In January 2022, Dr. Timothy Grayson was appointed by the Secretary of the Air Force to be the Special Assistant to the SecAF for Mission-Centered Analysis and Operational Imperatives, where he is responsible for implementing the secretary of the Air Force's Operational Imperatives. Prior to that, he was the the director of the Strategic Technology Office (STO). In this role, he leads the office in development of breakthrough technologies to enable warfighters to field, operate, and adapt distributed, joint, multi-domain combat capabilities at continuous speed. These technologies include sensing, communications, and electronic warfare technology and the supporting tools and decision aids needed to compose, integrate, and operate complex combat architectures. Grayson came to STO in 2018 from a varied career in government and industry. Most recently he was the founder and president of Fortitude Mission Research LLC, a consulting company specializing in organizational and operational strategy development and technology analysis related to defense, security, and intelligence. His primary client was DARPA, and in this role, he provided direct support to the Deputy Secretary of Defense’s modernization study, of which DARPA was the lead in the fall of 2017. Grayson helped spearhead the project that resulted in “A Blueprint for Winning,” a framework for how to modernize the Defense Department for the 21st century.

Grayson has extensive government experience. He spent several years as a senior intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Directorate of Science and Technology and culminating in a tour at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Prior to the CIA, Dr. Grayson was a program manager and senior scientist at DARPA. He initiated new programs in space situation awareness and networked sensing and also managed DARPA’s quick reaction program portfolio, successfully deploying technology to Afghanistan during the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Grayson holds a doctorate in physics from University of Rochester, where he specialized in quantum optics, and a Bachelor of Science in physics from University of Dayton with minors in mathematics and computer science.