Joe Tomczak

Joe Tomczak is an active-duty special operations pilot currently serving as SecAF Team Chief in the Secretary of the Air Force’s Executive Action Group. At the Pentagon, he leads a team of strategists, speechwriters, and public affairs officers from the Air Force and Space Force to support the Secretary’s engagements and strategic communications.

Prior to his current role on the Air Staff, Joe served as the Senior Executive Officer to the three-star Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs. He also brings experience to the Secretary of the Air Force’s team from his time at Air Force Special Operations Command headquarters, where he advised the three-star commander during a realignment of the organization’s policies and programs for strategic competition with China and Russia. Joe’s operational experience includes five combat deployments and more than 320 missions providing close air support for special operations forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. In 2019, he commanded the final AC-130U gunship deployment of the war in Afghanistan.

Joe graduated with a B.S. in political science from the U.S. Air Force Academy, which included an exchange semester at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. A distinguished graduate of the Air Command and Staff College and a graduate of the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, Joe also holds a Master of International Policy and Practice from the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.