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…
The U.S. Air Force has deployed F-22 Raptors as part of Operation Epic Fury. The fifth-generation advanced stealth aircraft have conducted precision strikes and are capable of electronic warfare. Lockheed Martin produced a mockup of an updated version of the F-22 at the War Symposium last month that includes expanded fuel storage and extra sensor pods, which the service branch has begun testing.
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said at the symposium, “Our focus is to deliver mission effective capabilities faster, and to do that we must innovate faster than our adversaries.”
“I believe that you need three things to be successful in delivering that capability to the joint force – talent, empowerment, and the right resources,” Secretary Meink said. “The entire acquisition enterprise is doing the hard work to think through these changes and make sure we do this right.”
