Marcia Holmes Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Mission Capabilities U.S. Department of Defense

Marcia Holmes serves as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Mission Capabilities. In this role, she supervises an organization whose mission is to accelerate the development and integration of new technologies to maintain United States’ technological superiority. Her responsibilities include identifying, incubating, and transitioning technologies, systems, and system-of-systems to close time-critical gaps in high-priority missions.

Prior to this position she served as the Deputy Director for Hypersonics, Directed Energy, Space, and Rapid Acquisition, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics and Technology) at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. In this position, Ms. Holmes supported the Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office to quickly and efficiently research, develop, prototype, test, evaluate, procure, and field critical enabling technologies and capabilities, including long-range hypersonic weapon systems, high-energy lasers, cyber solutions, and other innovative concepts that address near-term and mid-term threats, consistent with the National Defense Strategy and the Army’s modernization priorities.

Ms. Holmes served as the Deputy Director, Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Aviation and Missile Center System Simulation, Software, and Integration Directorate. During her tenure, Ms. Holmes also served as Acting Director providing lifecycle software engineering, modeling, and simulation, hardware-in-the-loop, software airworthiness, system security engineering, and program protection capabilities to the Army’s missile and aviation communities, Missile Defense Agency, Space and Missile Defense Command, and other Services and government agencies.

From 2013 to 2016, Ms. Holmes served as the Chief Engineer, Program Executive Office Missiles and Space. In this position, she held technical oversight and authority for 31 major defense programs spanning eight critical Army Project Offices across all phases of the acquisition lifecycle. These systems encompassed a broad portfolio to include the Aviation, Fires, Maneuver, Air, and Space domains. Ms. Holmes orchestrated an integrated early evaluation of advanced threats against emerging weapon system designs, and she served as the Army representative to the Missile Defense Agency’s Joint Systems Engineering Team.

Ms. Holmes began her career as a defense contractor and joined the government workforce with the CombatCapabilities Development Command’s Aviation and Missile Center in 2000. Ms. Holmes supported a widevariety of programs to include Patriot, Stinger, Sentinel, Surface-Launched Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile, Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, and Integrated Air and Missile Defense.

Ms. Holmes graduated with honors from Athens State College with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics, and she completed her Master of Science in Program Management through the Naval Postgraduate School. She is a member of the Honorable Order of Saint Barbara, a U.S. military honor society for Army and Marine Corps Field and Air Defense Artillery, that admits both civilians and military members. She has also received the Achievement Medal for Civilian Service, Meritorious Civilian Service Medal, and Superior Civilian Service medal.