SPACE SYMPOSIUM SPEAKERS

Maj Gen Jason Cothern

Maj Gen D. Jason Cothern, USSF

Deputy Director
Missile Defense Agency

Maj Gen D. Jason Cothern serves as the Missile Defense Agency’s Deputy Director and Program Executive for the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system. As Deputy Director, he oversees the Agency’s operational and Warfighter support in the development, testing, fielding, and sustainment of integrated, layered missile defense capabilities. As Program Executive for Ground-based Midcourse Defense, he is responsible for developing, testing, fielding, integrating, and sustaining the Nation’s strategic defense capability to protect the U.S. homeland against intermediate and long-range ballistic missile attacks. Maj Gen Cothern leads an organization consisting of more than 800 military members, government civilians, and contractors with fiscal responsibility exceeding $2.5B annually.

Maj Gen Cothern was commissioned in 1993 as an ROTC graduate of the University of Central Florida. His career has spanned a range of assignments primarily acquiring or planning for a variety of space systems, running the gamut from communications, signals intelligence, missile warning, force application, and launch. He has also served in various other domains to include US Strategic Command’s Center for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction and as Assistant Program Director for Development and Production of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Program Office, delivering fifth-generation fighters to the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and many international partners.

Prior to his assignment at the Missile Defense Agency, the general served as the Deputy Commander, Space Systems Command, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California, responsible for managing the research, design, development, acquisition and sustainment of space and missile systems, command and control, launch, and operational satellite systems. Space Systems Command manages a $13 billion annual budget for the DoD and employs 14,600 professionals to develop, acquire, launch, field and sustain space capabilities that protect joint warfighters and national interests in space.

Related Sessions

Featured Speaker: Maj. Gen. D. Jason Cothern

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

9:40 am - 10:00 am

Track: