Mr. Benjamin Tran is the Chief for the Capabilities Development Office (CDO), Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and Special Operations Forces (SOF) Directorate, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (AFB), Ohio. He is responsible for leading the planning, development and fielding of new operational capabilities for Air Force ISR and SOF platforms and related sub-systems. Mr. Tran started his career in 2001 as an engineering co-op student with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). While a civil servant, he gained experience in all phases of the acquisition process including research, development, test and evaluation, prototyping, experimentation, production and sustainment. He has worked on a broad range of programs including Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T), cruise missiles, autonomy, artificial intelligence, machine learning, multidomain sensing payloads and flight control systems for both manned and unmanned aircraft. Mr. Tran served as a Senior Experimentation Lead for the USAF Strategic Development Planning and Experimentation (SDPE) Office where he stood up the Skyborg Vanguard program. He also served as a Program Manager for the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO) where he was responsible for standing up the Avatar, Motley Crew and Perdix prototyping programs to demonstrate novel autonomy, MUM-T and UAS swarming capabilities across the Joint Services. In 2010, Mr. Tran volunteered for deployment to Afghanistan as a Liaison Officer for a small Unmanned Aerial System (sUAS) helping US Army Route Clearance Patrols find and eliminate Improvised Explosive Device (IED) threats. He also volunteered for deployment with similar sUAS systems to both Iraq in 2011 and Afghanistan in 2014. Mr. Tran most recently served as Branch Chief for the Sensing Management Branch in the AFRL Sensors Directorate where he oversaw the research and development of novel artificial intelligence, machine learning and predictive analytics capabilities for ISR missions.