Lt Col Natasha Isabel Peeples serves as Materiel Leader, Counter Communications Systems, Space Systems Command, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California. She leads a team of military, civilian, and contractors, as the program manager over the budget, schedule, and technical performance to deliver ground systems protecting and enabling our American way of life. She also develops and communicates key messages for advocacy and support to Congress, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Headquarters Air Force, other Services, Major Combatant Commands, international partners and media.

Lieutenant Colonel Peeples commissioned as a Distinguished Graduate into the Air Force in 2008 from Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas with a full Air Force scholarship for Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering. In her first assignment, she served as a program manager on satellite bus subsystems and then as vehicle manager for the first set of Space-Based Infrared System GEO-synchronous satellites, as well as the first launch campaign and early orbit checkout at Los Angeles Air Force Base, El Segundo, California. In her next assignment, she led the Systems Engineering flight, integrating first of a kind missions to the weapon system at the National Reconnaissance Aerospace Data Facility Southwest, Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Following these assignments, she served as the Chief of Engineering and Flight Commander, leading the first time integration and transition of $20B Infrared systems from three geographic locations to a single mission operations center in the areas of mission management, ground engineering, orbital analysis and satellite engineering with responsibility over the sustainment, anomaly resolution, and constellation management in the 2d Space Warning Squadron, Buckley Air Force Base, Aurora, Colorado. Next, she served as the Deputy Chief of the Advanced Programs Branch in the Launch Acquisition Division, Office of Space Launch, National Reconnaissance Office, Chantilly, Virginia, where she led as the small satellite contracting office technical representative and launch mission manager for the Intelligence Community. She was then competitively selected to attend the Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, in Leavenworth, Kansas, where she was awarded Superior Performer in the Top 30% in academics. Her next assignment at the Pentagon, Washington D.C., as Program Element Monitor for 19 programs, led the planning, programming, budget and execution by developing and communicating key DAF messages, as well as building and defending program budgets. Her follow-on role as Executive Officer to Major General Steven P. Whitney, the Military Deputy to the Assistant Secretary, Space Acquisition and Integration, included daily support to over 170 staff members and the entirety of the USSF acquisition portfolio. Lieutenant Colonel Peeples’ last role as Division Chief, Architecture Integration Directorate, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration at the Pentagon, provided oversight of the requirements, capabilities, and gaps over space systems by assessing the current and future architecture to Department of Defense. She is married her best friend, USSF Lieutenant Colonel Michael (Scott) Peeples, who is also currently serving in a command tour as Materiel Leader at Los Angeles Air Force Base, California. They welcomed their first son, Tristan, in February 2021.