General Richard Myers’s leadership and service to the United States took place during a time of unprecedented unrest around the globe. Myers served as the 15 th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for President George W. Bush from 2001-2005. As the nation’s highest-ranking military officer and the principal military advisor to the president, Myers led America’s global war on terrorism and the fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. During his tenure as the United States’s top officer, our nation’s uniformed forces received international accolades for the massive domestic and international relief missions following Hurricane Katrina and 2004’s Asian tsunami.

Myers is a 1965 graduate of Kansas State University, and holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration from Auburn University. The general has attended the Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama; the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; and the Program for Senior Executives in National and International Security at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Nov. 9, 2005. In 2006, Myers was elected to the board of directors of Northrop Grumman Corporation, the world’s third largest defense contractor. Myers and his wife, the former Mary Jo Rupp, have three children, two daughters and a son.