B. Chance Saltzman

He also commanded the 460th Operations Group and Aerospace Data Facility-Colorado.

As a general officer, Saltzman has been called the "father of multi-domain operations" for his work in leading the Air Force multi-domain command and control effort.

He was also the first non-flying officer to serve as deputy commander of the United States Air Forces Central Command.

Bradley Chance Saltzman (born 1969) is a United States Space Force general who is the second and current chief of space operations.

Saltzman was born to Belinda C. Troutman in Daviess County, Kentucky, in 1969.

His father and grandfather were in the United States Army.

He grew up in Bowling Green, Kentucky, attending Bowling Green High School where he played tennis.

In 1991, he graduated from Boston University and was commissioned into the United States Air Force.

He is a career missile and space operations officer with operational experience as a Minuteman III launch officer and as a satellite operator for the National Reconnaissance Office.

Saltzman studied at Boston University on an Air Force scholarship, graduating in 1991 with a B.A. degree in history.

Saltzman was commissioned into the United States Air Force on May 15, 1991, as a second lieutenant through Boston University’s Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps program.

Saltzman underwent undergraduate missile training at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, in 1992, less than a year after commissioning into the Air Force.

He later completed a Master of Public Administration degree at the University of Montana in 1994 and a Master of Strategic Management degree from the George Washington University School of Business in 1998.

He also completed seminar programs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Harvard Kennedy School.

While assigned to the 341st Missile Wing, he competed in the inaugural Guardian Challenge Space Competition and led the team to the 1995 Blanchard Trophy for the best missile operations squadron.

In 1996, Saltzman was selected for the Air Force Intern Program where he was assigned to the Air Force Office of the Director of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance and the Air Staff History Office.

While on the Air Staff, he worked planning, programming and budgeting issues for the Information Warfare Panel; wrote higher headquarters inspection classification guidance for information operations; and provided historical research for the chief of staff.

In 1997, he earned the Air Assault Badge from attending the United States Army Air Assault School.

In 1998, he was assigned to the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Operating Division Four (OD-4).

In OD-4, he served as flight commander, senior flight commander and mission planning flight commander responsible for planning and command and control of three NRO reconnaissance satellite constellations.

He also served as the on-console launch officer and led early-orbit engineering checkout for a $1 billion NRO satellite.

In 2000, Saltzman was selected to attend the USAF Weapons School.

He is also a space weapons officer, graduating from the USAF Weapons School in 2001, where students are taught how to be weapons instructors in their units.

After graduating from the Weapons School in 2001, he was selected to remain at the Weapons School as an instructor.

While there, he served as academics flight commander and an assistant director of operations.

From 2003 to 2007, Saltzman returned to Vandenberg to serve in a variety of assignments.

In March 2003, he served in the Fourteenth Air Force’s strategy division as the chief of operational assessment during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

In July 2005, he was assigned as the first chief of combat plans for the Joint Space Operations Center, and later, as chief of combat operations.

He served as the last commander for both the 614th Space Operations Squadron and 1st Space Control Squadron, during which time he led the operations during the 2007 Chinese ASAT test.

He served as the last commander for both the 614th Space Operations Squadron and 1st Space Control Squadron before their inactivation and their missions were merged to the 614th Air and Space Operations Center in 2007 and 2008, respectively.

On January 11, 2007, then-Lieutenant Colonel Saltzman was serving under Colonel Stephen N. Whiting, then the director of the Joint Space Operations Center, and with Major DeAnna Burt, who succeeded Saltzman as chief of combat plans, when the 2007 Chinese anti-satellite missile test occurred.

After earning distinguished graduate honors from missile operational readiness training at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, he held numerous missile crew, instructor, and evaluator positions at Malmstrom Air Force Base, culminating in his selection as the senior evaluator crew commander at the 10th Strategic Missile Squadron and 341st Strategic Missile Wing.

He served as the deputy chief of space operations for operations, cyber, and nuclear from 2020 to 2022.

He is the first lieutenant general and the first general officer promoted into the Space Force.

Saltzman was born and raised in Kentucky.

He transferred in 2020 to the Space Force, serving as its first chief operations officer.

During his promotion to lieutenant general in 2020, General John W. Raymond pointed to Saltzman's entrance to the weapons school as one of his defining qualities.

"[If] you think about Salty, that's what I think of: as an instructor," said Raymond.

"Just last week, we went out to Vandenberg... Two young captains briefed me on what they were doing, and then I continued the tour. And for about another 20 or 30 minutes, I was looking and I said, 'Where'd General Saltzman go?' Well, he was sitting down with those two captains teaching, and sitting down having a conversation, and helping them think through what they had just briefed, and helping them understand the importance of the work they were doing."

Saltzman's other professional military education included attending Squadron Officer School, Air Command and Staff College, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, Air War College, National Security Space Institute, Center for Creative Leadership, National Defense University, Institute for Defense Business, and LeMay Center for Doctrine Development and Education.