His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor of Jersey
AIR CHIEF MARSHAL SIR STEPHEN DALTON GCB LLD(Hon) DSc(Hon) BSc FRAeS CCMI
Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton joined the Royal Air Force in 1976 after graduating with an honours degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Bath University. During the height of the Cold War, he flew the Jaguar fighter/bomber on 3 tours in the tactical reconnaissance and ground attack roles. Subsequently, in his later career, Air Chief Marshal Dalton commanded the RAF’s Jaguar Force for 2 years from September 1997. Promoted to Air Commodore, he was appointed as Director of the Eurofighter (Typhoon) Programme Assurance Group in the Ministry of Defence with responsibility for ensuring that all elements of this key international defence programme resulted in a cost-effective and safe introduction to service of Typhoon.
On promotion to Air Vice-Marshal, he took over the post of Capability Manager for Information Superiority, with defence-wide responsibility for the assessment, budgetary management and delivery of Defence’s intelligence and communications capability. In April 2004, he was appointed Controller Aircraft on the Air Force Board; this period was dominated by the major renegotiation of the 4 partner-nation government and industry MOUs and contracts in the Typhoon Programme.
In May 2007, Air Chief Marshal Dalton was chosen to be the strategic personnel (HR) director for the Royal Air Force and was selected to be the Chief of the Air Staff in July 2009. He set to work immediately on the preparation for and the conduct of the 2010 UK SDSR, which required considerable focus on the political and international environments and the identification of an effective military strategy to match the significant financial constraints imposed by the national economic situation. He was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in 2012 and after a highly demanding, extended but, ultimately successful tour, he stood down as Chief of the Air Staff in July 2013. He was sworn-in as Her Majesty’s Lieutenant Governor of Jersey on 13 March 2017.
Much of his Service career involved the leadership of major change programmes in high profile positions and across major multi-departmental projects within government; he worked on high-level international projects with professional bodies, major industry partners, overseas organisations and governments. In 2012 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Law by Leicester University and an Honorary Doctorate of Science by The University of Bath in 2013. Air Chief Marshal Dalton has been on the Council of the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund, is the senior RAF Adviser to The Not Forgotten Association and is a Trustee of The Windsor Leadership Charity; he is an adviser to the Flying Scholarships for Disabled Pilots charity and for 4 years, spent weekends giving Air Training Corps cadets flying experience. He is President of the Battle of Britain Memorial at Capel-le-Ferne.