Dr. Davy Belk, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the Executive Director, Air Force Test Center, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. He serves as principal deputy to the center's commander on all matters under the cognizance of the commander. He has extensive authority for broad management, policy development, decision-making and effective program execution of the center's development, test and evaluation mission. His role as an executive manager involves long and short-range planning, policy development, the determination of program and center goals, including those involving scientific and technical matters, and the overall management of the base complex.
Dr. Belk began his professional career in 1976 at the General Dynamics Fort Worth Division, participating in full-scale design and development of the F-16 as a maintainability engineer. In 1978, he began work at the Air Force Armament Laboratory (today the Munitions Directorate of the AFRL), serving there for nearly 26 years in a variety of research, technology development, system development and sustainment activities. His work in developing computational fluid dynamics methods formed the basis for modeling and simulation tools used by the Air Force Seek Eagle Office for analysis of aircraft and store compatibility, and was the accomplishment for which Dr. Belk was awarded the Air Force's Harold Brown Award in 1987. He became Executive Director of the Air Force Seek Eagle Office in 2002, and was responsible for providing combat capability to operational commands through aircraft-store certifications, compatibility evaluations and ordnance delivery planning software. Dr. Belk has served in laboratory, test, and sustainment leadership, and has also served at Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command as Technical Director for the Directorate of Engineering and Technical Management, dealing with a wide range of technical and policy issues. He was the Director of the Engineering Directorate, Ogden Air Logistics Center, Hill Air Force Base, Utah, where he was responsible for the development, implementation, and oversight of technical policies and processes as well as the overall scientific and engineering expertise for more than 1,000 scientists and engineers at the center.
Prior to assuming his current position, Dr. Belk was Director, Information Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Rome, New York. As Director, Dr. Belk led basic research and advanced development activities in information exploitation; information fusion; information understanding and management; cyber operations; connectivity; command and control; and advanced computing architectures.
EDUCATION
1976 Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering, with honors, University of Texas at Austin
1982 Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering, University of Florida
1986 Doctor of Philosophy in engineering, Mississippi State University
2005 Leadership for a Democratic Society, Federal Executive Institute, Charlottesville, Va.
CAREER CHRONOLOGY
1. September 1976 - January 1978, associate engineer in maintainability, General Dynamics, Fort Worth Division, Texas
2. January 1978 - September 1983, flutter engineer, Air Force Armament Laboratory, Eglin AFB, Fla.
3. September 1983 - May 1987, aerospace engineer in computational fluid dynamics, AFATL, Eglin AFB, Fla.
4. May 1987 - July 1988, research scientist in computational fluid dynamics, AFATL, Eglin AFB, Fla.
5. July 1988 - September 1988, Chief, Computational Fluid Dynamics Section, AFATL, Eglin AFB, Fla.
6. September 1988 - September 1990, technical adviser, Aerodynamics Branch, AFATL, Eglin AFB, Fla.
7. September 1990 - June 1994, senior research scientist, Computational Fluid Dynamics Section, AFATL, Eglin AFB, Fla.
8. July 1994 - December 1996, research scientist, Computation Weapon Physics Team, Munitions Directorate, Wright Laboratory, Eglin AFB, Fla.
9. January 1997 - April 2002, technical adviser, Computational Mechanics Branch, Munitions Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Eglin AFB, Fla.
10. April 2002 - July 2004, Executive Director, Air Force Seek Eagle Office, Eglin AFB, Fla. 11. July 2004 - September 2005, Technical Director, Directorate of Engineering and Technical Management, Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio
12. September 2005 - October 2006, Director of Engineering, 84th Combat Sustainment Wing, Ogden Air Logistics Center, Hill AFB, Utah
13. October 2006 - July 2009, Director of Engineering, Ogden ALC, Hill AFB, Utah
14. July 2009 - April 2012, Director, Information Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Rome, N.Y.
15. April 2012 - July 2012, Executive Director, Air Force Flight Test Center, Edwards AFB, Calif.
16. July 2012 - present, Executive Director, Air Force Test Center, Edwards AFB, Calif.
AWARDS AND HONORS
1986 Scientist of the Year, AFATL
1987 Harold Brown Award, presented by the Secretary of the Air Force
2004, 2005 Meritorious Civilian Service Award
2006, 2012 Exemplary Civilian Service Award
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS AND ASSOCIATIONS
Associate Fellow, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Former Chairman, AIAA Northwest Florida Section National Defense Industrial Association International Test and Evaluation Association
International Council on Systems Engineering
Logistics Officers Association
(Current as of March 2014)