Troy Meink
Secretary of the Air Force
Troy Edward Meink is a native of Lemmon, South Dakota. He earned an undergraduate degree from South Dakota State University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Ohio State University. He served in the U.S. Air Force beginning as a KC-135 tanker navigator and instructor and served in Iraq.
Meink became a test engineer in the Missile Defense Agency, designing and evaluating ballistic missile test vehicles. He then headed development at the Military Satellite Communications Joint Program Office. He became program director for Transformational Satellite Communications System. He then served in the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) as a director in the office of the assistant secretary of defense and a director for signal intelligence systems acquisition.
Meink became Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force for Space, then assistant director of national intelligence for systems and resource analyses. He returned to NRO as the director of Geospatial Intelligence Systems Acquisition.
President Donald Trump appointed him to serve as Principal Deputy Director of NRO in 2020. He was named Secretary of the Air Force by President Trump in January 2025. He was confirmed by the Senate and sworn into office in May 2025.
In the News…
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink testified before the House Armed Services Committee this month regarding the cost to retrofit the luxury Qatari plane being considered to replace Air Force One. He also said that the process of retrofitting is classified, so he could not provide details.
Secretary Meink said, “It’s probably less than $400 million to retrofit that aircraft.”
The Air Force secretary also stated, “I think there has been a number thrown around, on the order of a billion dollars, but a lot of those costs associated with that are costs that we would’ve experienced anyway.”
Experts have theorized that the retrofitting process would include security upgrades and communication improvements to prevent espionage and defend against potential missile strikes.
