About Today’s Guest

Mark William Balmert is retired United States Navy rear admiral. His last command was the joint Navy and Marine Corps Expeditionary Strike Group 3. He retired from the Navy in 2008 and joined Northrop Grumman as a Strategic Senior Consulting Manager.

Balmert was born in Fort Madison, Iowa. He participated in the Navy Reserve Officer Training program (NROTC) at the University of Notre Dame, and graduated in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering. He earned a Master of Science in Financial Management from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1985. He is a 1989 graduate of the Armed Forces Staff College He also attended the National Securities Management Course at the Maxwell School of Citizenship at Syracuse University.

Balmert was commissioned as an Ensign in December 1977 through the NROTC program.[1] He attended Surface Warfare Officers School and then began his first sea assignment in 1978 aboard the USS Lynde McCormick (DDG 8). He served as the Engineering officer aboard the USS Fife (DD 991) from 1986 to 1988, and aboard the USS Merrill (DD 976) as Executive Officer from 1991 to 1992. CDR Balmert commanded USS Chandler (DDG 996) from 7 August 1996 to 18 December 1998,[2] winning the Battle Efficiency Award, and Destroyer Squadron 7 during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom as Sea Combat Commander for the Constellation Battle Group.

Balmert also served as Chief Staff Officer of Destroyer Squadron 13; Assistant Surface Operations Officer for Commander 7th Fleet; Flag Secretary for Commander 3rd Fleet; Operations Officer for Commander Cruiser-Destroyer Group 1; Commander Expeditionary Strike Group 5; and as Commander Expeditionary Strike Group 3. He was succeeded as commander for ESG3 on May 22, 2008 by Rear Admiral Kendall L. Card. RDML Balmert's final assignment was as Commander, Amphibious Group Three.

Balmert was nominated for promotion to the rank of rear admiral (lower half) in April 2004. He retired from the U.S. Navy in 2008.

San Diego Military Affairs Council Web Site: https://www.sdmac.org

The PsychArmor resource for this week is resource of the week is the Psycharmor course Where Are You on the Collaboration Journey? This course is designed for communities interested in learning how to use collective impact principles to foster collaboration and increase impact for service members, Veterans, their families, and their caregivers. The goal of this course it to provide you with information regarding the phases of a collaborative effort, as well as additional tools to sustain impact. This course will help you define where you are on the collaborative journey and what is needed to move forward. You can find the course by going to https://psycharmor.org/courses/where-on-collaboration-journey/

This episode is sponsored by PsychArmor, the premier education and learning ecosystem specializing in military culture content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory with custom training options for organizations.

Our theme music Don’t Kill the Messenger was written and performed by Navy Veteran Jerry Maniscalco, in cooperation with Operation Encore, a non profit committed to supporting singer/songwriter and musicians across the military and Veteran communities.