Lifetime Service Award

“Snake” Clark has been described as one of the most colorful, innovative, and risk-taking U.S. Air Force (USAF) warfighters in the service’s 70-year history. He served in the Senior Executive Service. In a career spanning five decades, he enabled numerous tactical and strategic capabilities which shaped our modern-day USAF. His work includes building and standup of the Warrior Preparation Center (WPC) – the world’s premier wargaming, modeling, and simulation center. Leading the USAF’s first mission planning division, his implementation of a system program office and shrewd identification and canceling of systems that did not work led to operational success for its first use in support of Operation EL DORADO CANYON. His leadership as USAF Director of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Modernization and Infrastructure capitalized on his skills as one of the Defense Department’s leading experts in the fields of mission planning, commercial imagery, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) applications, computer modeling and simulations and as the inventor of EAGLE Vision. Snake forever changed airpower through his determined advocacy in the early stages of the Predator UAV/RPA platform. His efforts brought innovation that changed the calculus involved in combat operations for the USAF, sister services, allies, and perhaps our adversaries and competing powers. He is rightfully known as “The Godfather of the MQ-1 Predator.”