at the Naval Surface Warfare Center’s divisions on radar technologies and power and energy.
A member of the Defense Acquisition Corps, DeVries holds a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the Michigan Technological University and a master’s degree in business administration from Ball State University.
As ManTech director, he succeeds Tracy Frost, who was appointed in June as the technology industrial innovation base director under the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Science and Technology.
