By Dawn Arden
Public Affairs Office
FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Feb. 28, 2019) – As the Maneuver Support Center of Excellence and Fort Leonard Wood’s new Deputy to the Commanding General, Gregg Thompson has many roles to fill, all of which work closely with the installation’s commanding general, command sergeant major, chief of staff, school leaders and enterprise partners.
According to Thompson, he will be primarily focused on three main areas as the DtCG with the first being proponency work and capability development. He said the installation has a significant part in developing the future force.
“A lot of people don’t see the development of capabilities, but it’s extremely important to the future of the Soldiers in our regiments,” said Thompson, who served as the director of MSCoE’s Capability Development Integration Directorate before leaving in 2015 to teach at the Army’s War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.
“Ultimately that (capability development) turns into training requirements and other things that manifest themselves here at Fort Leonard Wood,” he said.
His second focus area is community engagement.
“There are a great number of organizations and individuals — including nonprofits, industry, academia and appointed and elected officials — who are completely vested in the Army, our post, our mission and our people,” Thompson said. “I am really looking forward to collaborating with our stakeholders to support missions ranging from capabilities development to taking care of our workforce and installation to encouraging our youth to serve.”
Thompson started his Army career at Fort Leonard Wood in 1989 as a lieutenant and served here five times during his military career. He said he is looking forward to reconnecting and getting to know community partners and leaders across the state.
“My family and I wanted to come back to Missouri, and to be able to come back to Fort Leonard Wood was kind of a bonus because we love it here,” he said. “This is our fifth time back at Fort Leonard Wood, so this is really our Army home.”
The third area Thompson will focus on is his role as the senior civilian on the installation, a responsibility he doesn’t take lightly. Thompson said the work force can expect him to ask questions as he learns the importance of their roles and how they support the installation’s mission.
He also said he wants to ensure the work force is engaged, challenged and recognized for their work.
“I’m always ready to have a very frank discussion about what we can do better, and that’s part of my job,” he said. “I’m also looking for opportunities to recognize and reward people so we can continue to reinforce the great team-of-teams culture that we have here.”
Thompson, who retired from the Army this year after being the Chief of Staff at the U.S. Army War College, said he is grateful he can serve in this new role.
“I’m blessed to be given this opportunity and really excited to be back at Fort Leonard Wood on this great team,” he said.
-30-
About Fort Leonard Wood
Fort Leonard Wood is a thriving and prosperous installation that has evolved from a small basic training post more than 75 years ago to a premier Army Center of Excellence that trains more than 82,000 military and civilians each year.
Fort Leonard Wood is home to the U.S Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence and three U.S. Army schools: the U.S. Army Engineer School; U.S. Army Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear School; and the U.S. Army Military Police School. In addition to training engineer, CBRN and military police specialties for the Army, Fort Leonard Wood also provides gender-integrated in-processing and Basic Combat Training for new Soldiers.
Fort Leonard Wood also hosts and trains with the largest Marine Corps and Air Force detachments on any Army installation as well as a large Navy construction detachment.
More information about Fort Leonard Wood is at: https://home.army.mil/wood/index.php/about/mission.