Based in Washington, Jen managed Aviation Week’s worldwide defense, space and security coverage from 2013 to January 2024.
Prior to taking on the Executive Editor role, Jen was Aviation Week's Congressional Editor. Jen came to Aviation Week in March 2011 from Politico, where she covered the intersection of defense and politics. She also worked as a reporter and editor for Defense Daily, Inside the Army, The Other Paper and The Columbus Dispatch.
Jen received a Master’s degree in journalism as a Kiplinger Fellow at the Ohio State University. She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in history and journalism from the University of Michigan.
The cost of the war in Afghanistan will shrink by $25 billion in the next two years, although it will happen incrementally, as it did in Iraq, according to the top Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. “It’s only going to come down $10 billion this year,” Rep. Norm Dicks (Wash.) says. If about 20,000 U.S. troops leave Afghanistan next year, the cost will drop by about $15 billion, he adds.
The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) nearly endorsed a move that could end Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — and the effort may continue. The committee’s top Republican, John McCain (Ariz.), sponsored the language, offered during the panel’s markup of its defense authorization measure for fiscal 2012. The proposal died there on a 13-13 vote before the committee approved the markup last week, but McCain has raised the prospect of trying again later with all senators.
Fresh off a hearing about continued cost increases on Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on June 16 approved a bill that would require the government to buy the next batch of aircraft on a fixed-price contract, requiring the Pentagon’s largest contractor to absorb any additional costs. “That’s really an overhaul of how we acquire large items such as the Joint Strike Fighter,” Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), committee chairman, told reporters June 17 in unveiling the markup.
