Join the Alliance

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Winners and presenters at the 2019 NORAD & USNORTHCOM Missile Warning and Defender of the Year Award Ceremony in Colorado Springs, Colorado on June 7, 2019.

On the day after the 75th Anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Europe that established the United States as a world power in its collective leadership of the Allies to turn the tide for victory, we brought forward the NORAD & USNORTHCOM Missile Warning and Defender of the Year in Colorado Springs, Colorado. A recognition of great leadership and excellence with our allied partners in defense of North America, that is critical to the defense of Europe and western democracy today as it was 75 years ago. When deterrence fails, the world looks to the United States and its capacity and resources based in its homeland to prepare, plan, and support to overmatch with the goal of ending conflict quickly. For if the United States cannot defend itself, it cannot defend or assure its allies around the world.

The mission to defend North America falls under the responsibility of the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command  (NORTHCOM) Commander, which has grown in importance as today the missile threat to North America has increased to its highest levels since the 1980s. Long distance, over the horizon (cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic glide) missiles from air, sea, and land platforms over the Arctic are being demonstrated, developed, and deployed by the near peers. Intrusions into North American airspace are happening more frequently and with much more sophistication and complexity. The threat has also continued to increase and become more visible from rogue nations like North Korea and Iran, who have continued their ballistic missile programs. Which means it is important to remain vigilant and continue to expand our homeland defenses in both capability and capacity to stay ahead of the threat. All of these threats across the domains – space, cyber, air, sea, and land have to be detected, tracked, and defended with solutions to negate them by NORAD and NORTHCOM. There are men and women on watch 24/7, 365 days a year from Canada and the United States in NORAD and NORTHCOM that operate and command the sensors and defensive solutions across the domains to defend the population of North America.

Last Friday, we were honored to bring together and recognize the best, in their excellence of leadership on missile warning and missile defense, of this collective and extended team of NORAD and NORTHCOM based in Colorado, along with the 460th Operations Group, that support and operate the Defense Support Program (DSP) and Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS), and for the first time the 100th Missile Defense Brigade, and their best firing crew that operate the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system from Shriver Air Force Base, Colorado .

100th Missile Defense Brigade

Staff Sergeant Ryan Biggs

100th MDB Awardee

***

Sergeant First Class Curtis Guitreau

100th MDB Awardee

***

Sergeant First Class Patricia Young

100th MDB Awardee

***

Major Benjamin Brown

100th MDB Awardee

***

Major Jason DeLange

100th MDB Awardee

***

Lieutenant Colonel Russell Porter Grant

100th MDB Awardee

***

460th Operations Group

Staff Sergeant Jake Harris

460th Operations Group

***

Staff Sergeant Michelle Holt

460th Operations Group

***

Technical Sergeant Christopher Kohler

460th Operations Group

***

Master Sergeant Thomas Jedreski

460th Operations Group

***

Senior Master Sergeant Carlos Martinez

460th Operations Group

***

First Lieutenant Jordan Mays

460th Operations Group

***

First Lieutenant Thu Pham

460th Operations Group

***

Captain Jason Laboy

460th Operations Group

***

Captain Robert Mathews

460th Operations Group

***

Flight Lieutenant Gene Elliot

460th Operations Group

***

North American Aerospace Defense Command

Technical Sergeant Jeremiah Grenfell

NORAD NCO Missile & Space Professional Nominee

***

Master Sergeant Michael Benson

NORAD NCO Missile & Space Professional Awardee

***

Major Garrett Milne

NORAD Officer Missile & Space Professional Nominee

***

Major Jeffrey Fulton

NORAD Officer Missile & Space Professional Nominee

***

Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Stevens

NORAD Officer Missile & Space Professional Nominee

***

Lieutenant Colonel John Ferko

NORAD Officer Missile & Space Professional Awardee

***

Mr. Steven Moritz

NORAD Civilian Missile & Space Professional Awardee

***

U.S. Northern Command

Lieutenant Colonel Craig Cotner

USNORTHCOM Military Awardee

***

Mr. Lonnie Calloway

USNORTHCOM Civilian Awardee

***

Mr. Kermit Neal

USNORTHCOM Lifetime Achievement Awardee

***

This marks the 1,000th alert of MDAA.

 

 

 

 

Mission Statement

MDAA’s mission is to make the world safer by advocating for the development and deployment of missile defense systems to defend the United States, its armed forces and its allies against missile threats.

MDAA is the only organization in existence whose primary mission is to educate the American public about missile defense issues and to recruit, organize, and mobilize proponents to advocate for the critical need of missile defense. We are a non-partisan membership-based and membership-funded organization that does not advocate on behalf of any specific system, technology, architecture or entity.