Pentagon names 6 appointees to lead the CTO’s top technology efforts

The six senior officials appointed by Pentagon leadership to oversee the recently-restructured “critical technology areas” and accelerate the military’s adoption of each of those top-priority capabilities, were officially announced Thursday evening via social media.

Posts on Instagram and X from official accounts for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and Chief Technology Officer spotlighted brief bios for each of those “accountable senior officials” who will lead the Defense Department’s new CTAs.

“The six CTAs are department-wide imperatives designed to maintain American military dominance — and now, each one will have accountable leaders leading the tangible ‘sprints’ under each CTA. Each sprint will be designed to deliver advanced capabilities to our warfighters rapidly and at scale,” the posts stated.

For years the Pentagon has grappled with long-standing challenges that have stymied the military’s pursuits to integrate emerging technologies across the back office and in operational settings. 

The DOD’s list of critical technology areas has included the most pressing challenges and capabilities needed for modern warfare since it was conceptualized. In November, Pentagon CTO and Undersecretary for R&E Emil Michael revealed his plan to trim the department’s list of 14 CTAs established during the Biden administration down to six, with renamed categories.

The focus areas in the updated catalog include: applied artificial intelligence; biomanufacturing; contested logistics technologies; quantum and battlefield information dominance; scaled directed energy; and scaled hypersonics.

At the time of the reset, Michael suggested that his team’s overarching aim was to prioritize and focus investments in select technologies “that will deliver the greatest impact, the fastest results and the most decisive advantage on the battlefield.”

Each of the six officials who were tapped to lead the new CTAs have prior experience in DOD or the military.

According to the social media posts and their online bios, the six appointees are:

• Applied Artificial Intelligence (AAI) — Cameron Stanley, a former national security transformation lead for AWS and chief of the DOD Algorithmic Warfare Cross Functional Team (previously known as Project Maven), who was also recently hired as the department’s Chief Digital and AI Officer.
• Biomanufacturing (BIO) — Dr. Gary Vora, the Navy’s former principal scientist for biotechnology, who also initiated and led the Naval Research Lab’s basic research efforts in the microbiological sciences.
• Contested Logistics Technologies (LOG) — Dr. Robert Mantz, who has more than four decades of federal service, including senior roles at the Army Research Office and DARPA.
• Quantum and Battlefield Information Dominance (Q-BID) — Dr. Kevin Rudd, a specialist in electronic warfare, radar, RF systems and advanced sensing, who previously served at DARPA and the Office of Naval Research.
• Scaled Directed Energy (SCADE) — Dr. Christopher Vergien, an expert in DE and national defense technology, who previously served at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
• Scaled Hypersonics (SHY) — Dr. James Weber, an engineer with more than 30 years of experience in the research and development of hypersonic systems, including at the Air Force Research Lab.

The Pentagon has not yet released a detailed plan for the CTA’s forthcoming “tangible” technology sprints.