Fort Worth Resident Sworn in as VA Deputy

WASHINGTON -- Dr. Leo S. Mackay, Jr., a former resident of Ft. Worth, will return to his alma mater at the U.S. Naval Academy to be sworn in as the Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Mackay, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy (Class of ’83), will take the oath of office from Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi, another Naval Academy graduate (Class of ’67).  

The ceremony will be held July 6 at 10 a.m. in Memorial Hall – 22 years from the day Dr. Mackay first entered the academy on July 6, 1979.

As VA’s second in command, Dr. Mackay is the chief operating officer of the federal government’s second largest agency.  With an annual budget of $48 billion, VA employs about 219,000 people at hundreds of medical centers, clinics, benefits offices and national cemeteries throughout the country.  VA provides health care and financial benefits for the nation’s 25 million veterans and their families.  

Before his confirmation, Dr. Mackay was Vice President of the Aircraft Services Business Unit at Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc., of Ft. Worth, Texas.  In that position, he had general management responsibility for Bell’s worldwide distribution and logistics, commercial spares and accessory sales, and aircraft production.

Dr. Mackay was a Kennedy Fellow at Harvard University, earning two degrees, a master’s degree in public policy and a Ph.D. in political and economic analysis.  While at Harvard, he was a Harvard MacArthur Scholar, a Graduate Prize Fellow and a Research Fellow at the Center for Science and International Affairs.  He returned to the Naval Academy in 1992 as an instructor of military history and western civilization and was a Special Guest Fellow at the Brookings Institution. 

Dr. Mackay, a former naval aviator, follows the family tradition of service to the country.  His father, two brothers and countless "uncles and cousins" are -- or were -- in the military.

Dr. Mackay is the son of Leo S. and Barbara Mackay, Sr., of Baton Rouge, La.  He resides in northern Virginia with his wife Heather and their children, Sarah and Josiah. 

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