RESUME

CHARLES COON

**** **** ******* *****, *******, MD 21113

443-***-**** ad44la@r.postjobfree.com

Strategic Communications / International Development / Military Classroom Instructor / Writer-Editor

SUMMARY: Thirty years' experience in strategic and corporate communications (international development), teaching strategic communications to military officers, and journalism.

OBJECTIVE: To support an admirable cause by playing a lead or integral role in purposeful strategic communications.

EXPERIENCE

DAI Global LLC, Senior Communications Manager for the USAID-funded Critical Infrastructure Digitalization and Resilience (CIDR) Program in Eastern Europe

July 2022 – Present, Bethesda, Maryland

I manage communications for CIDR and its U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded activities in select countries (Albania, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia). I report to the program director and work closely with our country directors and teams.

CIDR country teams help partner-nation governments and institutions to develop cybersecurity for essential entities such as gas and electric, telecom, and e-government. We provide assistance to:

Develop cybersecurity governance through strategic planning, legislation, and oversight bodies in accordance with EU standards.

Grow the labor pool for qualified cybersecurity professionals, including by working with academia to update curricula, train instructors, and promote interest among students.

Help critical infrastructure operators to detect and mitigate risk.

Create mechanisms to share information across silos about cyberattacks, threats, and trends.

My work includes:

Creating press releases, official remarks, and “run-of-show” agendas for national-level press events.

Reviewing and editing meeting agendas.

Writing and editing reports, proposals, and other official communique in adherence with USAID branding and marking requirements.

Creating backgrounders, talking points, and fact sheets.

Producing and administering traffic light protocol (TLP) for sensitive program communication.

Supporting colleagues’ attendance to conferences and other professional events.

Supporting DAI corporate communications with case studies and other news from CIDR.

Supporting communications for USAID’s U.S.-Europe Energy Bridge, which aims to promote energy independence in Eastern Europe.

Defense Information School (DINFOS), Instructor of Public Affairs and Communication Strategy,

September 2019 – June 2022, Fort Meade, Maryland

I taught strategic communications and public affairs at the Defense Information School for the U.S. Department of Defense. I trained and qualified U.S. military officers to become public affairs officers and communications strategists. I led classroom instruction and mentored students — 20-80 students per classroom, mostly company-grade officers (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps), plus senior enlisted and field-grade officers, U.S. Coast Guard, General Services, National Security Agency, Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and international military members. I served on pass-fail capability boards.

I taught nine iterations of the rigorous nine-week course, including teaching online (distance learning) from April–June 2020 due to COVID-19, plus adjunct instruction for crisis scenario exercises and for international students. I was selected to emcee the June 2022 graduation for more than 60 graduates plus VIP guests and was the first non-veteran civilian to be so honored.

In February 2022, I led 23 military members and DoD civilians through a joint task force deployment scenario based in Poland — another first for a non-veteran civilian at DINFOS — where, with notional U.S. command staff and Polish partners, my students competed in the public information environment against malign domestic and regional actors to influence public opinion. I supported this exercise numerous times as well as similar notional scenario exercises based in the Philippines and Honduras.

I led collegiate-level classes in: creating communications plans (research, planning, implementation, evaluation, SWOT analysis); geographic-based communications strategy; nesting with higher headquarters and national security strategy; public affairs staff estimate; international partnership and cooperation; community relations; environmental scanning (information environment); issue analysis and response (crisis communications); engaging with media; releasable vs. non-releasable information; writing press releases/AP style; press conference/media kit. I supported classes in: information warfare; themes, messages, talking points; social media/multimedia; DoD Joint Planning Process; cultural biases.

I was a contracted instructor for Oneida SRS and Lewis-Price.

DAI Global, LLC

Corporate Communications, Principal Communications Writer

September 2008 - September 2019, Bethesda, Maryland

I planned and implemented corporate communications for DAI, an international development firm that manages approximately 160 projects in 70 emerging countries. DAI’s programs address inefficient markets, ineffective governance, and instability and work for public, private, and corporate clients.

My job at DAI:

•Plan with and support the VP/communications and team and CEO and executive team.

•Plan communications products in all technical areas with project chiefs worldwide and their communication leads.

•Write, edit, ghostwrite, and manage external and company-wide internal content.

•Prepare and edit written and visual material, including videos and infographics, for dai.com, DAI publications, and DAI social media platforms.

•Mentor and counsel colleagues worldwide on communications planning and products.

DAI delivers development assistance in these technical areas: good governance; fiscal and tax reform; stabilization/fragile states; economic growth; agriculture/agricultural trade; food security; gender rights; climate change adaptation and mitigation; water and sanitation; global health and health systems; education; digital acceleration; capital for development.

DAI's top clients include: U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); U.K. Department for International Development (DFID); European Union/European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; World Bank; major foundations such as Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; multinationals such as Shell, Chevron, and ExxonMobil.

Stars and Stripes

Reporter-Photographer

March 2003 - September 2008, Stuttgart, Germany

I reported stories from numerous countries as a civilian journalist-photographer. Based in Stuttgart, Germany, my reporting beat included NATO, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), and the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) and its bases/installations. I filed stories from 20 countries.

I wrote and filed stories:

•During combat assignments (embedded and non-embedded) and from remote locations in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2004-2007.

•From U.S. bases throughout Europe, stories about military members, families and communities and the issues affecting them, including issues arising from deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, conducting hundreds of interviews.

•About major commands, including U.S. Army Europe, U.S. Air Forces in Europe, NATO/Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (Mons, Belgium), and the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies (Garmisch, Germany).

•Remotely from Afghanistan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Djibouti, England, France, Germany, Iraq, Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, Netherlands, Niger (embedded with Special Forces), Poland, Spain, Tunisia, and the United States.

•Based on interviews with numerous general officers, including four-star general officers.

•Working across from dozens of public affairs officers (PAOs) representing major commands to small units.

Gannett USA TODAY NETWORK Reporter-Editor

January 1990 - March 2003, Elmira, New York

I served as a reporter and editor based in Elmira, N.Y., for the Gannett New York group of newspapers: Elmira Star-Gazette, Binghamton Press and Sun- Bulletin, Ithaca Journal, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, and the Gannett/USA Today chain.

Some of my work won first place in state- and national-level competitions. I reported on: local, city, state, and regional news and politics; crime and justice; business and the economy; health care; environmental issues; sports (scholastic and college, professional auto racing and golf).

EDUCATION

MS, Strategic Communications, University of Maryland Global Campus

BA, Rhetoric and Communication, State University of New York at Albany

AS, Business Administration, Corning (N.Y.) Community College

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