Date: June 13, 2024
Time: Check in at 11:00 a.m.
Cost: $35.00 per person
Location: Houston Marriott Westchase Hotel
You can pay-at-the-door or You can pay online. Either way, we need you to fill out the respective reservation form.
Speaker for the Houston Military Luncheon for June 13, 2024 is Colonel Jeffrey A. Hokett, U.S. Space Force (retired).
U.S. Space Force (retired)
U.S. Space Force (retired)Prior to retirement in 2023, Colonel Jeff Hokett served as Director of Futures and Integration for the United States Space Force at the Pentagon. His teams led Service-level operational assessments of potential future capabilities, wargame alignment, and warfighting concept integration efforts across the Space Force and with other Services. His previous assignments included Senior Plans Advisor to the Secretary of Defense, Director of Strategic Space Activities at U.S. Strategic Command, command of an experimental spacecraft squadron, and multiple combat leadership roles.
Colonel Hokett was commissioned in 1992 through Air Force Officer Training School at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. After further training, he reported to Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, where he built the air refueling plan for CORONET BAT, the first B-1B mission to circumnavigate the globe and drop bombs on three continents. This 36-hour mission received the 1995 Mackay Trophy.
From 1997 to 1999, Colonel Hokett operated Defense Support Program missile warning spacecraft from Woomera, South Australia, where he and his crew alerted US national leadership with the first launch report of a new foreign missile type. Later, as a Missile Combat Crew Commander for Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, he performed nuclear alerts and earned Air Force Space Command’s Crew Member Excellence Award.
After U.S. Air Force Weapons School, Colonel Hokett joined the special operations community, deploying for combat in multiple theaters. Within days of 9/11, his team planned and executed 130 low-level combat resupply airdrops at 64 drop zones across Afghanistan. In the opening days of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, Colonel Hokett led the Combined/Joint Special Operations Task Force-North’s air operations center in northern Iraq, where he directed 358 combat missions in early 2003.
Following Air Command and Staff College, Air Force Space Command selected Colonel Hokett to be Chief of Operations for the command’s Integrated Joint Special Technical Operations Cell. Later, he established and led the command’s Advanced Operations Applications Branch.
As Commander of the 3d Space Experimentation Squadron, Colonel Hokett led over 170 personnel operating experimental spacecraft such as the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. During his command, the team completed 25 “first ever” events for the Department of Defense.
After promotion to Colonel in 2010 and graduation from the Joint Advanced Warfighting School, he served as Senior Plans Advisor to the Secretary of Defense, coordinating, issuing, and clarifying the Secretary’s planning guidance and enabling review and approval of war plans. Colonel Hokett later served as Policy Division Chief at U.S. Strategic Command, responsible for Combatant Command policy across the nuclear, space, cyberspace, and six other mission areas assigned to the command.
In 2016, he served the 65-nation coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as the Deputy Director of Operations Integration for Combined Joint Task Force – Operation INHERENT RESOLVE. His focus on individual, organizational, and national strengths raised overall effectiveness of combined lethal, electronic warfare, and cyber attacks, shifting momentum to recapture northern Iraq.
Colonel Hokett returned to U.S. Strategic Command to serve as Director of Strategic Space Activities and Battle Watch Commander, shaping establishment of U.S. Space Command and the U.S. Space Force while also leading crews in the command’s 24/7 operations center. In 2019, he returned to the Pentagon to serve as Deputy Director for Space at the Air Force Warfighting Integration Capability. Assisting with standing up the new Service, he was one of the first Colonels to transfer into the Space Force and retired in early 2023.
Colonel Hokett’s education includes degrees from University of Houston, Air University, and National Defense University, as well as executive leadership programs with Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His awards and decorations from the Army, Air Force, and Space Force include two Defense Superior Service Medals, the Legion of Merit, and the Gallant Unit Citation.
