Vice Admiral Lyle G. Bien
United States Navy, Retired

VADM Lyle G. Bien USN (Ret.) is a member of the Board of Advisors for Sentek Consulting, Inc., a San Diego-based technology company. He was the Deputy Commander-in-Chief and Chief of Staff at the United States Space Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colorado. He retired from that position on December 2, 1998, after completing 31 years of active duty service.

VADM Bien’s assignments before becoming Deputy CINC included commanding an F-14 Fighter Squadron, two Carrier Airwings, a Carrier Battle Group and the Naval Space Command, Dahlgren, VA. From October 1990 to March 1991 he was the senior Navy striker planner for Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM. He was in command of the Nimitz Battle Group throughout her response to the Taiwan Missile Crisis in 1996.

A Naval Flight Officer, VADM Bien served aboard multiple aircraft carriers over 11 major deployments to the Pacific flying the F-4 Phantom and the F-14 Tomcat. He has 5,500 flight hours in Navy fighter aircraft, 1300 carrier landings, and 225 combat missions. He is a graduate of and former instructor at the Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN). He is an Augustana College Distinguished Alumnus (1995), member of the Augustana College Board of Regents, and was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in 1997.

VADM Bien was with Teledesic LLC from March 1999 to October 2002 where he was responsible for all matters involving the Government customer, including incorporating DoD requirements into the Teledesic and ICO satellite system designs, products and services.

VADM Bien has been a member of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Graybeard Panel on National Missile Defense since its inception. He serves in a senior leadership position at all service Title X Wargames, Schriever Series Space Wargames, as well as the MDA Wargames and Simulations at the Joint National Integration Center at Schriever AFB. He works extensively on the related issues of Space-based Communications, C4ISR, and Global Missile Defense to include senior mentoring in these areas at several Combatant Commands and with Industrial Partners. He is a member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, National Security Space Architect Board where he worked on the Transformational Communications Architecture (TCA), the U.S. Naval Space Panel on FORCEnet and naval space and communications, and the U.S. Strategic Command Advisory Board.

A native of South Dakota, VADM Bien is a 1967 graduate of Augustana College with a degree in Biology, and attended the National War College in 1992. He and his wife of 35 years, Cathy, live on their cattle ranch in South Dakota, and in Encinitas, California, when the temperature in South Dakota drops below zero.