Mr. David McNeill is the Chief Engineer for the Missile Defense Agency.  As Chief Engineer, Mr. McNeill is responsible to the Director for Engineering for providing sound and integrated engineering and manufacturing processes and products; thorough element engineering controls and management and verification through audit; independent test, analysis, and assessment of failed and high risk events and engineering efforts; industrial and manufacturing readiness; integrated, reliable and sustainable ballistic missile defense elements; and competent next generation of project engineer leaders.  Serving as the Chief Engineer, Mr. McNeill’s objective is to bring the Ballistic Missile Defense System into being by providing authoritative and technically sound direction over a broad spectrum of technical and programmatic issues.

Prior to his Senior Executive Service appointment, Mr. McNeill served as the Chief Engineer for Targets and Countermeasures, serving as the single technical authority for 32 target launches.  He was also responsible for verifying System Requirements were executable, specification documents were accurate, and systems met final requirements.  Mr. McNeill also implemented and maintained responsibility of a rigorous Risk Program in support of MDA’s overall risk process.

Previous assignment with the Missile Defense Agency include Chief Engineer for United States Israeli Cooperative Program Office where Mr. McNeill served as the technical authority for the Arrow 2, Arrow 3, David Sling, and Iron Dome weapon systems.  He was responsible for establishing opportunities to further expand the layered Ballistic Missile Defense by exploiting existing technologies to improve Israeli Cooperative programs and improving Phased Adaptive Approach early warning of existing or upgraded Israeli Cooperative systems.

Mr. McNeill served for 25 years with the Aviation and Missile Command in the positions of Senior Design Engineer for the Research and Development Engineering Center; Senior Engineer for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense Project Office Live Fire Test and Evaluation; and Division Chief, Flight Test Planning and Analysis.  Mr. McNeill also served 3 years with the Space and Missile Defense Command as the Parametric Edno/Exo Lethality Simulation Program Manager.

Mr. McNeill has over 39 years of engineering experience.  He earned a bachelor’s of science  degree in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Alabama in Huntsville and obtained Level III Acquisition Professional Certification in Systems, Planning, Research Development, and Engineering.

Mr. McNeill possesses extensive leadership and hands-on technical expertise gained through increasingly demanding engineer positions involving major weapon systems.  He is level III certified in System Engineering and a member of the Acquisition Professional Community.  

Mr. McNeill was awarded the Missile Defense Agency Technical Star Award for exceptional achievements.