Speakers

Major-General (MGen) Iain Huddleston enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces in 1989, graduating with a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from the Royal Military College in 1994. After completing wings training in 1995, he flew with both 415 and 404 Maritime Patrol Squadrons flying the CP-140 Aurora at 14 Wing Greenwood in Nova Scotia. 

In late 2002, he was posted on exchange with the Royal Air Force (RAF) in Scotland, where he flew the Nimrod MR2 with 206 and then CXX Squadron. Promoted to Major in 2003, MGen Huddleston deployed to the Middle East twice with the RAF, operating from Muscat, Oman and Basrah, Iraq.  

Returning to Canada in August 2006, he was selected as aide-de-camp to the Chief of the Defence Staff, General (retired) Rick Hillier. 

In 2009, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and appointed Commanding Officer 429 Transport Squadron, operating the CC-177 Globemaster III at 8 Wing Trenton. MGen Huddleston deployed to Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan as the Joint Headquarters Plans Officer, serving thereafter with the Strategic Joint Staff and Defence Renewal Team in Ottawa.  He was promoted to Colonel in June 2013 and appointed Commanding Officer 14 Wing Greenwood where he led the Long Range Patrol Force in operationalizing and deploying the modernized Block III CP-140 Aurora on Operation IMPACT. 

In 2015, MGen Huddleston attended the Royal College of Defence Studies in London, UK and then returned to Canada to become Director Fleet Readiness at 1 Canadian Air Division Headquarters in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In June 2018, he was promoted to Brigadier-General and served as both 1 Canadian Air Division Deputy Commander Force Generation and Deputy Commander. Posted to the Air Staff in Ottawa in July 2020, he became Director General Air and Space Readiness and, upon his promotion to Major-General in May 2021, he served as Chief of Staff for the Canadian Joint Operations Command Headquarters. 

In July 2022, MGen Huddleston assumed command of 1 Canadian Air Division in Winnipeg, commanding the Division for two years until he was posted back to Ottawa in July 2024 as the Deputy Vice Chief of the Defence Staff. He has 5,600 total flying hours across several airframes and resides in Ottawa with his wife and two children.

Mr. McFarland is the Technical Director for the Capability & Resource Integration Directorate (J8) at United States Space Command. He serves as the principal technical advisor to the Director as the command establishes space warfighting requirements. He serves as the government program lead for the USSPACECOM Laboratory, overseeing science & technology investments and prototyping for the command. He also oversees the development of command analytic capability as represented by the Capability Assessment and Verification Environment (CAVE), a high-performance computing lab incorporating physics, engineering, and mission-level modeling tools.

Mr. McFarland has more than 15 years of experience with modeling, simulation, and analytics within the Department of Defense. His first position in the Department was at the Joint Warfare Analysis Center, where he led the command’s applied statistics community of interest and managed the development of innovative environmental and threat monitoring in support of multiple combatant commands. In subsequent positions in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations and the Marine Corps’ Operational Analysis Directorate, he developed computational models supporting the services’ Program Objective Memorandum development and was the Marine Corps lead for a White House-directed study of munition divestment. He also published statistical reports on the Marine Corps’ officer training and Exceptional Family Members programs. He volunteered to deploy with the Marine Corps unit supporting crisis response in Africa and developed new techniques to prioritize senior leader engagements on the continent and support embassy emergency action plans.

As the Studies, Analysis, and Lessons Learned Chief at United States Air Forces Europe – Air Forces Africa (USAFE-AFAFRICA), Mr. McFarland was on the leading edge of a Department of the Air Force-wide effort to “operationalize” the operations research field, applying rigorous mathematical methods to command problems including force employment and near-peer deterrence. He also advanced relationships with NATO partners via integration with multiple NATO Science and Technology Organization research task groups. His work during this period led to recognition across the Air Force and joint analytic communities for high-impact support to service members in conflict environments in the present day. Mr. McFarland has extensive expertise in defense analytics, with particular emphasis on computational modeling and applied statistics. He designed the USAFE-AFAFRICA Pandemic Analysis – COA Evaluation & Recommendation (PACER) tool, based on advanced agent-based modeling techniques, which was used by multiple Air Force and joint commands to plan for continuity of operations during the COVID pandemic. He conducted first-of-its kind causal inference analysis of intelligence collections data that informed operational planning. He also led the rapid development of mission-level combat simulations in support of crisis operations in the EUCOM area of responsibility that demonstrated the utility of these models for real-world operational planning.

In addition to his professional work, Mr. McFarland has conducted statistical and game-theoretic analysis of congressional and judicial behavior which has been presented at professional academic conferences. He lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife Kit and daughter Evangeline (17). His oldest child Robin (19) attends Georgetown University.