Peter Levine
Commissioner
Lisa Disbrow
Commissioner
Ellen Lord
Vice Chair
Robert Hale
Chair
Raj Shah
Commissioner
Eric Fanning
Commissioner
Dr. Diem Salmon
Commissioner
Jonathan Burks
Commissioner
Dr. Arun Seraphin
Commissioner
Susan Davis
Commissioner
Dr. Jamie Morin
Commissioner
Jennifer Santos
Commissioner
David Norquist
Commissioner
Peter Levine is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Defense Analyses and a former Senate staffer. He has served as the Deputy Chief Management Officer of the Department of Defense—the senior Pentagon official responsible for defense management reform.
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.
Senate Confirmed in August 2017, the Honorable Ellen M. Lord formally served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (A&S). In this capacity, she was responsible to the Secretary of Defense for all matters pertaining to acquisition; developmental testing; contract administration; logistics and materiel readiness; installations and environment; operational energy; chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons; the acquisition workforce; and the defense industrial base.
The Honorable Robert F. Hale is currently an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a Senior Executive Advisor at Booz Allen Hamilton. From 2009 until 2014 Mr. Hale served as Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer at the Department of Defense. During those years he managed $600 billion budgets in time of war and oversaw efforts by the Department to minimize the problems caused by the 2013 sequestration and government shutdown.
Raj Shah is the Managing Partner of Shield Capital, an investment firm focused on technologies applicable to both the commercial and defense markets. He is also the chairman of Resilience Insurance, a start-up powering new approaches to cyber insurance and security. Previously he ran the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx), reporting to the Secretary of Defense.
Eric Fanning is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), the leading advocacy organization for the aerospace and defense industry with nearly 350 companies in its membership – ranging from multinational prime contractors to family-owned businesses. As AIA’s leader, Fanning develops the association’s strategic priorities and works with member CEOs to advocate for policies and responsible budgets that keep our country strong, bolster our capacity to innovate and spur our economic growth.
Diem Salmon currently works at Anduril Industries, a defense technology company, and is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for New American Security (CNAS). Diem has worked in the national security field for over 10 years, including the private sector, non-profit, and Congress, with a specific emphasis on defense budgets and requirements.
Jonathan Burks is Vice President of Walmart’s Global Public Policy team and former partner at the Brunswick Group. Burks held several prominent positions while working for Speaker of the House Paul Ryan including chief of staff and advised on national security and defense matters. Prior to that, he served as policy advisor to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and was a White House staffer in the George W. Bush administration.
Dr. Arun A. Seraphin is a Professional Staff Member on the staff of the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services. His areas of responsibility include acquisition policy, Pentagon management issues, Department of Defense’s science and technology programs, information technology systems, technology transition issues, defense laboratories, Small Business Innovation Research program, manufacturing programs, and test and evaluation programs. As such he assists Senators in their oversight of DOD policies and programs, including in the authorization of budgets, civilian nominations, legislative initiatives, and hearings.
In 2000, Davis challenged three-term Republican incumbent Brian Bilbray in what was then the 49th District, winning with 50 percent of the vote. Her district was renumbered the 53rd District after the 2000 Census redistricting and made somewhat more Democratic than its predecessor. Following the redistricting, she was reelected eight times without much difficulty. She is the first Democrat to represent what is now the 53rd district for more than one term in over half a century. The only other Democrat to represent this district since the Harry Truman administration, Lynn Schenk, was toppled by Bilbray in the 1994 Republican wave.
Jamie M. Morin is vice president of Defense Systems Operations in the Defense Systems Group at The Aerospace Corporation. He leads Aerospace’s technical support to the senior-most levels of the Department of Defense and Department of the Air Force. Morin also is executive director of the Center for Space Policy and Strategy, which provides objective analysis and comprehensive research to ensure well-informed, technically defensible, and forward-looking space policy across the civil, military, intelligence, and commercial space sectors
Ms. Santos served as a naval research and development investment executive for the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, and as deputy assistant secretary of defense for industrial policy. Santos played an important role in the Pentagon’s efforts in its COVID-19 response to expand and protect the industrial base.
Mr. Norquist has 30 years of experience in federal financial management and national security. He began his career as a Presidential Management Fellow and a Program Budget Analyst for the Department of the Army. Mr. Norquist was appointed as the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer on June 2, 2017, and served as the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense on all budgetary and financial matters. He supported the National Defense Strategy (NDS) through the development and execution of the Department’s annual budget of more than $680 billion.
Newsletter Sign-up
We're scouring the web, talking to our partners and reading dozens of articles to collect the most pressing content on PPBE. Sign up and we'll deliver a weekly newsletter with all this great material.