Florida Defense Alliance

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Christopher Middleton serves as the University of West Florida’s Assistant Vice President of Defense Programs in the Office of the President. He is also Chair of the West Florida Defense Alliance and a retired Navy Captain. He leads initiatives in defense market growth, veteran talent pipeline, and economic development. Military partnerships and research opportunities centered on the Federal portfolio in Florida guide strategic initiatives. The University of West Florida is one of 12 campuses in the State University System of Florida. The system has been ranked #1 in the country for higher education by U.S. News & World Report for the third year in a row. In his Navy flying career, he accumulated over 3,000 flight hours and 830 arrested landings operating from eight different aircraft carriers. He served as the Commanding Officer of the U.S. Navy’s largest EA-18G and EA-6B squadron. The EA-18G is a variant of the F/A-18F Hornet. His last active-duty assignment was as a director at the Naval Education and Training Command (NETC). The command spanned global training and education at sea and ashore to over 50,000 enlisted, officer, foreign, and government students. He also commanded in combat, leading an EA-6B Prowler squadron deployed with a Carrier Air Wing in support of operations over Afghanistan and Iraq. Between his command tours, he was selected as a Secretary of Defense Corporate Fellow and assigned to FedEx Express World Headquarters. He has deployed with a special operations task force and has staffed operations centers at Pacific Fleet Headquarters, in the Middle East, and in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) in Washington, D.C. He was commissioned from the United States Naval Academy and is a graduate of the Naval War College, where he was selected as a member of the Stockdale Advanced Research Group. He has also attended executive courses at the Naval Postgraduate School, Stanford University, and the University of Virginia. He is a graduate of the U.S. Marine Corps Officer Candidate School and the U.S. Army Airborne School. He currently resides with his family in Pensacola, Florida.

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Jennifer Codo-Salisbury is the Deputy Director of the Central Florida Regional Planning Council. She leads a dynamic and multi-functional planning team which administers programs including Brownfields, Hazard Mitigation, Geographical Information Systems, military installation compatibility, local land use planning, and state and federal grant administration and coordination.

Paul J. Hirsch has over 40 years of public and private-sector experience. His public sector expertise is in the areas of congressional relations, federal installation management and real estate at both the corporate and field levels of the Federal government. His private-sector experience includes working with Congress, the Executive Branch and state and local governments in the area of economic development, defense facility enhancement, technology, and public policy issues. He is the President of Madison Government Affairs Inc., a DC based planning and lobbying firm.

Tim Jones has over 30 years’ experience as a management professional in Information Systems, Communications and Information Technology in global environments. He was the Founder and President of Advanced Concepts Engineering. He is also the former Lead government representative for the Joint Operations Technology Center for Space and Naval Warfare.