My VMM story begins on the 2nd of June 2001. I was standing outside of the Michie Stadium at the United States Military Academy at West Point. The lore at West Point is if it rains on your graduation day, your class is going to war. It not only rained; it absolutely poured down. 3 ½ months later, 9/11 occurred. And not only was my West Point class at war – but also the nation.
I served as an Infantry officer in combat in Iraq in the years that followed 9/11. As I returned back to the United States from that experience, I recognized we needed to engage our broader society in service to the nation.
In the years that followed my military service, it became my mission to engage our broader country and society in solving the great challenges of our time.
Following serving as a professor at West Point and a staffer on the Hill, I co-founded a non-profit called the Common Mission Project, which is focused on solving critical public problems through an innovation and entrepreneurship program called Hacking for Defense (H4D).
H4D brings together the government, universities, and the private sector around these critical public problems – introducing student talent and entrepreneurs to national service and creating dual-use start-ups focused on solving public problems.
Today, at NobleReach, my objective is to help further scale tech and talent programs to continue to solve the great challenges of our time.
