then Add to Home Screen.
A one-time member of the NGAUS legislative team who left 22 years ago to begin a series of significant positions in the Active Guard and Reserve program is set to bring his vast experience back to the association.
Col. Jon Eisberg is still in uniform, serving as senior policy advisor on Army National Guard matters on the Pentagon’s Reserve Forces Policy Board.
He is scheduled to retire in the weeks ahead after 35 years of military service, and on April 1 will rejoin the NGAUS staff as vice president for government affairs.
Eisberg will succeed retired Col. Mike Hadley, who held the post from 2016 through the end of last year.
"I’m extremely excited to return to NGAUS," Eisberg said. "In 2003, at the request of the chief of the National Guard Bureau, I departed the association as the Army programs director to work for NGB legislative liaison. I realized I had a lot more to learn about how the Bureau and the departments of the Army and Air Force worked.
"Twenty-two years later, I return to NGAUS with immense experience and knowledge gained through amazing Guard leaders and the positions I held," he said. "To me, the National Guard is a national treasure, rooted in the founding of our country. The institution needs advocacy, and to be part of that team is an honor."
Eisberg will be more than just a member of the team, he’ll be the quarterback, helping to develop the association’s legislative game plan and executing it on Capitol Hill.
He knows the playing field. In addition to his legislative advocacy at NGAUS and NGB, he was on the staff of Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., who served in the Senate from 1989 to 2007.
Eisberg’s position advising the RFPB is part of a series of assignments that have taken him across the country and around the world.
He previously was dean of students, an assistant professor and the senior National Guard chair at National War College, National Defense University in Washington, D.C.
He also spent time as director of training and operations at the Professional Education Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. An earlier tour saw him as the bilateral affairs officer and deputy chief of the Office of Defense Cooperation under U.S. European Command at the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Eisberg’s time in Sarajevo from 2006 to 2009 was another full circle in his career. He was a platoon leader with a Maryland Army Guard cavalry squadron serving on the Bosnia peacekeeping mission in 2001.
He later deployed as information operations chief and targeting officer with a joint special operations command task force during Operation Enduring Freedom.
Eisberg also held several positions at NGB, where he contributed to Guard plans in the war fight, homeland defense and civil support operations.
He began his military career as an enlisted seaman in the Navy. He had multiple occupational specialties, including as a helicopter search-and-rescue swimmer.
Retired Maj. Gen. Francis M. McGinn, the NGAUS president, who selected Eisberg for the position from what he called "an excellent pool of candidates," said he is looking forward to his arrival.
"Jon brings a wealth of diverse experience and a real passion for the Guard’s place in national defense," McGinn said.
— By John Goheen
