Air Force Shakes Up Acquisition Leadership

The top of the Air Force’s acquisition enterprise is in the midst of a major overhaul, with the Senate having confirmed a new four-star general to oversee acquisition from the Pentagon and Air Force Materiel Command getting downgraded from a four- to three-star command. 

The Senate confirmed Lt. Gen. Dale R. White’s promotion to general in the newly created role of “Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Critical Major Weapon Systems,” where he will oversee all the Air Force’s highest-profile programs while reporting directly to Deputy Secretary of Defense Steven Feinberg. 

Other changes to top acquisition roles include:

Lt. Gen. Linda S. Hurry is nominated to lead AFMC, which until now has been a four-star command. Hurry, the acting commander, is currently the deputy and and would become AFMC’s first three-star commander since its establishment in 1992. AFMC includes 89,000 military and civilian personnel and manages an $80 billion annual budget. It has been without a permanent leader since July, when Gen. Duke Z. Richardson retired.
Maj. Gen. Luke C.G. Cropsey was nominated to succeed White as military deputy to the Air Force’s Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. Cropsey has spent the past three years leading the Air Force’s expansive command, control, and communications/battle management portfolio.

Under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the military is under orders to reduce the general officer ranks by 10 percent and to cut 20 percent of four-star jobs. To meet that mark, the Air Force has so far downgraded command of U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) and AFMC to three-star billets, and is expected to downgrade Air Mobility Command from four to three stars, as well. Each military department’s top Judge Advocate General has been reduced from three- to two stars.

AMC appears set to follow, now that its commander, Gen. John D. Lamontagne, has been nominated to become Air Force Vice Chief of Staff. Once he is confirmed, the Pentagon will be able to fill the vacancy with a lieutenant general. 

Hurry is a career logistics and maintenance officer who has commanded at the squadron, group, and wing level. Before her time as AFMC deputy, she was director of logistics on the Air Staff and head of the Defense Logistics Agency’s aviation division. 

Air Force Materiel Command was founded in 1992 as part of an Air Force reorganization that merged Air Force Systems Command and Air Force Logistics Command. Like AFMC, those predecessor organizations were led by four-star generals dating back to 1959. 

With White reporting directly to Feinberg, his position will technically be a Department of Defense job and not count against the limit on the number of Air Force four-star billets. 

Hegseth and Feinberg have embraced centralizing control over programs. White’s new role mirrors in some way the role Space Force Gen. Michael A. Guetlein has as Director for Golden Dome, responsible for the entire air and missile defense project. Multiple media outlets have also reported plans to consolidate oversight of Navy submarine programs. 

White’s portfolio includes the new F-47 air dominance fighter, the B-21 bomber family of systems, the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile, and the VC-25B Air Force One replacement. All told, those programs add up to $20 billion in fiscal 2026 alone. White will do his work at the Pentagon, “assisted by a small, highly specialized staff resident” in the building, an official said. 

Hegseth rolled out ambitious acquisition reforms in November, intended to streamline the requirements processes, make program management teams more flexible and accountable, and prioritize speed as programs’ key performance metric. Congress is also working to enhance the speed of acquisition, with new reforms included in the National Defense Authorization Act, passed Dec. 17. The President is expected to sign the measure soon.