Ms. Chaela M. Smith was appointed Chief of the Environmental Division at Headquarters, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in April 2025. As Chief of the Environmental Division, Ms. Smith oversees the annual execution of approximately $2.5 billion in environmental services supporting the Department of Defense, Army and Air Force installations, and other interagency partners. This includes managing, designing and executing a full range of cleanup activities related to hazardous, toxic, and radioactive waste and military munitions response as well as providing environmental technical expertise to active duty and reserve components in support of military readiness.
Ms. Smith has 27 years of combined Department of Defense and private industry experience related to environmental engineering, planning, programming, budgeting and execution. Prior to her current assignment, Ms. Smith served as the Chief of Staff within the Installations Division of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) for the U.S. Navy, where she was the senior technical advisor on facilities and environmental readiness matters in support of the Navy’s installation mission. This included analyzing strategic policy and objectives, and advising Department of Defense, industry partners, and other military services and stakeholders on Navy infrastructure and environmental program investments.
Her other previous assignments include serving as the CNO Installations Division Head of Program and Policy, where she assessed and defended the Navy’s $15 billion annual Installations Division budget, Environmental Compliance Branch Head, and environmental compliance program manager for various programs for the Navy, Army and Defense Logistics Agency. Prior to joining the Department of Defense, Ms. Smith began her career serving as an environmental engineer with Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceuticals. Ms. Smith has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Pittsburgh in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and a Master of Science degree from the University of Maryland in Project Management.