Chris Behre is currently the Principal Engineer for Directed Energy Weapons to the Director for Electronic Warfare in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (OUSD (A&S)). In this capacity, he works directly with Principal Director for Directed Energy Modernization, OUSD (R&E) to maintain visibility across the Under Secretariats. Mr. Behre has been working in Directed Energy for over 20 years. He has been at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division since 2006, where he established a laser lethality laboratory, open air laser range testing and became the Laser and Optics Integrated Product Team (IPT) Lead for multiple programs including the Navy Laser Weapon System (LaWS) and Solid State Laser – Technology Maturation (SSL-TM).
In 2014 Mr. Behre accepted a detail to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) for Space Policy in where he overhauled the policy for “Management of Laser Illumination of Objects in Space”, DoDI3100.11. He is a Principal Engineer at Dahlgren, where he was recently Surface Navy Laser Weapon System Technical Director on the Directed Energy Division Staff at Dahlgren, providing oversight and guidance to the Navy Laser Family of Systems, which is deploying ten laser weapon systems by 2023. Mr. Behre has a Bachelor’s of Science in Electronic Engineering with a minor in Physics from Old Dominion University and Masters of Science in Systems Engineering with a concentration in Directed Energy, from the Naval Postgraduate School.