Mr. Avila is the acting Director of the NGA Commercial Operations Group, where he leads a group in solving national security mission challenges with innovative commercial GEOINT solutions while leveraging the power of commercial capabilities to achieve GEOINT supremacy, diplomacy, and sustainability. He is also the NGA representative to the IC Commercial Space Council (ICCSC) and the National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC). Mr. Avila is a member of the Senior Intelligence Service (SIS).
He previously served as the Deputy Director of the Source Commercial and Business Operations Group, leading the discovery, assessment, and acquisition of trusted commercial GEOINT solutions for the NSG, and managing all business functions for the NGA Source Directorate; the Director of the Commercial GEOINT Discovery & Assessments Office, leading the coordination, and managing the discovery and assessment of commercial geospatial solutions; the Senior Scientist for the Office of Sciences and Methodologies in the Analysis Directorate, providing scientific and technical leadership in aspects of Imagery Science, and led the Analysis Directorate’s effort in developing its technical workforce to broaden and deepen analytic expertise; the National GEOINT Officer (NGO) for Imagery Science, the principal subject matter expert to the NGA Director on all aspects of GEOINT collection and analysis related to areas of Imagery Science.
In February 2012, Mr. Avila completed a Joint Duty Assignment with the National Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT) Office at DIA as the Vice Chairman of the National MASINT Committee (MASCOM). During his years with the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) and NGA he has led technical teams in Information Services and the Production Directorates, as well as serving as a Project Scientist in NIMA’s Science and Technology Directorate managing research and development projects related to spectral remote sensing technologies.
Mr. Avila has been with the U.S. Government as an Image Scientist for most of the last thirty plus years. He began his career in the Intelligence Community at the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) as an Image Scientist working on the processing and exploitation of spectral imagery.
Currently, he is a member of the National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC), a Federal Committee sponsored by the Department of Interior and the Chair of the Landsat Advisory Group (LAG), an NGAC sub-committee. He is the NGA representative to the U.S. Group on Earth Observations (USGEO).