Vice Adm. Jan Tighe, the Navy’s director of intelligence, has submitted her retirement paperwork, a spokesman for the service told C4ISRNET.
The Department of Defense, in a general officer announcement Jan. 24, said Vice Adm. Matthew Kohler was nominated for Tighe’s position, deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare, N2/N6, office of the chief of naval operations; and director of naval intelligence.
Previously, Kohler served as Naval Information Forces Command commander.
In that role, he helped stand up the Navy’s Information Warfighting Development Center, which was billed to posture the Navy’s information warfare sailors to be better trained, better equipped and better skilled to fight in this domain.
Tighe told C4ISRNET in October that the stand up of the IWDC was “one of the most important things we’ve done in the past two years.”
Tighe, a career cryptologist, previously served as the commander of 10th Fleet/Fleet Cyber Command and was the first female to command a numbered fleet. She also served as the executive assistant to Gen. Keith Alexander, the former commander of U.S. Cyber Command.
Tighe has noted that in the era of return to great power competition, undersea warfare is a top priority.
“Our greatest need right now is in the undersea [mission] and the modernization of acoustic intelligence. That’s No. 1,” she said at the INSA National Security and Intelligence Summit in September. “Uniquely understanding and being able to surveil and do analysis in the undersea is something the Navy has to bring in spades.”
She also noted in a separate appearance in October that in order to defeat these modern adversaries, “we really have to think about our ability to make decisions faster and better than the adversary and that’s what it’s ultimately going to come down to – that decision superiority.”
Mark Pomerleau is a reporter for C4ISRNET, covering information warfare and cyberspace.
