| Office: | 11th President of University of Texas at El Paso |
| Term Start: | August 15, 2019 |
| Predecessor: | Diana Natalicio |
| Office1: | 24th United States Secretary of the Air Force |
| President1: | Donald Trump |
| Term Start1: | May 16, 2017 |
| Term End1: | May 31, 2019 |
| Predecessor1: | Deborah Lee James |
| Successor1: | Matthew Donovan (acting) Barbara Barrett |
| Office2: | 12th President of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology |
| Term Start2: | June 17, 2013 |
| Term End2: | May 10, 2017 |
| Predecessor2: | Robert Wharton |
| Successor2: | Jim Rankin |
| State3: | New Mexico |
| Term Start3: | June 25, 1998 |
| Term End3: | January 3, 2009 |
| Predecessor3: | Steven Schiff |
| Successor3: | Martin Heinrich |
| Birth Name: | Heather Ann Wilson |
| Birth Date: | 30 December 1960 |
| Party: | Republican |
| Spouse: | Jay Hone |
| Children: | 3 |
| Education: | United States Air Force Academy (BS) Jesus College, Oxford (MPhil, DPhil) |
| Allegiance: |  United States |
| Serviceyears: | 1978–1989 |
| Rank: | Captain |
Heather Ann Wilson (born December 30, 1960) is the 11th President of the University of Texas at El Paso. She previously served as the 24th Secretary of the United States Air Force from 2017 through 2019, as the 12th president of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology from 2013 to 2017, and as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives for from 1998 to 2009. Wilson was the first female military veteran elected to a full term in Congress.[1]
While in the U.S. House of Representatives, Wilson served on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on Armed Services, and the Committee on Energy and Commerce. She did not run for re-election in 2008, instead seeking the U.S. Senate seat of retiring senator Pete Domenici; she finished second in the Republican primary to Congressman Steve Pearce.[2] On March 7, 2011, she announced another run for Senate in 2012 to replace retiring senator Jeff Bingaman,[3] but lost the general election to Democrat Martin Heinrich, her successor in the House of Representatives.[4]
In April 2013 she was selected was president of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology,[5] making her the first female president of the school.[6] President Donald Trump announced on January 23, 2017, that he would nominate Wilson as Secretary of the Air Force.[7] The U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination on May 8, 2017.[8] On March 8, 2019, Wilson announced that she would resign as Secretary, effective May 31, in order to assume the office of President of the University of Texas at El Paso.[9] [10] On March 2, 2020, Trump appointed Wilson to the National Science Board.[11]
Wilson was born on December 30, 1960, in Keene, New Hampshire, the daughter of Martha Lou, nurse, and George Douglas Wilson, a commercial pilot and member of the Experimental Aircraft Association.[12] [13] Wilson grew up around aviation and hoped to become a pilot like her father and grandfather before her. Her paternal grandparents were born in Scotland.[14] Her grandfather, George Gordon "Scotty" Wilson, flew for the Royal Air Force in World War I and emigrated to America in 1922 where he was a barnstormer and airport operator in the 1920s and 1930s. He served as a courier pilot during World War II and started the New Hampshire Civil Air Patrol where he was a Wing Commander.[15] Her father started flying at age 13 and enlisted in the United States Air Force after high school.[16]
The United States Air Force Academy began admitting women during Wilson's junior year at Keene High School (Keene, New Hampshire). She applied and was appointed to the Academy. At the Academy, she was the first woman to command basic training and the first woman Vice Wing Commander.[17] She graduated in 1982 as a Distinguished Graduate (magna cum laude equivalent).[18] [19] Wilson earned a Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford and continued her education at Jesus College, earning an M.Phil. and D.Phil. in international relations by 1985.
In 1990, Oxford University Press published her book, International Law and the Use of Force by National Liberation Movements,[20] which won the 1988 Paul Reuter Prize of the International Committee of the Red Cross.[21] The Paul Reuter Prize is awarded for a major work in the sphere of international humanitarian law. Wilson won the second Reuter prize ever awarded.[22]
An Air Force officer for seven years, Wilson was a negotiator and political adviser to the U.S. Air Force in the United Kingdom, and a defense planning officer for NATO in Belgium, where her work included arms control negotiations.[23]
Wilson served in the United States Air Force until 1989 when she was chosen to serve as director for European Defense Policy and Arms Control on the National Security Council staff.[24] She worked for Republican president George H. W. Bush.[25] Her principal responsibilities included guiding the U.S. position on the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) negotiations and NATO affairs during the period of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact.
After leaving government in 1991, Wilson founded Keystone International, Inc. in Albuquerque, New Mexico to promote business development in the United States and Russia.[26] [27]
In 1995, Governor Gary Johnson appointed Wilson to be Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Children, Youth, and Families Department. During her tenure, Wilson made efforts to reform child welfare laws, modernize the juvenile justice system, and improve early childhood education. The department opened a juvenile work camp and a secure facility for young, non-violent offenders, as well as streamlining the foster care system. She also was an architect and the chief lobbyist for the governor's education agenda, including a law allowing charter schools, annual testing, and more budget authority for local school boards.[28]
Three weeks after winning the primary, Wilson won the special election with 44 percent of the vote in a four-way race against Democratic state senator Phil Maloof, Green Party candidate Robert L. Anderson, and Libertarian Party candidation Bruce Bush.[31] She was sworn into office on June 25, 1998, making her the first woman since Georgia Lusk in 1946, and the first Republican woman ever, to represent New Mexico.
The special election set a record for the infusion of party money.[32] For the June 23 special election, Maloof spent $3.1 million, approximately $1.5 million of which came from the Maloof family fortune and $1 million from committees. Wilson received $1 million from various GOP committees and raised an additional $1.5 million herself.
In the special election, it was discovered that Wilson in her Cabinet role had removed sensitive department files relating to her husband from the agency's central database and later lied about doing so. After completing an investigation, former district attorney Bob Schwartz determined that Wilson had not broken the law.[33] [34]
Wilson and 66 other candidates received $10,000 donations from then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC) political action committee. ARMPAC filed termination papers with the Federal Election Commission on April 24, 2007.[40] Wilson returned the $10,000 donation from ARMPAC.[41]
During Wilson's reelection campaign in 2004, Romero ran advertisements criticizing Wilson's vote in Congress against a bill to require the screening of cargo holds, suggesting that they had aided Osama bin Laden. Wilson's campaign countered with a policy ad stating Romero "voted against the death penalty for child molesters who murder their victims."[42]
Wilson won the election by eight points.
Wilson was the first woman to represent New Mexico since Georgia Lusk in the 1940s.[45] She served as a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a coalition of centrist Republican leaders.[46] Wilson has appeared on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher.[47]
On October 10, 2002, together with 213 other Republicans and 81 Democrats, Wilson voted in favor of authorizing the use of military force against Iraq.[48]
The Albuquerque Journal reported several instances in 2004 when Wilson acted in opposition to Republican interests: requiring the Bush administration to release cost figures for his prescription drug plan, criticizing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about the failure to properly respond to violations of the Geneva Conventions during an Abu Ghraib hearing, and opposing a move by House Republicans to protect Tom DeLay from his fundraising scandal. While critics said these were calculated moves to moderate her image for her upcoming election, Wilson later lost her seat on the House Armed Services Committee due to the actions of Republican Joe Barton, an ally of DeLay.[49] [50] [51]
See also: Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005. On January 21, 2004, legislation was introduced by Congressman Fred Upton to increase the fines and penalties for violating the prohibitions against the broadcast of obscene, indecent, or profane language. On February 11, 2004, the United States House Energy Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet held a hearing on the bill, at which representatives of the Federal Communications Commission, major broadcasting corporations, and the National Football League testified.[53] During the hearing, Wilson denounced executive Mel Karmazin[54] saying, "You knew what you were doing. You knew what kind of entertainment you're selling, and you wanted us all to be abuzz, here in this room and on the playground in my kids' school, because it improves your ratings. It improves your market share, and it lines your pockets."[55] The bill, H.R. 3717,[56] passed the House of Representatives on March 26, 2004, by a vote of 391–22–1.[57]
See main article: Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy. Wilson was accused of and later cleared of influencing the termination of a U.S. Attorney. In February 2007, former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias alleged that Wilson's competitive 2006 campaign for re-election to the House was a significant reason for his dismissal from the Justice Department.[59] [60] In a March 2007 statement, Wilson said an October call to Iglesias was to resolve an allegation of ethical impropriety made against Iglesias, which Iglesias denied. Iglesias never reported the contact, as he was required to do by DOJ rules.[61] In July 2007, the United States House Committee on Ethics decided not to proceed with any investigation of Wilson.[62] The Justice Department also did a review and the matter was thereafter closed.[63]
Wilson, along with 80 Democrats and 215 other Republicans, supported House passage of the conference report on the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, which opponents argued would "reduce and expedite environmental and judicial reviews of forest thinning projects.
Wilson, 36 Democrats, and 192 other Republicans supported House passage of the Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005, which would have amended and reauthorized the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to provide greater results conserving and recovering listed species, and for other purposes.
The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Action Fund, the political advocacy group's Political Action Committee (PAC), named Wilson to its 2006 "Dirty Dozen" list[65] of members of Congress targeted for defeat by the LCV in the 2006 elections. The LCVAF also issued a press release in which Wilson was criticized for voting against a $58 million fund for voluntary conservation measures in the state.[66]
See main article: 2008 United States Senate election in New Mexico. Wilson was defeated in a June 3, 2008, primary against Congressman Steve Pearce by a margin of 51% to 49%,[68] and would later endorse Pearce's candidacy.[69] In the general election, Pearce was overwhelmingly defeated by Congressman Tom Udall, 61% to 39%.[70]
See main article: 2012 United States Senate election in New Mexico.
On November 6, 2012, incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman decided to retire instead of running for reelection to a sixth term.[71] Wilson won the Republican nomination to succeed him, and faced Democrat Martin Heinrich, who had succeeded Wilson in Congress. In the general election, Heinrich defeated Wilson 51% to 45%.[72]
Wilson served as president of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology from 2013 to 2017, leaving to accept the appointment of Secretary of the Air Force.[73] She returned to academia as the president of the University of Texas at El Paso following her resignation as Secretary of the Air Force.
After being nominated by President Donald Trump on January 23, 2017, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 8, 2017, Wilson became the first U.S. Air Force Academy graduate to be sworn in as Secretary of the Air Force on May 16, 2017.[74]
As the 24th Secretary of the Air Force, Wilson was responsible for the matters of the Air Force Department, including the organization, training, equipping and supplying 685,000 active, guard, reserve and civilian personnel and their families.[75]
On March 8, 2019, Wilson announced she would resign from this position to be President of the University of Texas at El Paso.[10]
Wilson was the head of the consulting firm, Heather Wilson & Company after leaving Congress.
During her Senate campaign, the Department of Energy began a review of her contracts with national laboratories. In June 2013, a Department of Energy Inspector General report claimed that Wilson collected $450,000 from four Department of Energy facilities between January 2009 and March 2011. The report criticized the labs for maintaining unsatisfactory documentation on the work performed. The labs disagreed with the report.[76]
Sandia Corp., one of the laboratories, reimbursed the federal government for the fees paid to Heather Wilson & Company. There was a settlement agreement with the Justice Department, and Wilson was not mentioned in that agreement. In addition, Wilson stated that she "was not a lobbyist for Sandia and [she] was not a member of the Contract Strategy Team criticized by the Inspector General's report."[77]
Heather Wilson chaired the Women in Aviation Advisory Board to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and has served on corporate boards of directors including Maxar Technologies, Raven Industries and Peabody Energy.
In May 2024 Wilson was appointed to the board of directors of Lockheed Martin Corporation, America’s largest military contractor.[78] She also serves on the boards of Google Public Sector and the Texas Space Commission.
Wilson is an instrument rated private pilot. She is married to Jay Hone, an attorney and retired Air National Guard Colonel. They have two adult children and two granddaughters.[79] Their adopted son, Scott Alexander Hone, passed away in 2023. [80]
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