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Dear Members and Friends,
Every January, MDAA convenes our annual National Missile Defender of the Year award ceremony in Alexandria to complete the previous year the honorable way and to launch the New Year with vision, purpose, inspiration, and momentum. It is our collective moment to honor America’s best of the best in the Missile Defense mission across the six service branches and to recognize what we achieved together in 2025 as we look ahead to the New Year of 2026.
In that spirit of reflection, as the Chairman and Founder of MDAA, enclosed below is my executive summary of 2025: the milestones we achieved, the champions we rallied, and the progress we drove in Missile Defense to make our Nation and World a safer place.
"2025 set in place the greatest conditions in history for the evolution, development, and deployment of Missile Defense for our nation and for the Western World. This golden endeavor is in alignment with MDAA's mission statement, written at the founding of MDAA in 2002. We have manifested. We have dreamed big. And we are living our Dream to give the Dream. The Dream has come true.
This is a Missile Defense Dream we formed in 1980, and we have relentlessly pursued it for more than 45 years, through 8 Presidential Administrations, Democratic and Republican Congressional majorities, JCS and Service Chiefs, and through SDIO, BMDO, MDA, and now GDA. We have relentlessly pursued illumination, elevation, education, and advocacy to the American public and to the world. We have never left our dream. We have built momentum on momentum, believed in it, and driven Missile Defense as an invincible mission for our nation and for the world. We have led, gathered, educated, and championed thousands of leaders across the nation and across the world to lead and implement the dream of Missile Defense and to make our nation and world safer.
In 2025, we were at the core of the Missile Defense Enterprise—crucial players in the creation and development of the Golden Dome for America (GDA) and NATO’s Eastern Flank Deterrence Line (EFDL). We are a catalyst for rapid innovation and fielding of new technologies. In 2025 we took passive acoustic sensor innovations from the backyard to the battlefield with full NATO funding within a year. Ukraine now has 20,000+ acoustic sensor units operationally deployed across the country, providing full coverage of the border and critical assets. In this process we supported 11 live tests and demonstrations across multiple countries throughout 2025, continuing to drive momentum and rapid innovation into the future.
In 2025, we created the ARTEMIS academic program—focused on space and missile defense in the Indo-Pacific AOR—with the University of Hawaii and launched its first cohort. We graduated the 4th cohort and launched the 5th cohort of our SHIELD program with the University of Southern California. The SHIELD program has produced 96 graduates—many of whom have become significant leaders in the Missile Defense Enterprise nationally and globally. Many of their capstone projects have been implemented in law and in official courses of action.
In 2025, we hosted and led 5 Missile Defense conferences across four countries. We recognized 84 Missile Defenders of the Year in 7 award ceremonies around the world, reaching the major milestone of 1,000 Missile Defenders of the Year awarded since the first ceremony in 2011. We are embedding World Championship culture!
In 2025, we strengthened our Board and enhanced our advocacy with the addition of retired General Glenn VanHerck, former Commander of NORAD and USNORTHCOM, and with retired Lieutenant General Jamie Jarrard, former Deputy Commander of U.S. Army Pacific.
2026, here we come! We are in the right place, at the right time, for the right reasons. We will excel and continue to lead this historic momentum to make our nation and our world safe through Missile Defense."
Winners Associate with Winners to Win!
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