ADVENTURER | VETERAN | SPEAKER
“Dan effectively weaves leadership insights earned in the high mountains of South America, in ground combat in Iraq, and over years of marathon training with practical applications that made my team better in our work.”
— Anna McFarlane, Education first
Leadership THROUGH ACTION
Education can be a game changer for someone’s life. Today, Dan is working with a group of Tillman Scholars to create a new model of higher education called Polymath University that is more accessible and more effective for students across the country.
Dan has a wide breadth of leadership experiences that he brings to bear in his current work building Polymath University, and often speaks to groups about team leadership and what it takes to lead effectively.
His experience includes serving as CEO of a national nonprofit – the Pat Tillman Foundation – through which he built a culture that was recognized as a top 10 nonprofit to work for in the country. He has served as an elected representative on a local school board that served 5,000 students, half of whom were eligible for free & reduced lunch. He also led a platoon in combat on over 400 missions over five years’ service as an Airborne Ranger-qualified Infantry Officer. He has served on and led nonprofit boards of directors. He holds policy and business degrees from Harvard University and Gonzaga University and has been selected as a Tillman Scholar, a Truman Fellow, a Rappaport Fellow, and a New Leaders Council Fellow.
Growing up partially in foster care, and later with the support of a single dad working in a blue collar factory job, Dan has benefitted from the love and care of individuals and systems. He owes a great deal to a volunteer guardian ad litem, Bernardine Berube, who – after Dan was kidnapped by his mother – located and reunited him with his father.
Dan also gained international attention as he and Isaac Stoner led Operation Thonapa, a successful expedition to recover the missing black boxes of a 1985 plane crash high in the Bolivian Andes at 20,000 feet. Dan is an avid runner, completing a dozen marathons and holding a best of 2:48.
Dan with Bernardine Berube, 2019
Dan and Isaac Stoner during one of three trips to Mt. Illimani, Bolivia for Operation Thonapa