Chris "Alf" Athearn, Col USAF (Ret)

- Congressionally appointed Senior Military Acquisition Advisor providing strategic, technical, and programmatic advice to the AF service acquisition executive (SAE) on matters pertaining to procurement, research and development, advanced technology, test and evaluation, production, program management, systems engineering, and life cycle logistics.

- Assigned as Weapons Capacity Task Force Leader and designed a path to rapidly increase the capacity of long range weapons and the ability to rapidly produce them through worldwide distributed production nodes, using a diverse and expanded supply chain concept based on open architecture designs. Informed SECAF weapons investment decisions.

- Appointed by SAE to lead multiple Independent Review Teams (IRTs) to vector senior AF and DoD decisions on technical/programmatic milestones and acquisition strategies.

Long Range Systems Division Chief and Senior Program Manager for the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER), procurement responsibility for the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), the Miniature Air Launched Decoy (MALD) & MALD-J (Jammer), Foreign Military Sales (FMS) for these programs and the Sensor Fuzed Weapon (SFW), and one of the two the first AF hypersonic air-launched missile programs, Hypersonic Conventional Strategic Air-launched Weapon (HCSAW).

Progressed through various Air Force positions, starting as a Human Factors Engineer, broadening as an Aircraft Maintenance Officer, transitioning to a Program Manager, leading teams to navigate programs and government acquisition contracts to deliver weapon systems to the warfighter customer in support of national security objectives. Educated in National Security resourcing and strategy; exercised through 3 Pentagon assignments. Further enriched industry exposure and cross-service experience as 2X Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) Command billets.