Chris Hughes
Founder and CEO of NW Consulting and The Way Forward
Major General (RET.) Christopher P Hughes is a result-driven Consultant and Executive Coach with expertise in strategic planning, innovation, leadership, and operational and organizational design. Chris has spent the last five years helping C-Suit executives improve and train their junior leaders in the business and federal domains.
Christopher Hughes brings 35 years of leadership experience in the U.S Army, from platoon leader to Commanding General.
Over the course of his career, Chris served as the Executive Officer for the Secretary of the Army, the Army Senior Liaison to the U.S. House of Representatives, and he commanded an Infantry Battalion from the 101st Airborne Division during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Chris is the author of the book “War on Two Fronts” that recounts his experiences in Iraq and the Pentagon. He assisted in the creation of five major organizations within the Department of Defense and served as an investigator on the USS Cole Commission in 2000.
After retiring from military service, Chris became the President and CEO of Northwest Consulting, LLC. He's also the author of 'War on Two Fronts: an Infantry Commander's War in Iraq and the Pentagon'. Of which he was awarded the Army Historical Foundation's Distinguished Writing Award for Excellence in U.S. Army History Writing in 2008.
Areas of Expertise:
Author
Winner of The Army Historical Foundation’s Distinguished Writing Award for Excellence in U.S. Army History Writing- Journals, memoirs and letters, June 2008
Shortly after the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the war in Iraq became the most confusing in U.S. history, the high command not knowing who to fight, who was attacking Coalition troops, and who among the different Iraqi groups were fighting each other. Yet there were a few astute officers like Lt. Col. Christopher Hughes, commanding the 2d Battalion of the 327th Inf. Regiment, 101st Airborne, who sensed the complexity of the task from the beginning.
In “War on Two Fronts” Col. Hughes writes movingly of his “No-Slack” battalion at war in Iraq. The war got off to a bang for Hughes, when his brigade command tent was fragged by a Muslim sergeant in the 101st, leaving him briefly in charge of the brigade. Amid the nighttime confusion of 14 casualties, a nearby Patriot missile blasted off, panicking nearly everyone while mistakenly bringing down a British Tornado fighter-bomber.
“At that moment, an American officer stepped through the crowd holding his rifle high over his head with the barrel pointed to the ground. Against the backdrop of the seething crowd, it was a striking gesture—almost Biblical. “Take a knee,” the officer said, impassive behind surfer sunglasses. The soldiers looked at him as if he were crazy. Then, one after another, swaying in their bulky body armor and gear, they knelt before the boiling crowd and pointed their guns at the ground. The Iraqis fell silent, and their anger subsided. The officer ordered his men to withdraw.
It took two months to track down Lieutenant Colonel Chris Hughes, who by then had been rotated home. He called from his father’s house, in Red Oak, Iowa, en route to study at the Army War College, in Pennsylvania. I wanted to know who had taught him to tame a crowd by pointing his rifle muzzle down and having his men kneel. Were those gestures peculiar to Iraq? To Islam?”
“The experience has changed significantly. When I was growing up we operated in what was called a resource constrained environment. What that did for people in my generation is that we took care of what we had, we weren’t keen to seek better things, we made things last a long time. Then when 9/11 happened, it was about my 18 th or 19 th year, we were flush with resources and people. But I slowly learned that that didn’t teach people to be good leaders. It didn’t lead itself to people appreciating the things that they had and how to take advantage of those things. Now what I have seen right at the very end of my career, is that were going back to that drawn down, resource constrained environment. The means to teach young men and women how to be agile, adaptive, and innovative is important again.”
The CGSC Foundation board of trustees has elected former CGSC deputy commandant retired Maj. Gen. Christopher Hughes, as the next chair of the Command and General Staff College Foundation.
“Having neither sought nor bargained for this honor, I accept this appointment with humility and pride,” said Hughes. “I recognize the significance of this role and pledge to approach it with unwavering dedication.”
“As a former deputy commandant of the College and a lifelong learner himself, General Hughes comes to the board chair position with tremendous credentials,” said Interim President/CEO Lora Morgan. “We look forward to serving with him.”