Paul G. Kaminski


Paul Garrett Kaminski is a technologist and former U.S. government official, best known for his leading role in the development of stealth aircraft.

Early life

Kaminski was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1942 and graduated from John Marshall High School in 1960. He received his B.S. degree in Engineering Science from the Air Force Academy in 1964. Kaminski earned M.S. degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics and in Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1966 and a Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University in 1971. His doctoral thesis was entitled Square Root Filtering and Smoothing for Discrete Processes.

Military and government career

Kaminski served 20 years on active duty in the United States Air Force, mostly within Air Force Systems Command, rising to the rank of colonel. Among other Air Force assignments, Kaminski was responsible for the testing and evaluation of inertial guidance components for the LGM-30 Minuteman missile and terminal guidance systems for the first U.S. precision-guided munitions.
In 1971, Kaminski was assigned to the National Reconnaissance Office, based out of Los Angeles AFB. There, he led work on a space system and related "unconventional imaging" technology, including the flying of prototypes on low and high-altitude aircraft. This assignment, possibly related to the Lacrosse program, continued until 1976.
From 1976 to 1977, Kaminski was a student at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. During this time, he met then-Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering William J. Perry, becoming Perry's Special Assistant in 1977. One of his assignments during this time was to assess early work on stealth technology. Kaminski recommended going ahead with the creation of a large program that included the experimental Have Blue airplane, which was later developed into the F-117A Nighthawk.
When Perry left the government in 1981, Kaminski became Director for Low Observables Technology, with responsibility for overseeing the development, production and fielding of major stealth aircraft systems such as the F-117A, which was already well underway at the time, the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit which was in its developmental stage, the AGM-129 ACM cruise missile and several other classified programs. Kaminski held this position from 1981 to 1984.
In 1984, Kaminski retired from the Air Force as a colonel after 20 years of service. After a decade in the private sector, he returned to government in 1994 as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology from 1994 to 1997, under by-then Secretary of Defense William J. Perry. In this role, he was responsible for activities with an aggregate annual budget exceeding $100 billion. He is credited with starting the "Revolution in Business Affairs", a Pentagon acquisition reform initiative that was continued by his successor, Jacques Gansler.

Later career

In his first period away from government work, Kaminski joined Perry in Technology Strategies and Alliances, an investment banking and technology strategy business, of which Kaminski eventually became chairman and chief executive officer. Then and subsequently, he has served as a consultant and advisor to a wide variety of government agencies and as chairman, director or trustee of several defense and technology oriented companies.
In 1994, Kaminski was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for leadership and technical contributions to stealth technology and military systems. He is also a Fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics. Kaminski has been a member of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, Chairman of the Defense Science Board, and has served as a member of the DNI's Senior Advisory Group, FBI Director's Advisory Board, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Technical Advisory Board, the National Academies Air Force Studies Board, and the Atlantic Council.
He has been the chief executive officer and president of Technovation Inc. since 1997.
Kaminski has authored publications dealing with inertial and terminal guidance system performance, simulation techniques, Kalman filtering and numerical techniques applied to estimation problems.

Service to Profession and Society

Honors and awards