Brig. Gen. James (Jim) Dienst, USAF (Ret), is a senior executive leader with over 30 years of experience and demonstrated success leading large and dispersed medical organizations across the Air Force and DoD. He has proven skills in creating strategic plans and policies within the DoD and in developing organizational performance strategies with supporting action plans, budgets, and related metrics.

Born and raised in Kansas, he graduated from Emporia State University in 1985 with a bachelor’s degree in biology and graduated from the Houston College of Optometry in 1989 with a doctorate. In 2010, he graduated from the in-residence Air War College program with a master’s degree in strategic studies within the Blue Horizon’s Program. He entered into the active duty Air Force in 1996 and retired from the military in 2020.

During his time in the military, he served in a large variety of roles, including serving as a commander five times (squadron, group, agencies, and wing), completed an Air Force fellowship in war plans and operations, oversaw the medical operations center at the Pentagon, served at the Joint Task Force National Capital Region Medical, was the surgeon general for the Air Force Reserve Command, was the senior Air Force officer in the Defense Health Agency (DHA), served as the director for both the DHA J7 Education and Training and the DHA J8 Financial Operations directorates, served as the commander of the Air Force Medical Operations Agency, and served as the commanding general for the 711th Human Performance Wing at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.

Since leaving active duty, he has been actively employed by the MITRE Corporation as the principal healthcare strategist and Department of Defense advisor. He presently works at the Leidos Corporation as a Human Performance and Warfighter Readiness consulting employee. He also serves on the Fisher House Foundation executive board of South Texas. Jim is married to his wife, Judith, and has five children and five grandchildren.