President Joe Biden has nominated U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse to lead the Defense Intelligence Agency as director, and Maj. Gen. Heath Collins to oversee Missile Defense Agency as its director.
If confirmed, Collins will be promoted to the rank of lieutenant general, Defense Secretary and 2023 Wash100 top honoree Lloyd Austin announced Wednesday.
Kruse is currently the director’s adviser for military affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He has been in military service since 1991, and has been deployed to Osan Air Base in South Korea and Operation Inherent Resolve in Southwest Asia. From 2016 to 2019, he was director of intelligence of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
Collins is the program executive for ground-based weapon systems at MDA in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. He has been in the Air Force since 1993, becoming commander for the first time in 2008 upon his appointment to the Space-based Infrared Systems Space Squadron.
Among his many roles, Collins was program executive officer for fighters and bombers at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, as well as PEO for weapons and director of the Armament Directorate at Eglin AFB.
