President-elect Trump on Thursday named Troy Meink, a top spy chief who has previously served as a missile engineer, as his pick for secretary of the Air Force. Trump said in a statement on Truth Social that Meink would work with his Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth "to ensure that our Nation’s Air Force is the most effective and deadly force in the World, as we secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH." Meink is the principal deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), an intelligence agency in charge of building and maintaining U.S. spy satellites. He has served in the position since 2020, when Trump was in his first term. Meink was first appointed in 2017 during Trump's first term to director of geospatial intelligence systems acquisition at the NRO. Meink, from Lemmon, S.D., entered the Air Force in 1988 through the college program Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) before becoming a KC-135 tanker navigator and then a lead test engineer for ballistic missile tests at the Missile Defense Agency. Meink has also served in previous roles as undersecretary of the Air Force for space and the director, executive agent for space staff and assistant director of national intelligence for systems and resource analyses at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. If confirmed by the Senate, Meink will oversee critical programs for the Air Force, including the Sentinel program modernizing the land-based intercontinental ballistic missile system. The program has ballooned in costs, but the Air Force considers it a national security priority. The Air Force is also working on critical programs for artificial intelligence drones and for next-generation aircraft. Trump's new "Department of Government Efficiency," helmed by entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and billionaire Elon Musk, are also considering steep cuts to Pentagon waste. Musk has specifically called out the F-35 fighter jet program. Trump named his pick for the Navy as businessman John Phelan in November.