Commander Kelvin Upson, USN (Retired)

Kelvin Upson was born in San Diego, California, and was immediately adopted at birth. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1991 with a B.S. in Computer Science and received his helicopter pilot wings in 1993. He reported to the aircraft carrier, USS Kitty Hawk, and served as the Assistant Strike Operations Officer and UNIX System Administrator. He then moved to Monterey, California, and attended the Naval Postgraduate School, where he earned his Masters in systems engineering.

In 1999, he moved to San Diego and served on the USS Coronado, the Navy’s Sea-Based Battle Lab. Upson was the Automated Data Processing Systems Director in charge of the administration, operation, maintenance, and security of 6 Local Area Networks. He then transferred to the National Reconnaissance Office in July 2001 and served as the IT Program Manager for a Global Wide Area Network. In November 2003, Upson reported to an aircraft carrier (USS Dwight D. Eisenhower) as the Combat Systems Information Officer where he was in charge of the entire communications suite (consisting of antennas, sensors, receivers, systems, and networks) and Information Assurance.

Upson then went to Washington D.C. as a strategic planner for the Chief of Naval Operations with emphasis in the area of Information Operations, Computer Network Operations, Strategic Communications, and Information Assurance. He reported to Los Angeles California in April 2008 as the Chief of Networking for a major Department of Defense satellite program. In March 2009, Upson volunteered to serve in Baghdad, Iraq as the Director of Theater Operations responsible for all satellite, radio, network, and voice communications across the entire Iraq Joint Operations Area.

He then transitioned to Norfolk Virginia as the Assistant Chief of Staff for Communications at the Strike Force Training Atlantic command. Upson was responsible for training all of the Atlantic Fleet Strike and Amphibious Readiness Groups for major combat operations. In June of 2012, he reported to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon as the Cyber Requirements lead in the J6 Directorate responsible for capability development in support of Multi-National Information Sharing requirements.

Upson retired from the Navy in January 2015 and served as a Cyber Analyst, Systems Engineer and Information Assurance Manager until January 2016 for a small defense contractor. He is now a Senior Principal Cyber Engineer for Raytheon Technologies. Kelvin Upson is married to Jill Upson, who is most importantly his best friend. He is the proud father of an adult son (31) and an avid sports fan who watches just about every professional and collegiate televised sport.