Jeff Schloesser

Jeff Schloesser is a retired Army Major General who commanded the 101st Airborne Division for thirty-three months, including fifteen months in combat in Afghanistan. In his thirty-four year Army career he served in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Albania, Kuwait, Haiti, Jordan, South Korea, and twice in Germany.

Born into an Army family, Jeff lived across the U.S. and also in Germany, moving every few years as a child. After graduating from the University of Kansas, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and attended Officer Candidate School, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. He married his high school sweetheart, Patty Drysdale, and they lived the next three plus decades all around the world, raising two children, Ryan and Kelly.

Jeff enjoyed leading Soldiers and served as a platoon leader three times in three different units and a company commander of 180 soldiers in South Korea. He commanded two special operations battalions including one deployed to Haiti, and an aviation brigade in Germany, Albania and Kosovo. He was the first Global War on Terrorism Planning Director in the Pentagon after 9/11, and the first Deputy Director at the National Counterterrorism Center for Strategic Operational Planning.

Additionally, he served as an assistant division commander in combat in Iraq, and a division and combined joint task force commander in Afghanistan, ultimately commanding over thirty-thousand troops from the U.S., Poland, France, and several other allied countries.

During his military career, Jeff served as a combat engineer, an Army Aviator, a Special Operations Aviator, an Army Foreign Area Officer for the Middle East, an Army Strategist, and Counter Terrorism specialist. He graduated from the Defense Language Institute (Arabic), Georgetown University’s Masters of Science in Foreign Service program, and was a National Security Fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School. He served at the U.S. State Department and in the U.S. Embassy in Jordan and Kuwait.

Jeff and Patty live in Park City, Utah, and Washington DC, where he works for a technology company focused on vertical lift flight. Jeff, Patty, and their Border-Doodle pup “Otis” can be found hiking or snowshoeing in the mountains around their home. Jeff runs, mountain bikes, and swims, and competes with his daughter in a couple of triathlons. He has completed thirty-eight marathons. Their son Ryan is an Army officer with two children and their daughter Kelly is a senior manager at a global consultancy.