Karen Pound

Ms. Karen Pound, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the Deputy Director, Strategy, Policy and Plans, North American Aerospace Defense Command and United States Northern Command, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Ms. Pound’s responsibilities include the development of strategy, doctrine, policy, and plans for NORAD and USNORTHCOM, as well as security cooperation activities with The Bahamas, Canada, and Mexico, to accomplish USNORTHCOM’s missions of homeland defense, civil support, and security cooperation and NORAD’s missions of aerospace warning, aerospace control, and maritime warning.

Prior to this assignment, Ms. Pound was the Deputy Director, Joint Forces Development and Training for United States Space Command, Colorado Springs, Colorado. In this role, Ms. Pound developed USSPACECOM policy and program implementation for joint education and training, exercises, lessons learned, and concept development and experimentation. She also conducted educational collaboration with government, public, and private academic and research institutions to encourage research in USSPACECOM areas of interest and professional development of command personnel.

Ms. Pound entered the U.S. Air Force in 1998 after receiving her commission from Officer Training School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. Ms. Pound served in the Air Force for six years in both the active and Reserve components in both the space and missile, and logistics readiness career fields.  After earning her Juris Doctor from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, she completed a one-year judicial clerkship at the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit Court of Virginia. Ms. Pound then went on to serve as a trial attorney for the Department of Justice.  Ms. Pound is licensed to practice law in the State of Texas and is admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court.   

Ms. Pound returned to the Air Force to serve as a civilian Airman in 2010 where she has worked in a variety of positions at the Headquarters Air Force, Joint Staff, and combatant command levels. After initially serving as the speechwriter to the Under Secretary of the Air Force, she was selected to become the communications team chief and then Deputy Director the Secretary of the Air Force and Chief of Staff of the Air Force Executive Action Group’s, a unit providing direct, unfiltered advice to SecAF and CSAF. In 2014, Ms. Pound was selected for the Defense Senior Leader Development Program and attended The Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy. After receiving her master’s degree, she then completed an experiential assignment in Stuttgart, Germany at Headquarters U.S. European Command in the ECJ5/8, Strategy Division. In 2015, Ms. Pound returned to the HAF to serve in several roles within the Air Force Concepts, Development, and Management office. In 2020, Ms. Pound became the Deputy Chief, Space Policy Division within the Joint Staff Directorate for Strategy, Plans, and Policy at the Pentagon, Arlington, Va.