Colonel John G. Dayton is the Senior Materiel Leader for the Mission Systems Architecture and Systems Engineering Group, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center. In this role, he is responsible for developing and maintaining government reference architectures, standards, and interoperability design requirements for all Air Force aircraft and weapon programs in support of the Integrating Program Executive Officer for Mission Systems. Col Dayton advances Air Force, Joint, and International horizontal “integration by design” across legacy and next-generation aircraft through the development and fielding of mission system architectures and standards that enable advanced warfighting system-of-systems capabilities, better business outcomes, and the agile capability pipelines necessary to win . He directly leads the team responsible for the development and maturation of the Agile Mission Suite Government Reference Architecture, Open Mission Systems, Universal Command and Control Interface, Universal Armament Interface, and others; develops advanced mission systems implementations, prototypes, and platform integration strategies; tests and verifies advanced capabilities and open architecture compliance; and provides modern digital infrastructure for advanced aircraft development.
Colonel Dayton is a 2003 Distinguished Graduate of the United States Air Force Academy where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering. He is a Program Manager and Developmental Engineer with broad leadership experience at both Air Force and DoD levels across acquisition, sustainment, scientific, test, and operational intelligence assignments. Colonel Dayton served as a program manager in the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office; Materiel Leader for the High Speed Vehicle Technology Program in the Air Force Research Laboratory; Executive Officer to the Commander, Air Force Materiel Command; and Chief of Staff for the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategic, Space, and Intelligence Portfolio Management, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment. He holds a Master of Engineering in Thermal Science and Fluid Dynamics from the University of Florida with engineering experience in weapon integration; turbine engine test, and hypersonic technology development. Colonel Dayton also completed the Air Force Intelligence Officer Course in 2008 followed by an operational tour in F-15E unit-level intelligence and served as the Air Force’s deployed Senior Intelligence Officer at Bagram Air Base in 2011.
Prior to this assignment, Colonel Dayton served as the Deputy Director for Information Dominance Programs, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics where he guided the planning, programming, preparation and presentation of budget materials, and external engagement strategies of all acquisition and modernization activities across several Air Force mission areas, including command and control; airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; business systems; enterprise information technology; and offensive and defensive cyber.