F. Whitten Peters

Frederick Whitten Peters (born August 20, 1946)

In 1969, Peters joined the United States Navy, and earned distinguished graduate honors from the Navy Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island. Because of his computer training at Harvard, he was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet Intelligence Center in Norfolk, Virginia, where he ran the computer systems division. The sensitive nature of the information he handled at the Norfolk intelligence center prevented him from assignment to a war zone and prohibited him from traveling to a number of foreign countries for 10 years following the assignment. While he was there, the intelligence center received a meritorious unit citation for discovering Russian-built submarine pens in Cuba.

In February 1972, he was released by the Navy and hired back the next day as a civilian employee to complete a special project. In August 1972, he received Harvard's Frank Knox Traveling Fellowship to attend the London School of Economics. He earned a Master of Science degree with distinction in economics in 1973. He then entered Harvard Law School. He served as president of the Harvard Law Review for two years, and graduated magna cum laude with a Juris Doctor degree in 1976. The Senate confirmed his appointment on July 30, 1999, and he was sworn in as the nineteenth Secretary on August 3, 1999. During his tenure as Secretary, the Air Force demonstrated its power in the Kosovo conflict while Peters helped secure funding for the F-22 air superiority fighter. Peters served as Air Force Secretary until January 20, 2001.

Peters also joined several private sector companies as a consultant or member of the board of directors. These firms included DynCorp of Reston, Virginia, where Peters took on the role of special assistant to the chief executive office in April 2001, and Ellipso corporation where he was elected to the board of directors in May 2001.

Peters remains active in politics. During the 2008 Presidential race, Peters endorsed then-Senator Barack Obama, and was listed among the Senator's foreign policy advisors.