Capt. Alex Dutko is the program manager for the Direct and Time Sensitive Strike program office (PMA-242)

Dutko was commissioned in 1997 after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy with a B.S. in mechanical engineering. Following graduation, he attended the Georgia Institute of Technology and earned a M.S.in mechanical engineering.

Dutko earned his “Wings of Gold” in 2001 and reported to the “Fleet Angels” of Helicopter Combat Support Squadron (HSC) 2. He made deployments aboard USS Mount Whitney (LCC-20) and USS LaSalle (AGF-3) in support of Operations Strong Resolve, Southern Watch and Iraqi Freedom.  

In 2004, Dutko was selected for duty at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he served as a master instructor in the mechanical and aerospace engineering departments. During this tour, he earned a Master of Arts in National Security Decision Making from the U.S> Naval War College and a M.S. in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland.

Dutko transferred to the Air Vehicle Engineering Department at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland and was re-designated an Aerospace Engineering Duty Officer. During this tour, he was selected as an individual augmentee and served as the officer-in-charge of an embedded training team in Kabul, Afghanistan from November 2007 to October 2008.

Dutko reported for duty in the Tomahawk Weapons System Program Office (PMA-280) in November 2009 as the assistant program Manager for test and evaluation. In this role, he led a team of more than 120 military, government civilian and contract support personnel in the planning, management and execution of an extensive program intended to verify Tomahawk weapons system lifecycle performance and validate technical specification compliance of weapons system hardware and software.

Dutko then transferred to PMA-242in October 2012 and reported for duty as the deputy program manager for airborne rockets and pyrotechnics., He managed the Department of the Navy’s 2.75-inch and 5-inch rocket systems, jet and rocket assisted take-off units, Marine location markers, and airborne paraflares  while leading a team of more than 100 personnel at four different warfare centers.

In April 2015, Dutko reported to the Unmanned Carrier Aviation (UCA) program office (PMA-268) for duty as the deputy program manager for control systems and connectivity. In this position, he successfully established the UCA Mission Control System (UMCS) as an Acquisition Category III program to maintain alignment among aircraft carrier availability, production lead times and development milestones of the Navy’s first unmanned carrier-based aircraft.

Dutko assumed leadership of the Maritime Accelerated Acquisition (MAA) implementation team within the Program Executive Office for Unmanned Aviation and Weapons (PEO(U&W)) in May 2017. He was directly responsible for leading a small, empowered team of subject matter experts to implement lean acquisition lessons learned from other Department of Defense activities to provide rapid, affordable capability to the warfighter.

In August 2019, Dutko reported to the Mission Integration and Special programs office (PMA-298). As the portfolio integrator, he led a team of over 60 personnel in a complex multi-level security environment to mature and transition inter-service and interagency technology development efforts intended to close air, surface, and strike warfare warfighting capability gaps identified by the Navy capabilities integrated process to numerous naval aviation weapons systems.