Mr. Ast currently serves as the Kinetic Capabilities Sector Lead of the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS) Program within the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Acquisition & Sustainment, Industrial Base Policy. As the sector lead, his goal is to strengthen the competitive posture of the U.S. Defense Industrial Base by responding to national security priorities across hypersonic weapons, missiles, munitions, small-unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), and one-way-attack UAS. Mr. Ast remains focused on expanding the defense supply base across these critical lines of effort by improving production capability, growing capacity, and reducing costs.

Previously, Mr. Ast served as the Director of Unmanned Systems Technology under the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Science and Technology at the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. As the Director, he engaged at the national level with DoD & interagency stakeholders to develop technology options and to address issues associated with counter-small, UAS. In this role, he led critical DoD programs to include the investigation of countering UAS equipped with 5G enabled communication, passive defense measure in support of the Indo-Pacific Command, a US-Israel Operational Technology Working Group effort to modernize both US and Israeli near-term counter UAS capabilities and coordinating a science and technology Counter-Swarm collaboration initiative with the United Kingdom.

As a Deputy Oversight Executive for the Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) Office, he managed over 30 programs from various technology sectors. His most prominent work was with NASA and the Army Space and Missile Defense Command to develop a low-cost rocket launcher, and a constellation of low earth orbit communications and imagery nanosatellites. He supported a program to enhance communications between 4th and 5th generation fighter aircraft through unique data links and conducted a demonstration highlighting the extended radar detection capabilities of the MQ-1 remotely piloted aircraft in support of the US Southern Command.

Mr. Ast received his Bachelor of Science degree in computational mathematics from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and received his master’s degree in industrial engineering from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. He is a retired Army veteran with assignments across the Infantry and Operations Research Systems Analysis.