President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday three more former military men who now work in defense consulting will join the Defense Department transition team.
Thursday’s additions brings the team Trump has appointed to oversee the Defense Department handoff to 17 members. They include former officers from every service except the Air Force, industry insiders and Beltway think-tank types.
Joining the previously announced team is Michael Egan, a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. He was in the Army for 10 years, deployed to Iraq multiple times and left the service as a member of 5th Special Forces Group, according to his LinkedIn profile. Egan’s work on the transition is privately funded, according to the Trump team website. He has a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and received a master’s in business administration from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, where Trump himself studied.
Chris Hassler is the president and chief executive of Syndetics Inc., “a veteran owned, small business, that supports large defense/ intel system integrators and commercial Telecom providers to enter, win new, or maintain/ expand existing business within the federal business sector,” according to a description on Hassler’s LinkedIn profile. The firm claims to have helped net its clients $95 billion in new government business but does not specify what programs.
Hassler is 1978 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and holds a master’s in computer information systems from the Naval Postgraduate School. He is volunteering time to the transition effort.
Also joining the team is Kendell Pease, a 1968 graduate of the Naval Academy with a master’s in mass communications from American University. Pease spent 30 years in the Navy as a public affairs officer, retiring in 1998 as a rear admiral. He then went to work in industry, where he served as vice president of government relations for General Dynamics [GD]. He currently is self-employed and is volunteering time to the transition effort.