Speaker
Tony White
As a graduate of Royal Military College in 1985, Tony spent 27 years as an officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) initially as a Communication Electronics Engineering Officer (CELE) before re-classifying to become a Public Affairs Officer (PAO), with senior roles that defined his military career and led to an additional seven years in the International Staff at NATO Headquarters in Brussels as a Senior Press Officer. His strategic communications background eventually led Tony to his current career in Business development.
Tony's operational career in the RCAF began in 1986, working at the Long-Range Radar facility at 5 Wing Goose Bay, Labrador. In 1988, he was posted to Fighter Group Headquarters, 22 Wing North Bay, Ontario as the Executive Officer to the Deputy Commander.
It was in North Bay when Tony began filling roles in RCAF public affairs, promoting the acquisition of the CF-18 and the implementation of NORAD's North Warning System, as well as numerous intercepts of Soviet Long-Range Bombers off Canada's coasts. In 1992 Tony became the first PAO for Fighter Group, responsible for communications and media relations for the three operational wings at Cold Lake, Alberta, Bagotville Quebec and Goose Bay, as well as the Canadian NORAD Region, covering major exercises, including Canada's largest fighter exercise, Maple Flag, as well as regular CF-18 deployments to Iqaluit, lnuvik and Alaska.
In 1996, Tony was posted to National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa, where he held a variety of roles, head of media relations, strategic advisor to Assistant Deputy Minister for Materiel and the Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy. Tony was deployed to Bosnia in 1996 as the NATO Spokesperson in Sarajevo and US Central Command in 2002 in support of coalition operations in Afghanistan.
Tony's last military assignment was at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium from 2005-2008, where, as a Lieutenant-Colonel, he was the Strategic Communications Advisor to the Chairman of the Military Committee. Following his retirement from the CAF in 2008, Tony remained in Belgium, where he was hired as a member of the International Staff at NATO HQ. There he was responsible for NATO's strategic communications and media relations from 2008-2015, with multiple deployments to Afghanistan, Italy for the Libya Air Campaign, Counter Piracy Operations off the Coast of Somalia, Air Policing Operations in the Salties, Missile Defence Operations in Southern Turkey and support to Ukraine when Russia invaded in 2014.
In 2015, Tony and his family returned to Canada, where he began his business development career, initially at ADGA, and then in 2016 as a Business Development Lead at General Dynamics Mission Systems-Canada (GDMS-C) in Ottawa, working in cyber defence. In 2022, he was hired by CAE Defence&Security Canada where he is focused on the F-35 and NORAD Modernization programs in Canada.
He is married with three daughters and lives with his wife Simonne in Ottawa.
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