James Bowen Email and Phone Number

The Officer Senior Trainer (OST) role in the Army National Guard (ARNG) Mission Command Training Support Program (MCTSP) involves serving as the primary training advisor for Mission Command to designated ARNG commanders. OSTs focus on building and maintaining constructive mentorship and coaching relationships with battalion, brigade, and division commanders, along with their respective staffs. The primary objective is to support these leaders in reaching their Mission Command proficiency targets, enhancing their operational effectiveness.

EXECUTIVE PROFILEResult-oriented Management Professional and Logistics Executive with over 25 years of experience analyzing, planning, and directing administrative, financial, and operational activities for organizations and executives. Expertise includes:Created complete operational plans to attain an organization’s goals and objectives, which included building an effective team of leaders and ensuring adherence to the organization’s mission and vision.Fostered a robust leadership culture, ensuring factors contributing to it were consistent and aligned, connecting the dots that determine leadership behavior and ensuring leaders developed to their fullest potential.Articulated a vision for successful leadership in a company and evangelized that vision to guarantee that internal and external communications actively and consistently supported the vision.Assessed organization's success at delivering on its leadership vision by reinforcing appropriate leadership behavior through training programs that focused and aligned with traits that contributed to leadership behavior.Created opportunities for non-leader-track high achievers to be rewarded, ensuring an organization did not lose the aptitude and expertise of staff simply because they lacked leadership potential.Extensive experience in mentoring and coaching; implemented system for organizational leadership to receive honest feedback on how they perform and rank against their peers thus, assisting them in understanding the next steps for them to grow and gain promotion potential.

Served in the capacity of the Chief Operations Officer for a 4000+ person organization, responsible for all aspects. Charged to ensure that all operational, budgetary, logistical, and administrative aspects were managed and conducted business appropriately. In the role of Chief Leadership Officer was responsible for ensuring over 1000 management-level employees were trained and mentored to understand the mission, vision, and values of the organization and used them as a guide to conduct daily operations. Principal advisor to executive leadership, facilitating the long-term strategic planning for the organization with an emphasis on talent management and overseeing a congressionally appropriated multimillion-dollar budget as well as supplementary congressional and state-level budgetary additions. Provided ongoing collaboration with executive leadership to ensure the organization's mission, vision, values, and priorities were at the forefront of resource allocation. Served as the senior project manager for all initiatives, new programs, and compliance inspections within the organization.

Served as the facilitator for interdepartmental coordination for the organization, ensuring properly allocated resources to accomplish the organization's mission. Served as the Chief Leadership Officer and Principal Advisor to the Chief of Staff and executive leadership.Operational conduit for all emergency response resources needed to support local, state, and national emergencies. Handled the duties of liaison officer between the Director of Operations and the Chief of Staff. Conducted business on behalf of the Chief of Staff in their absence ensuring no continuity of operations was lost or degraded.

Planned, resourced, coordinated, and directed domestic support and emergency management operations, providing military personnel and equipment to the local, state, and federal governments during natural or man-made disasters. Served as the Director of Emergency Management for the WVARNG; interfacing with external agencies and partners to ensure response and recovery activities were resourced and conducted.Provided oversight to the Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear (CBRN) enterprise for the West Virginia National Guard, including the Civil Support Team and CBRN Enhanced Response Force Package (HAZMAT). Developed and executed the State Partnership Program for the WVNG paving the way for an expansion from one to three countries (Peru, Qatar, Gabon) supported by the West Virginia National Guard. Responsible for the oversight of the West Virginia National Guard counterdrug program. Ensured coordination and joint planning occurred with the West Virginia State Police and that intelligence analysis as well as aerial support was provided for surveillance and interdiction operations. Served as the budgetary program manager and responsible officer for an annual budget of approximately $900,000.

Led the WVNG 35th CBRN Enhanced Response Force Package located within FEMA Region III, consisting of 203 personnel organized into six subordinate elements, which included a command-and-control section, a mass decontamination section, a search and extraction element, a medical section, a fatality search and recovery team, and a communication section.Annually supported US Capitol Police personal request for response force during Presidential State of the Union Address or Presidential Inauguration. Supervised rapid deployments of team including deploying all required military equipment and state-of-the-art specialized equipment to support civil authorities in the event of an incident involving weapons of mass destruction in the United States. Additionally managed the rigorous training requirements for all those assigned to the team, ensuring the team was always ready to respond when needed.

Directed, coordinated, and supervised the operations and 25-person staff of the WV National Guard Joint Operations Center. Ensured that all ongoing operations, exercises, and State Emergency and Disaster Management Support Missions were continually managed, and all necessary support requirements provided. Directed and managed all CBRN (HAZMAT) requests for and responses by the WVNG Civil Support Team and CBRN Enhanced Response Force Package.Oversaw planning cells and working groups aimed to coordinate and integrate initiatives between the WV Department of Homeland Security, WV Department of Emergency Management, and the WVNG.

Served as the SME for the WV Army National Guard in all logistics areas, including planning, organizing, and overseeing the activities of the 300-person WVNG logistics directorate. Additionally, was the program manager for all logistical budgets totaling over $5M annually. Coordinated and directed the logistical mission and administered several programs aimed at ensuring all logistical efforts were in line with the mission, vision, and values of the organization. Developed the logistics support and sustainment portion of the WVNG continuity of operations plan and contingency plans and ensured all routine logistic activities were planned for and resourced. Across departmental lines developed information systems policies, procedures, and implementation plans to ensure adequate and timely communication systems were replaced when outdated and the life cycle was complete. Provided all necessary resources for emergency/disaster situations the WVNG was designated for response and recovery.

Operations Officer of a multi-national, multi-component Brigade (battlegroup) consisting of 880 US Soldiers and more than 800 Allied Soldiers. In this capacity planned, coordinated, and executed training events and operations within Kosovo with over 15 different countries and seven different languages. Ensured all subordinate elements’ operational plans were resourced and executed within the varying policies, regulations, and plans of all the stakeholders of this politically charged environment. Worked extensively with NATO Headquarters, Kosovo Security Forces, Non-Governmental Organizations, and local-level Kosovo governmental agencies to assess and analyze security and basic needs of the citizens.

Conducted crisis action planning to rapidly resolve situations/events occurring within the borders of West Virginia and surrounding areas. Wrote the crisis action plan for the WVNG as well as assisted in the development of the continuity of operations plan. Developed plans (Incident Action Plans) for current operations, future, and contingent missions. Served as operations project manager ensuring all requested and directed taskings were completed and on time. Developed operational concepts and performed tasks that fell outside the Strategic Operations and current operations purview to ensure effective coordination, planning, and execution of operations and staff activities.