The office and its personnel were transferred to the National Imagery and Mapping Agency by public law Oct. 1, 1996. NIMA operations at Los Angeles Air Force Base will cease later this year.
Eight former program directors reunited to unveil a display that will be permanently mounted on the walls of SMC. The display consists of two frames holding the DDPO guideon flag and a summary of the DDPO’s history and accomplishments.
“It is important to recognize the history and accomplishments of the DDPO that were formerly classified,” said Col. James B. Armor, who represented the SMC commander at the ceremony. “This is the only program office to close at SMC in this decade, and naturally it took an act of Congress.”
Due to the classified nature of DDPO’s mission, no official historical record was kept of its accomplishments. Established in 1974, the office’s mission was to design and build a global network to distribute time-critical national imagery to warfighters. Seven of the eight former program directors and more than 100 other alumni and friends gathered, for the first time, to review the historical accomplishments of the office.
“My husband would really have loved to be here,” said Rosemary Fix, widow of the first DDPO program director, Col. Oliver Fix. “He really loved the Air Force and this program in particular. He was very proud of the accomplishments you have all made possible.”
The cloak of secrecy was lifted from the program in 1996 when the SMC commander revised the program security classification guide to declassify the general mission and certain functions and relationships of the program office.
“When I left the program in 1984, I was always curious what had happened to the systems I had developed and fielded,” said retired Col. Tom Flattery, the offices third director.
What he learned was that the DDPO has successfully fielded four generations of the Defense Dissemination System and earned an unprecedented five Air Force organizational excellence awards in the process. Operational users of the system have grown from four in the first generation to 26 at the time NIMA was formed in 1996. DDPO systems have provided imagery to support most of our modern day military operations, from the invasion of Grenada to Desert Shield and Desert Storm to Bosnia today.
Those desiring more information on the DDPO and its accomplishments can contact the SMC History Office, which is assisting in the compilation of a first-ever history of the DDPO.