32 years of military and civil service national security service in the Department of Defense, National Security Council, and the National Reconnaissance Office.  Currently serves on the Board of Directors of Mercury Systems, Inc.; Perspecta; BlackBerry; and LMI.  Chairs Mitre Corporation’s Air Force Advisory Board and is a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab.

The 25th Under Secretary of the Air Force from Jan 2015-July 2017, she led a global organization of more than 660,000 personnel and an annual budget of over $135 billion dollars.  She led efforts to improve space system resiliency, increase and improve weapon system inventories, and increase operational readiness.  After the 2017 Presidential inauguration and before confirmation of the new AF Secretary, she was Acting Secretary of the Air Force and the Secretary of Defense’s Principal DOD Space Advisor.

Prior to these positions, she was the Senate-confirmed Financial Management & Comptroller of the Air Force, responsible for financial policy and execution of the AF budget.  She served 19 years on the Joint Staff in multiple executive civilian positions including Vice Director of the Joint Staff J-8 Directorate where she advised Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Requirements Oversight Council on warfighting capabilities, global force management, and joint weapons system requirements.

From 2006-2007, she served on the National Security Staff at the White House, contributing to major policy issues across the federal government.  In the early 1990s, she was a senior systems engineer at the National Reconnaissance Office responsible for developing requirements and programs to improve national intelligence support to deployed users.

She retired from military service in 2008 as a Colonel with over 23 years of combined active duty and part-time reserve duty in operations/signals/electronic intelligence; programming; and plans.  Deployed in Operation Desert Storm/Southern Watch and supported operations in Bosnia.