Kurt Schwend, MBA, PMP
Senior Vice President of Operations and Technology | San Diego, CA
Kurt leads a team of five Program Managers and five Program Assistants who work with each service branch, the Coast Guard, and the Reserve Component; military medical facilities serving the Wounded, Ill, and Injured; program partners such as the Armed Services YMCA; and with volunteers and representatives of other emerging initiatives to provide training and support to those offering our program in the field. In addition, Kurt plans, organizes and directs a comprehensive technology strategy ensuring the smooth and continuous operation of technology support services to a geographically dispersed team across the US and providing technical guidance to a user community of volunteers located across the US and those stationed with forward deployed units. Kurt also serves as the staff liaison to the Board’s Strategic Growth Committee and serves as the head of United Through Reading’s Technology Advisory Group.
Kurt has 21 years of hands-on technology management and leadership experience, the last 10 years leading a team of technologists supporting 13 higher education campuses in the western United States and the Pacific. Kurt spent six years on active duty as an F-14 Radar Intercept Officer, completing three deployments on the USS Saratoga (CV-60), and earning a Naval Strike Flight Medal for flying 20 combat missions in Bosnia. He is a Project Management Professional (PMP) and earned a BS in Astrophysics at UCLA, and an MBA with an emphasis in Technology Management through the University of Phoenix. Contact Kurt at kurtschwend@utr.org