{"id":25,"date":"2013-01-21T16:31:52","date_gmt":"2013-01-21T21:31:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kapoktreediplomacy.com\/hp_wordpress\/?page_id=25"},"modified":"2023-11-06T10:01:56","modified_gmt":"2023-11-06T15:01:56","slug":"about-me","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/kapoktreediplomacy.com\/hp_wordpress\/about-me\/","title":{"rendered":"About Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jeff<\/a>I was born and raised in Kokomo, IN, and attended undergraduate school at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, TN, with an Army ROTC 4-yr scholarship, graduating with a BS in Business Administration. I served in the U.S. Army Reserves from 1991-2001 and spent the better part of 17 years of my civilian career in banking and finance, primarily with community banks, accumulating a wealth of experience in branch management, financial analysis and commercial lending.<\/p>\n

My early career focus was on helping organizations make innovative and enduring improvements to overall performance with a particular emphasis on relationship building and a knack for translating complex information into clearly understandable language and a big picture view. In 2011, after being named a Presidential Management Fellow, I accepted an appointment with the Department of the Navy, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV), as a Program Analyst. I worked there for three years, and then another six after that in the DC area as a contractor supporting NAVSEA and OPNAV (back in the Pentagon). For the last three years I have been on the defense industry side of the house working as a strategic planner.<\/p>\n

I completed a Master of Science in Information Technology through the Florida Institute of Technology in 2009 and a Master of Arts in Diplomacy through Norwich University in 2011. My emphasis at Norwich was in Conflict Resolution and Post-Conflict Reconstruction. I obtained a certificate in Project Management from the Project Management Institute in 2018.<\/p>\n

In my spare time, I enjoy beach-time, reading, running, outdoor activities, my local church, and hanging out with the family. I definitely love coffee and baseball as well. The love of my life is my wife of 26 years, Gina, and I have four children – two boys (ages 18 and 15), and two girls (ages 28 and 25), and a West Highland White Terrier, Winston, an Irish Setter, Molly, and a Golden Retriever, Cosmo.<\/p>\n

I became a Christian as a sophomore at the University of Tennessee in 1988, and my life was forever changed.\u00a0 I enjoy learning about the many facets of Christianity and the application of the theistic Christian worldview to everyday issues and geopolitical challenges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was born and raised in Kokomo, IN, and attended undergraduate school at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, TN, with an Army ROTC 4-yr scholarship, graduating with a BS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-25","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P31a0x-p","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapoktreediplomacy.com\/hp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapoktreediplomacy.com\/hp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapoktreediplomacy.com\/hp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapoktreediplomacy.com\/hp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapoktreediplomacy.com\/hp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/kapoktreediplomacy.com\/hp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":907,"href":"https:\/\/kapoktreediplomacy.com\/hp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25\/revisions\/907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapoktreediplomacy.com\/hp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}