President Joe Biden has nominated national security veterans Frank Kendall and Gina Ortiz Jones to serve as secretary and undersecretary of the U.S. Air Force, respectively.
Kendall, a three-time Wash100 Award winner, previously worked at the Pentagon as undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics and principal deputy undersecretary, the White House said Tuesday.
He currently sits on the boards of Leidos (NYSE: LDOS) and Leonardo Electronics USA. He previously worked at Raytheon as vice president of engineering.
Kendall is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is a retired U.S. Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and a human rights attorney and has over four decades of experience in defense acquisition, engineering, management and national security affairs.
Jones served in the U.S. Air Force as an intelligence officer and backed close air support operations as part of the 18th Air Support Operations Group during her deployment to Iraq. She previously worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency, where she served as part of the Libya Crisis Intelligence Cell, a member of U.S. Africa Command in Germany and as special adviser to DIA’s deputy director.
She was senior adviser of the intelligence community for trade enforcement at the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center. At the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, she was a director for investment with oversight of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States portfolio.
