Marcus McInnis ’75 plays a key role in national defense program.

Somewhere out there in the GEO Belt, a vast region of outer space more than 24,000 miles from the Earth’s surface, six United States satellites are helping protect their mother country from the potential consequences of war. Significant credit and recent responsibility for this multi-billion-dollar array of technology goes to Marcus McInnis ’75.

McInnis lives in the Los Angeles area and is the civilian Program Manager of the Space Acquisition Program for the US Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center.

On March 26, 2020, McInnis and his team oversaw the launch from Cape Canaveral of the center’s sixth Advanced Extreme High Frequency satellite. In August, the team completed its testing of the satellite, which is among nine other military satellites that make up the AEHF MILSTAR Constellation for use in a critical defense communications system.