Byron Gray, Director

Byron Gray is an active-duty officer in the United States Air Force. He was commissioned in 2013 as a ROTC graduate of the University of Colorado. He graduated Joint Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance AFB, Oklahoma in July 2015 and completed C-17 initial qualification in March 2016. He has served in various leadership positions at the squadron and wing levels and has had multiple operational deployments.

Most notably, in August 2021 he served as the Chief of Tactics of the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron. His team prepared crews for 287 missions during Operation Allies Refuge which enabled the transport of 124,000 Afghan Refugees to safety. He was awarded his DFC as the Aircraft Commander and two-ship lead for one of the seven aircraft tasked with the covert Joint Tactical Exfiltration of Kabul in the final day of the Kabul evacuation.

Byron currently serves as the Chief, Next Generation Air-Refueling System (NGAS), Strategy, Plans, Requirements, and Programs Directorate, Headquarters Air Mobility Command (AMC), Scott AFB, Illinois. He is responsible for overseeing the 140-person
NGAS Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) team. The NGAS AoA is a Secretary of the Air Force-directed study that will shape requirements and determine the technology development for the NGAS, with an anticipated delivery in the mid-2030s. Before his
current position, Maj. Gray was the Long-Range Branch Chief, Air Refueling Directorate, 618th Air Operations Center, Scott AFB, Illinois. 

Byron has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Denver and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.