Randy Jayne

Edward Randolph "Randy" Jayne II (born 1944) is an American retired government official, business executive, military officer, and combat pilot.

During his career, he worked in the defense industry and served in the White House Office under three successive United States presidents.

Prior to his business career, Jayne spent over ten years on active duty in the United States Air Force, including two tours as a fighter pilot in Southeast Asia.

Jayne served in the Air National Guard and retiring after 34 years of service as a major general.

Jayne was born on September 24, 1944, in Kirksville, Missouri.

His father was a lawyer and World War II naval officer combat veteran, and his mother was a schoolteacher and later an elected school board member and president in Kirksville.

He is the eldest of three brothers.

Randy Jayne graduated from Kirksville High School in May 1962 and entered the United States Air Force Academy in June of that year.

Jayne graduated from the Air Force Academy with a Bachelor of Science degree in international relations in 1966, and entered the air force as a second lieutenant.

He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and completed his PhD in political science and national security affairs in 1969.

His doctoral thesis, published by the Center for International Studies and supervised by William W. Kaufmann, is titled "The ABM Debate: Strategic Defense and National Security," after he completed his PhD, he served a series of operational flying and Washington D.C., special staff tours.

During Jayne’s over ten years as an active air officer, he had a number of operational flying assignments, and special staff duty in the White House.

After completing Air Force Pilot Training as a distinguished graduate (1969–1970), he served as a special operations pilot flying the A-1E Skyraider in South-East Asia at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base (1971–1972).

In the White House, Jayne served first as a White House Fellow in 1973–1974 during the Nixon Administration, and later, in 1976 and 1977, as a staff member of the National Security Council during the Ford Administration, working for and as a staff member of the United States National Security Council working for General Brent Scowcroft, and serving alongside other young professional staffers such as Robert Gates, Stephen Hadley and Robert Kimmitt.

In 1974, he completed upgrade training in the F-4 Phantom, and returned to Southeast Asia for a second fighter assignment, this time at Korat RTAFB.

Jayne’s combat decorations include two Silver Stars, five Distinguished Flying Crosses and eight Air Medals.

Other key military assignments during this time included two tours in the Executive Office of the President of the United States and service as a USAF jet instructor pilot at Moody Air Force Base.

In 1977, Jayne was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as associate director in the Office of Management and Budget.

At the same time, he transferred from the active air force to the Air National Guard (ANG), where he would serve for over twenty-three additional years as an officer, pilot, commander, and senior staff officer.

Joining the District of Columbia ANG in 1977, he flew the F-105 Thunderchief and served as the 121st Fighter Squadron operations officer.

In 1977, Jayne left active military service to accept appointment by President Jimmy Carter as the associate director for national security and international affairs in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Executive Office of the President.

In this role, he was responsible for the budget for the United States Department of Defense, United States Department of State, and the intelligence community (IC).

During this three-year assignment, Jayne participated in a number of major national security decisions, including full-scale development and initial production for the F-16, F-18, F-117 Stealth Fighter, AWACS, the Tomahawk Cruise Missile, M1A1 Abrams tank, and NASA’s Space Shuttle.

Moving to the Missouri ANG in 1980, he again checked out in the F-4 Phantom, the same fighter he had flown in one of the Southeast Asia tours.

In 1980, Jayne left government service to join the aerospace industry, hired by General Dynamics (GD) as director of aerospace planning, and two years later becoming vice president of strategic planning.

As a key member of the GD executive team, he was involved in the acquisitions of Cessna Aircraft and Chrysler Defense, and the initiation of major programs such as the F-16C, the Advanced Cruise Missile, Tomahawk, the M1A2 Abrams tank, and the SSN-21 attack submarine.

After seven years at GD, Jayne was recruited to what was at the time the second largest defense contractor behind GD, McDonnell Douglas Corporation (MDC).

He joined as vice president of program development for the MDC Astronautics Company.

In 1987, he was recruited to McDonnell Douglas Corporation, where he served in a number of executive assignments.

At Insituform Mid-America he served as president and chief operating officer.

From 1993 to 1995, Jayne served as the senior “traditional Guardsman” officer in the 1,200-person fighter unit.

He also played key roles in St Louis and the Pentagon in the National Guard’s massive civil response to the Midwestern Floods of 1993–1994 and the nationwide call-up and deployment of ANG forces to Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

As vice wing commander, Colonel Jayne led the inspection preparation prior to the 1995 award of the Air Force’s highest operational readiness inspection rating, that of “Outstanding,” to the 131st Wing.

In November 1995, Jayne was selected to be the Air National Guard Assistant to the Commander of Air Force Space Command in Colorado Springs.

He served this leadership role for five years, serving four AFSC commanders, before his retirement in 2000 as a major general with over thirty-four years of total commissioned service.

Prior to joining Heidrick & Struggles, Jayne occupied leadership positions in three public companies, including two Fortune 100 aerospace and defense firms.

At General Dynamics (GD), he served at the director and vice president levels in the company’s corporate headquarters.

Jayne was also a combat-ready pilot in the 131st Fighter Wing in St. Louis.

From 2015 to 2017, he was chairman of the board of the US Air Force Academy Foundation, the fundraising organization for that institution.

In 2019, Jayne was named an Outstanding Graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, an honor bestowed as of that time on 41 alumni over the more than sixty years of the Academy's existence.