Thomas G. Bowman

Biography

Thomas G. Bowman was nominated by President Trump to serve as the Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs and was confirmed by the United States Senate on August 3, 2017. Before his appointment as Deputy Secretary, Mr. Bowman was the Majority Staff Director of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. He has also served Veterans at VA for nearly ten years between 2002 and 2012, including assignment as Chief of Staff to two previous VA secretaries, Jim Nicholson and James Peake. For three and a half years, he served as Senior Advisor to the Director of VA’s Sunshine Healthcare Network caring for Veterans in Florida, southeast Georgia, and the Caribbean, which involved him directly in VA’s diverse field operations. The son of a career Navy chief and enlisted pilot, who was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked, Mr. Bowman was commissioned in the United States Marine Corps through NROTC at the University of Texas in 1969. He served 30 years in the Marine Corps as an infantry and Judge Advocate officer, including 21 years on active duty. He retired as a colonel in October 1999, after serving as Senior Military Assistant to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. Mr. Bowman holds a law degree from Western New England College School of Law in Springfield, Mass., and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Texas at Austin. His wife Joan died of ovarian cancer in 2013, after 41 years of marriage. 

Research Interest

Political Science and Law