Eric
“Pappy” Kleinschmidt

Mr. Kleinschmidt has more than 30 years of experience leading and advising on strategic, national-level special operations missions in every domain from the seabed to space, with particular emphasis on the maritime environment. His work focuses on critical infrastructure protection, maritime and seabed security, and delivering the multi-domain capabilities U.S. special operations forces and their partners need to compete with and defeat peer adversaries. He serves as Chairman of the Maritime Committee for the Global SOF Foundation, the national military association representing the special operations community.

Throughout his career, Mr. Kleinschmidt conducted 18 operational deployments spanning counterterrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and subterranean operations. Most recently he focused on the Great Power Competition and on countering Russian and Chinese aggression in the maritime and seabed environment. His final three years in uniform were spent as Senior Leader and Advisor for Combat Development for a SOF component. There he fused operations, intelligence, requirements, and acquisition across a portfolio that included maritime surface and subsurface mobility, tactical ground mobility, offensive and defensive unmanned systems, terrestrial and space-based C5ISR-T, specialty sensors, optics, and lethality, enabling SOF kill chain operations across all domains. He retired from the Navy in 2022 as a Master Chief Petty Officer.

Mr. Kleinschmidt is also the industry architect for the build phase of the UnderDome. He focuses on identifying emerging technologies, matching them to validated requirements, and delivering deployable solutions to the end user. His network spans the special operations community, government, and industry, helping ensure emerging capabilities are recognized as solutions to current requirements and future challenges. He holds a Top Secret clearance, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies from Excelsior College and an Associate of Arts in Criminal Justice from Quincy College. A native of Southern Illinois, he now calls the Virginia Beach metro area home, where he runs a small farm with his wife and their twins.