Colonel Crystal M. Hills was a Chief of Staff of the Army Senior Fellow in New America’s International Security Program. Hills commissioned through South Carolina State University’s (SCSU) ROTC program is a career Army Logistician with extensive experience at all levels within the Global Supply Chain and Logistics (GSCL) management industry.
Most recently, Hills served as the Senior Supply & Logistics Officer for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Rapid Deployable Corps Headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey. There she led and managed all logistics matters for multi-national military organizations across SouthWest Asia, Middle East, and Europe. She previously commanded Army Field Support Battalion-Africa in Livorno, Italy, a unit that maintained and issued prepositioned critical war-fighting stocks. Hills is currently slated to assume brigade command, in Summer 2022.
Hills earned an MS in National Security and Resource Strategy (GSCL Management concentration) from the Dwight D. Eisenhower School at the National Defense University (NDU). Her research interests include blockchain and Artificial Intelligence use to improve Supply Chain resilience and performance. While at NDU she supported the White House Supply Chain Task Force’s COVID-19 relief efforts and served as a John Hopkins’ COVID Design Challenge mentor.
Hills was a Defense Ventures Fellow at Structure Capital where she focused on leveraging dual use technology to eliminate food waste. She also holds an MBA from Webster University, and an MA and BA in English (Georgia State University and SCSU respectively), skills she has utilized as an Associate Professor U.S. Military Academy, a 4-Star Speechwriter, a Special Assistant to the Director of Army Staff, and an Adjunct Professor, University of Maryland Global Campus.
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Hills has been station around the world, having served half her career overseas to include a tour to Afghanistan.