Christopher Watkins

Christopher R. Watkins is the mission area executive for Sea Control at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. He is responsible for strategic planning, execution, and performance of multiple Department of Defense (DoD) and Intelligence Community programs, managing $300 million in annual funding and 700 staff. Prior to joining APL, Mr. Watkins served as a submarine warfare officer, deploying to the western Pacific. He was selected as a National Reconnaissance Office technology fellow and served on a Navy space panel for the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for C4I and space. He is currently the co-chair of the Submarine Technology Symposium and serves on the advisory board for the National Defense Industrial Association’s Undersea Warfare Division. Mr. Watkins has also served on a Defense Science Board summer study on the future of military superiority. He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Seminar XXI and Harvard Kennedy School’s Senior Executives in National and International Security programs. Mr. Watkins earned a B.S. with distinction in aeronautical engineering from the United States Naval Academy, both an M.S. in space systems engineering and an M.B.A. from the University of Maryland, College Park, and an M.S. in engineering management from Old Dominion University.