Ms. Sue C. Payton
Deputy Under Secretary of Defense
(Advanced Systems & Concepts)

Ms. Sue C. Payton is the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Advanced Systems & Concepts). Prior to taking this position in September, 2001, Ms. Payton was the Vice President, Applied Technology of ImageLinks, Inc. and the Director of the National Center for Applied Technology, responsible for the assessment, prototype development and insertion of commercial technology for DoD Agencies and field users. These prototyping efforts included support to NIMA, DIA, US Navy, JCS/J2, USSOCOM, USCENTCOM, AFSOC, USAF Battlelabs, NSA and NRO to bring emerging commercial technology to the United States Imagery and Geospatial Services, Unified Cryptologic Architecture, Joint Intelligence Virtual Architecture, Global Command and Control System and Future Imagery Architecture. From 1994 to 1996, Ms. Payton was responsible to the Vice President of Business Development; Lockheed Martin for leveraging the latest information systems technology to meet the program needs of customers including NIMA, NRO, AF/ESC, Rome Laboratory, USACOM, ONI/NMIC, NAIC and National Systems Providers. From 1989 to 1994, Ms. Payton was the Senior Site Systems Integration Manager for Martin Marietta responsible for resolving complex technical issues associated with systems analysis and trade studies of competing Space and Ground Architectures, operations concepts, requirements definition, software test and transition to operations.

Ms. Payton has extensive experience leading government and industry partnerships focused on applying commercially based technology to solve IC and DoD C3I information access, analysis and delivery problems. She has been an invited briefer and panel member for the US Space Foundation, NIMA Defense Science Board, National Technology Alliance Executive Board, AFCEA Intelligence Committee, Joint Requirements Oversight Council, Defense University, JCS/J2 and DIA senior leaders, CIA DDS&T, USCENTCOM Battlespace Visualization senior staff and Office of Naval Research. She is the US R&D Principal for the Declaration of Principles for Industrial Cooperation with the UK and Northern Ireland, Chairman of the Personnel Recovery Technology Working Group, a member of the Defense Science and Technology Advisory Group (DSTAG), National Technology Alliance Executive Board, and Purdue University President's Council. She has served in various capacities with the Open Geospatial Consortium and the National Correlation Working Group.

Ms. Payton received a Bachelor of Science Degree from Eastern Illinois University, and a Master of Science in Systems Management/Systems Technology from the University of Southern California. She is a 1998 graduate of the Goizueta Business School, Emory University Executive Program.

She is married to Gary Payton and they have a daughter, Courtney.