Prior to joining the Office of Force Transformation, Garstka was the Chief Technology Officer in the Joint Staff Directorate for Command, Control, Computer and Communications (C4) Systems. In this capacity, he played a key role in the development and conceptualization of network-centric warfare and was the Joint Staff lead for the Department of Defense's Report to Congress on Network Centric Warfare.
Prior to joining the Joint Staff, Garstka was a Senior Systems Engineer with Cambridge Research Associates, where he had responsibility for leading consulting engagements with commercial and government customers.
Before joining Cambridge, Garstka served as an officer in the United States Air Force (USAF) for ten years, with assignments on the Air Staff and at USAF Space and Missile Center.
Publications and reports he has authored or co-authored include:
Network Centric Warfare: Developing and Leveraging Information Superiority, by Alberts, Garstka, and Stein, CCRP Press, 1999. This book has been reprinted by leading IT companies and translated into three languages. Online at the DoD Command and Control Research Program