Colonel (Retired) Tom Davis ’72, will be at West Point during 8-9 November. Colonel Davis instructed in the Department of Social Sciences from 1980-83, and taught all three of the required courses during that period – International Relations, Politics and Government, and Economics. In addition, he taught electives in Energy Policy and Middle Eastern Studies. In his last assignments in the Army he directed the development of the Army’s five-year program and budget for the Chief of Staff. An authority on the pentagon’s “Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System” (PPBS), he’ll lecture cadets enrolled in the National Security Seminar on how the process works – or should work.
After retiring from the Army, Colonel Davis entered the defense industry and rose to be the Corporate Vice President for Strategic Planning of General Dynamics, the Army’s largest equipment supplier. Now the Forrestal-Richardson Industry Chair at the Defense Acquisition University outside Washington, Colonel Davis will also discuss current issues involving the defense industrial base.
Perhaps most interestingly, Colonel Davis has recently published a historical novel, Conclave, a fictionalized account of the pivotal election of John Paul II as pope in October 1978. In the book, the protagonist is a West Point faculty member from the class of 1968 on loan to the National Security Council staff. The book is a Cold War era thriller. Colonel Davis will be available on the afternoon of 9 November to sign copies of Conclave at the Thayer Hall bookstore.