Steven Stebbins
Acting Inspector General, Department of Defense
Steven A. Stebbins earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Vermont. He received a master of arts from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and a master of science from the National Defense University. He received his Army commission through the ROTC program.
Stebbins served in infantry and armored divisions in South Korea and what was then-West Germany. After leaving active duty, he served in the Army Reserve. He served on the Army’s Crisis Action Team at the Pentagon, then served in the Directorate of Force Management. He retired from the Regular Army after serving with the Combined Security Transition Command and leading the Army Force Management Support Agency.
President Barack Obama appointed Stebbins to the Senior Executive Service and he joined the Defense Department as chief of staff of the Office of Inspector General in 2015. He was then appointed Principal Deputy Inspector General in 2023. He now serves as Acting Inspector General for the Department of Defense.
In the News…
An Inspector General report from the Pentagon addresses the conflict that has arisen between the U.S. Space Command and the Air Force over the proposed permanent base of the command’s headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama, rather than the temporary base at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado.
As congressional delegations from the respective states have vied for the base to be moved or remain, the IG report covers the process in which the U.S. Space Command, the Air Force, and previous administrations engaged to decide where the command’s headquarters would be located. Near the end of President Trump’s first term, the Alabama location was announced. President Biden’s administration abandoned the relocation in July 2023.
The IG report stated, “USSPACECOM leadership anticipated that the loss of civilian personnel might occur much sooner than [the Air Force] predicated and that USSPACECOM would be unable to secure the manpower investments needed to mitigate the impact of that loss on the command’s readiness.”
The report continued, “Although we were not able to conduct all of the reviews we requested, we were able to draw conclusions about [Air Force] and USSPACECOM priorities that led to the announcement of the president’s decision to select Colorado Springs for the permanent location of USSPACECOM HQ.”
The decision to relocate the base was largely based on the Defense Department savings of $426 million projected by the Air Force in moving the headquarters to Alabama.
