Ben Tarr
Senior Vice President of Space & Intel, SMX
Ben Tarr’s leadership in advancing the vision for and success of the Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution, or FORGE, initiative made significant strides in 2024. Along with their partners, through relentless execution, the team successfully positioned the program for even greater impact in 2025.
Under his guidance, the team rapidly pushed the FORGE enterprise forward through early prototyping and research and development within Space Force Labs and successfully transitioned capabilities into initial operational deliveries. These focused efforts provide the foundation for continuous delivery of operationally resilient ground systems, ensuring as the strategic and tactical impact of space continues to expand, mission success is assured.
“Ben’s executive leadership and deep technical talent in space based remote sensing and data analytics makes him a valued and respected member of our SMX senior leadership team,” said SMX CEO Peter LaMontagne. “We are fortunate to have Ben as a colleague.”
Why Watch
Tarr and his team are driving a transformative vision for 2025 at SMX by leveraging existing open platforms to integrate a broad ecosystem of defense and industrial partners to tackle the challenge of all-domain, tactically relevant information production. Recognizing the expertise within the defense industrial base, Tarr’s team is focused on fostering collaboration with partners who bring complementary capabilities to rapidly meet mission needs.
As SMX continues to advance this open ecosystem, they aim to rapidly integrate innovative solutions, ensuring the delivery of cutting-edge capabilities in dynamic mission environments.
“Having been in the Missile Warning and Missile Tracking domain for over twenty years, the last five years of progress with my team have been extremely rewarding,” Tarr said. “Many of the concepts we discussed over a decade ago with respect to open frameworks and democratized access to space data have really taken shape and fundamentally changed the industry for the better. It’s an exciting time to be building and contributing to the mission.”
Fun fact: Tarr loves to read historical fiction.