Dr. Leo S. Mackay, Jr.

Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Dr. Mackay is a 1983 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He completed pilot training in 1985, graduating at the top of his class. Selected to fly the F-14, he was a member of Fighter Squadron Eleven for three years, conducting operational deployments to the North Atlantic, Mediterranean and Indian Ocean. He completed Naval Fighter Weapons School (Top Gun) and compiled 235 carrier landings and 1,000 hours in the F-14. His military decorations include the Defense Meritorious Medal, the Navy Achievement Medal, and the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for participation in Operation Earnest Will. In the 1988 operation, U.S. naval forces were deployed to protect civilian oil tankers targeted in the Iran/Iraq War.

From 1989 to 1993, Dr. Mackay was a Kennedy Fellow at Harvard University, earning a master’s degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government and a Ph.D. in political and economic analysis from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. While at Harvard, he was a Harvard MacArthur Scholar, a Graduate Prize Fellow and a Research Fellow at the Center for Science and International Affairs. In 1992, he was assigned to teach military history and western civilization at the Naval Academy and was a Special Guest Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Following his Naval Academy assignment, Dr. Mackay served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as military assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy. In this role, he coordinated 200 people responsible for U.S. defense policy in the areas of nuclear forces, export licensing, counter proliferation and arms control.

Leaving active military service in 1995, Dr. Mackay joined the corporate staff of Lockheed Martin, where he became Director of Market Development. He left Lockheed Martin in 1997 to join Bell Helicopter where he served as Vice President of the Aircraft Services Business Unit. In this role, he had general management responsibility for Bell’s worldwide distribution and logistics, commercial spares and accessory sales, and aircraft production.

Dr. Mackay is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the U.S. Naval Institute.