Colonel Carmelia Scott-Skillern was Chief of Staff of the Army Senior Fellow in New America’s Future Security program. Colonel Scott-Skillern was commissioned as a Quartermaster Officer through Officer Candidate School and is a career Army logistician with extensive logistics and management experience at all levels within the Global Supply Chain and Logistics (GSCL) management industry.
Most recently, Colonel Scott-Skillern served as Chief of Programs Division in the office of Chief of Legislative Liaison, Headquarters Department of the Army, where her principal duty was to work with Defense Oversight Committees in Congress and the Army Staff to obtain the authorizations and funding to run the Army. She and her team of legislative liaisons worked to advance key Army programs such as Project Convergence 22, Multi-Domain Task Force, and the Tenant Bill of Rights for Housing. Before being appointed Chief of Programs Division, she also served as the Executive Officer to the Chief of Legislative Liaison.
Colonel Scott-Skillern has consistently served in key command and staff positions. Her command assignments included Commander, Army Field Support Brigade in Kuwait, an organization that maintained and distributed prepositioned critical warfighting stocks in direct support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Operation Inherent Resolve, Iraq, and Operation Freedom Sentinel in Afghanistan; She also served as Commander, Army Field Support Battalion-Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Colonel Scott-Skillern’s other assignments include Executive Officer, 330th Movement Control Battalion, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, with deployment to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom; Senior Defense Trade Analyst, Department of State, Washington, DC; Assistant Executive Officer to the Commanding General, United States Army Materiel Command at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama; and Executive Officer to the Military Deputy, Assistant Secretary of the Army (Financial Management and Comptroller), Headquarters Department of the Army.
Colonel Scott-Skillern’s civilian education includes a Master of Science (MS) in National Security and Resource Strategy (Health Care) from the Dwight D. Eisenhower School at the National Defense University (NDU) and a second MS in Public Management (Concentration: Logistics) from Touro University, California. She also holds a Master of Business Administration from Touro University. She graduated from the Florida Institute of Technology Logistics Executive Development Course and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Seminar XXI National Security Studies.
Her research interest is National Service and the Propensity to Serve.