‘It’s about the future’: Newly retired Gen. Van Ovost, the first woman to lead Transcom, reflects on her legacy
Since she entered U.S. Transportation Command’s headquarters in 2021 as the first woman to ever lead that top mobility hub, Gen. Jackie Van Ovost was determined to enable new and advanced capabilities and a stronger underlying technology infrastructure to pave the way for more data-informed decisions and sharper, real-time views into military assets worldwide.
“When I came in, I said that understanding the requirements as they’re being generated, and matching them to capacity, is the single most powerful capability we can have,” Van Ovost told DefenseScoop in a recent interview ahead of her retirement.
On Friday, her last day leading the command, the pioneering Air Force pilot’s boss confirmed that she was leaving Transcom and the joint force with a clearer and more comprehensive grasp of America’s arsenal and options for high-stakes logistics and in-demand equipment.
“Certainly [Van Ovost] was focused on this from the very beginning. But not just that. She’s been focused on also expanding our capability — what’s available to us. And she’s done a lot of things to increase capacity and commercial maritime assets and work on agreements between us and industry,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told DefenseScoop in a media roundtable immediately following the ceremony at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, where Van Ovost passed command of Transcom to Gen. Randall Reed. “And I think that’s given us a lot of possibilities going forward.”
As its name suggests, the command is the DOD’s primary manager for transportation. It’s responsible for integrated global mobility operations via land, air and sea — both in times of peace and war.
In an exclusive interview with DefenseScoop, Van Ovost noted that “coming from someone who started in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, where you just opened up a container and you’re like, ‘Wow, what’s in here?'” she understood on day one at Transcom that “the more you see about where the item is, the better decisions you can make about when and how to move it the most efficiently and effectively way possible for the warfighter.”
Early on, she established four guiding priorities to pursue during her tenure. Two of those — cyber mission assurance and driving decision advantage — placed a comprehensive focus on Transcom’s technology challenges at the time.
Van Ovost directed her team to work closely with the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO). Together, they facilitated many activities and projects to make sense of the heaps of military and commercial data sources the command should be applying to inform operations, and provide bird’s-eye views into DOD’s weapons and personnel placements all over the world via custom analytics dashboards and other tools.
“Anytime we have a crisis, we stand up an operational planning team and then our people that work on data are in the team right away — and they’re saying, ‘Okay, well, how do I help? What kind of data do you need to see to make decisions?’” she told DefenseScoop.
Among a wide range of missions under Van Ovost’s leadership, Transcom delivered more than $21 billion in weapons and ammunition to Ukraine for defense against Russia, and helped surge assets to U.S. Central Command as conflicts emerged and unfolded in the Middle East.
With each new mission, she noted, logistics experts and others involved are making decisions faster and with more precision.
“But when I think about the journey we have been on, I do think that decision advantage and cyber mission assurance have been some of the most consequential work that I was involved in. Certainly all of the great heroes around Transportation Command and our components that were involved from, from Afghanistan to Ukraine to Niger — all heroes and all good work. But it’s about the future, right? And so have I set Transcom up for that future?” she said.
Military operational environments are becoming increasingly contested in all domains, and the pace and complexities of mobility missions have only intensified for Transcom over the last three years.
“And should we go into conflict, we have to expand multiple times,” Van Ovost noted. “That’s why we need the data together, and that’s why we need to start with bots, with generative AI … and then move to predictive AI so that I can understand how to best lay in demand and capacity. But it’s a must. It is a must that we have this augmentation.”
When asked about Van Ovost’s legacy, Austin told DefenseScoop: “She’s a forward-thinking officer. And the impact that she’s had on the organization, and therefore all of DOD, I think will be remembered for a long time.”
At the Transcom change-of-command ceremony shortly before that press roundtable, Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown spotlighted her perseverance and influence as a “trailblazer” in the U.S. defense apparatus.
Among a variety of personal stories and anecdotes, the secretary mentioned how the Air Force Academy didn’t originally admit her the first time she applied.
“You wanted to fly Mach 2. But back then, women weren’t allowed to fly fighters. So once again, you made the path wider. And you became a test pilot — and you flew more than 30 aircraft, including F-15s and F-16s,” Austin said.
“You’ve often said that it’s hard to be what you cannot see. Well, America looks at Gen. Jackie Van Ovost and sees a leader,” he told her.
As for her next steps, the retired commander is now looking to divert that same passion and energy to empowering minority students all around the country, with aims to ultimately help expand and empower the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) talent pipeline.
“I think we’ve made some real inroads, and I just wish the best for everyone,” Van Ovost said.
