Jason Suslavich
Congressional Advisor to the Board of Directors since July 2021

Jason has over fifteen years working in Congress, most recently was the Director of National Security Policy and Senior Advisor to Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska. He served prior as a Senior Policy Advisor and Military Legislative Assistant to Congressman Don Young of Alaska, the current Dean of the U.S. House of Representatives, and as a Legislative Assistant to Congressman Patrick McHenry of North Carolina. Jason received his bachelor’s in International Relations and Affairs from John’s Hopkins University in 2005 and is native of Boston, Massachusetts.

While working for Senator Sullivan, he drafted four major pieces of missile defense legislation – the Missile Defense Defend and Deter Act of 2016, the Advancing America’s Missile Defense Act of 2017, Integrated Missile Defense Act of 2018, and the Modernizing America’s Missile Defense Act of 2019 – and helped to enact many of the provisions within these bills into law. Some of this provisions include:

• Authorizing and helping to fund a 50% increase to homeland missile defense capacity, prompting the construction of a new missile field at Fort Greely, Alaska
• Creating a program of record for the development of a persistent space-based sensor architecture capable of supporting the ballistic missile defense system and accelerating the on-orbit deployment of this architecture
• Fully funding the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) development of the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS)
• Accelerating the creation of a hypersonic missile defense program and ensuring deploys in conjunction with a persistent space-based missile defense sensor program
• Creating a yearly flight-testing requirement for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system
• Safeguarding MDA’s special and unique acquisition authorities
• Supporting the creation of and funding for the Long Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR)
• Encouraging MDA’s use of small launch complex in Alaska for regional missile defense testing for both domestic and international customers

In addition to his work on missile defense, during his time on Capitol Hill, Jason helped architect, draft, and enact over 100 provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act on various policy areas including the Arctic, space, acquisition reform, and Indo-Pacific force structure and design.

Mr. Suslavich recently left the Hill to become the Director of National Security Space Policy for Blue Origin.