Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, one of the first officials to join President Donald Trump's administration in the Pentagon, said Friday that she has informed Trump she will resign, as the University of Texas System announced she has been named the sole finalist to become president of its campus in El Paso.
Wilson said in a tweet that she submitted a resignation letter and released a statement Friday morning in which she said it was a privilege to serve alongside U.S. airmen over the two previous years and that she is "proud of the progress we have made to restore our nation's defense."
"We have improved the readiness of the force; we have cut years out of acquisition schedules and gotten better prices through competition; we have repealed hundreds of superfluous regulations; and we have strengthened our ability to deter and dominate in space," she said.
News of the resignation, first reported by Reuters, came just after the University of Texas Board of Regents voted unanimously to select her to lead its El Paso campus. The university said in a news release Friday that the regents' decision followed an executive session last week in which they interviewed candidates and considered recommendations from a presidential search advisory committee.
"Dr. Wilson's broad experience in the highest levels of university leadership, and state and national government -- whether securing federal grant awards, advising our nation's most important national research laboratories, raising philanthropic dollars or running large, dynamic organizations -- will help ensure that [the University of Texas at El Paso] continues its remarkable trajectory as a nationally recognized public research institution," regents' chairman Kevin Eltife said in a statement. "Most importantly, she is deeply committed to student success and has dedicated her life to enhancing upward mobility opportunities for individuals."
Wilson's decision comes after James Mattis resigned as defense secretary in December, citing policy disagreements with the president. Mattis had recruited her to become Air Force secretary, she said in 2017.
Some members of Congress had suggested her as a good replacement for Mattis, but there was little indication the president was considering her for the position. Trump named Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan as acting Pentagon chief effective Jan. 1 and has spoken favorably about him since.
Wilson irked the president last year by raising concerns about how much his planned Space Force will cost the Pentagon, U.S. officials have said. But more recently, she openly had supported the idea, crediting Trump for drawing attention to security concerns in space and efforts by China and Russia to advance their space-based capabilities.
Wilson had said several times that it was an honor to have people suggest she would make a good defense secretary. But her answer to whether she would stay indefinitely as Air Force secretary was unclear. Asked in January whether she was committed to keeping her current job, she cited the movie Dead Poets Society, a movie in which an English teacher played by Robin Williams urges students to seize the day.
"Tomorrow is really uncertain," Wilson said. "I don't mean that in a professional way, I just mean that you never know. All you have is today. What are you going to do today? And that's all any of us have. I try to guide the Air Force to the future, but I think any of us that [say they] know what will happen tomorrow or next week are kidding ourselves about what it means to be human. We don't have any certainty in life, and I always live my life that way."
Information for this article was contributed by Missy Ryan of The Washington Post.
A Section on 03/09/2019