Travis Bledsoe Email & Phone Number

Sioux Falls, South Dakota Area

My responsibilities include developing veterans' claims for benefits and applying relevant laws and regulations. It's my job to determine what evidence is needed to substantiate a claim, develop for that evidence, and analyze it for relevant information in order to establish service connection for claimed disabilities. The job requires some public contact and customer service, a keen eye for detail, and good memory and organizational skills.

I acted as a research and teaching assistant for Dr. Patrick Hickey, and a teaching assistant to Dr. Jason MacDonald. I gained hands-on experience learning the methods and difficulties of social science research and data gathering. As part of my duties, I gathered a large volume and variety of political data and compiled the data into Excel spreadsheets. As a teaching assistant, I aided in administering POLS 102, Intro to American Government. I aided in proctoring exams/quizzes, providing assistance to students, and grading exams, quizzes, and papers.

I served as a targeting analyst on the Counter-Insurgency Targeting Program operating out of the U.S. Army's National Ground Intelligence Center. As a targeting analyst, I served as the subject matter expert on the insurgency in my assigned area and such services as kinetic and non-kinetic targeting support and network analysis. I required a knowledge of enemy personalities, associations, facilitators, and operating areas and produced targeting packages, briefings, link charts, and miscellaneous other products. I deployed to Helmand Province, Afghanistan, from October 2010 to April 2011 in support of a USMC battalion, and from February to July 2012 in support of a USMC battalion, division, and Regional Command-Southwest. Other duties included providing reach back capabilities to the National Ground Intelligence Center, coordinating with CITP analysts supporting neighboring units, coordinating with collection elements and evaluating intelligence reporting. I gained a familiarity with such tools as Palantir, Analyst Notebook, CIDNE, ArcGIS, GoogleEarth, Falconview, M3, QueryTree, and Microsoft Office programs.

I served over three years military experience in a special forces unit, with two deployments to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and one deployment to Colombia (January-April 2010). I performed duties as both an intelligence analyst and security manager/passport agent for the battalion. Responsibilities as an intelligence analyst included reporting research, briefing, preparing intelligence summaries, providing direct support to line companies, producing target packages, area analysis, and liaising with Coalition partners.

Master Of Arts (M.A.), Political Science

Received an MA in Political Science in May 2014. My focus was international relations, though I also have coursework in comparative.

Bachelor Of Arts (B.A.), Political Science