On April 1, 2014, Wendy M. Masiello of the U.S. Air Force was named director of the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), which handles procurement of everything from uniforms to jet aircraft for the U.S. military. DCMA has more than 12.000 employees and manages more than 330,000 active contracts. With the title came a promotion to lieutenant general.
Masiello is from Lubbock, Texas, and graduated from Monterey High School in 1976. She remained in Lubbock for college, attending Texas Tech University. While in school, she participated in ROTC and graduated in December 1980 with a Bachelor of Business Administration in marketing and a commission in the Air Force.
Her first assignment was as a procurement and production officer at contractor General Electric. After getting her feet wet there, she was sent to the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. Masiello earned an M.S. in logistics management in 1984.
She was assigned progressively more responsible positions in contracting and related disciplines for the next several years. In 1998, Masiello took time for more schooling, this time earning an M.S. in national resource strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces the following year.
Masiello then resumed working on Air Force contracts and procurements. However, in July 2002, she was made deputy commander of the 95th Air Base Wing at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The 95th Air Base Wing was responsible for running the base that is the home to much of the test flying by the U.S. military. By the end of 2002, Masiello was made wing commander.
In 2004, Masiello returned to contracting at Wright-Patterson. The following year, she did a tour in Iraq as principal assistant for contracting forces in Iraq/Afghanistan in Baghdad.
Masiello returned to the United States, this time to Washington, in 2006 as associate deputy assistant Air Force secretary for contracting. In 2007, by now a brigadier general, she was named program executive officer for Combat and Mission Support and in 2011 Masiello was named deputy assistant secretary for contracting, a post she filled until being assigned to her current job.
Masiello is married and her husband does have to salute her. Tom Masiello is a major general in the Air Force. The Masiellos have two sons, both of whom are in the Air Force.
-Steve Straehley
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