Casey Wardynski

Dr. E. Casey Wardynski served as Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs under President Trump. His confirmation by the United States Senate was effective on January 16, 2019, and he immediately began his service in President Trump’s Administration. During his service in the Administration, Casey was responsible for Army personnel policy and supervision of the Army’s 1.3-million-person manpower program. He also supervised the development of a $450 billion five-year defense program for the Army. He created the Army’s first Army People Strategy aimed at acquiring, developing, employing, and retaining the right Army talent.

Prior to serving as a principal official in the Trump Administration, Casey served a thirty-year career in the U.S. Army. After graduating from West Point, he entered training as a Special Weapons Officer at Redstone Arsenal. He then served in Germany, the United States, and Korea. From 1995 to 2010, he served as an Associate Professor of Economics in the Department of Social Sciences at the United States Military Academy (West Point) and led the U.S. Army’s Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis (OEMA) as its longest-serving Director. In that role, Casey provided policy analysis and led policy execution for the Secretary of the Army and other senior Army leaders in areas ranging from weapons procurement and officer retention to talent management and sustainment of the volunteer Army throughout the War on Terror.

Casey created the award-winning America’s Army Game which he home-based at Redstone Arsenal. That project and the Virtual Army Experience, which he also created and based at Redstone, brought entire new industries to Northern Alabama as well as hundreds of millions of dollars of work.

Among his military awards and decorations are the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, and four Meritorious Service Medals. For his service as Assistant Secretary of the Army, Casey was awarded the Army Distinguished Public Service Medal and the Superior Public Service Medal, the Army’s top two awards for individuals making a substantial contribution to the Army’s mission at the policy-making level.

From 2011 to 2016, Casey served as Superintendent of Huntsville City Schools. His accomplishments included turning a $19 million deficit into a surplus of more than $30 million while raising graduation rates from 66 to 88 percent. He created a partnership with the Army Cyber Command to further cyber education and, in 2015, Huntsville City Schools was named one of seven National Cyber Security Centers of Excellence. Under Casey’s leadership, Huntsville City Schools removed eight schools from the Alabama failing school list while nine schools were recognized as Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence. As further evidence of his success in raising student achievement, Casey decreased remediation rates among graduates of Huntsville City Schools upon entering college by 30 percent.

A 1980 graduate of the United States Military Academy, Casey holds a Master’s in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in Policy Analysis from the Frederick S. Pardee Rand Graduate School.

Casey is nationally known as a tech-savvy thought leader and change agent in the government and private sector. From 2016 to 2018, he served as CFO and then CEO of FISH Technologies, an industry leader in the marketing event technology field. In 2018, Casey led FISH through a highly successful acquisition by Providence Equity Group. As CEO of Regenesis Stem Cell Center in Huntsville, Casey is now focused on growing Regenesis into a national center of excellence for high-tech regenerative medical solutions for active adults of all ages.

Casey and his wife of thirty-four years, Susan, raised three children. Following the loss of Susan, Casey married Karen Lee, a national leader in the treatment of adolescent behavioral health issues. Together, Casey and Karen have six adult children who contribute in fields ranging from the military to medicine and veterinary medicine. They also currently have five grandchildren, with a sixth on the way.