McSwain has over 28 years of Department of Defense leadership experience at the Federal, State, and Higher Education levels and is currently serving as Director of the newly opened UMass Lowell Research Institute in Lincoln, Massachusetts. The Institute is a DoD focused initiative linking the core competencies of UMass Lowell to defense requirements to provide rapid and innovative solutions for warfighter and commercial customers in the areas of procurement, additive manufacturing, academics and Small Business Innovation Research.
McSwain joined MassDevelopment post retirement where he led a $1.5M state-wide project focused on reducing energy costs and improving energy security at Massachusetts military installations in coordination with the Department of Energy Resources and the Governor’s Military Task Force. He also led two state-wide grants totaling $3.1 million dollars from Department of Defense Office of Economic Adjustment to study the impacts of sequestration on the regional defense and high tech industry of Massachusetts and to develop strategic defense sector recommendations.
McSwain is a retired Air Force Officer and Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) HH-60G helicopter pilot. His active duty assignments included Chief of CSAR-X Requirements at Headquarters Air Combat Command for the $16 Billion dollar procurement program, Chief of Group Standardization and Evaluation for the USAF 58th Special Operations Wing where he was Chief Evaluator Pilot for over 260 instructor and evaluator aircrew, and Air Force ROTC Commander at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. McSwain currently resides in Andover, Massachusetts.
