James Kelley

Vertical Lift Consultancy

Mr. Kelley joined WBB in February of 2009 as Director of Army Programs. After retiring from the Army as a Major General with 34 years of service, his focus at WBB is on business development and consulting. He is a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in Army and Joint aviation operations, strategic planning, logistics and reserve component topics. His experience includes command and operational assignments in which he gained unique insights and expertise in the Strategic Planning Process, Requirements Generation, Mission Planning, Logistics, Training and Mission Support at all levels.

Mr. Kelley commanded at all levels in peace and war, culminating with the Deputy Commanding General of 3rd US Army, responsible for the management of all Army support to the Middle East for over 160K soldiers and civilians. In this capacity he helped to established the future support architecture and footprint for US and coalition forces in Kuwait. This strategic plan lead to greater and more efficient support to all allied forces throughout the Middle East by establishing new lines of transportation, communication and infrastructure. Additionally, he was responsible for coordination and funding for all Army logistical contracts in the Middle East.

As an operations officer for Forces Command during the attacks on September 11, 2001, he was key to executing the planning, mobilization and movements of all US Army forces into the Middle East Theater for Afghanistan and Iraq operations.

His last position was as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness, Training, and Mobilization. Here he took a diverse Joint Service team and developed policies to operationalize the 1.2 million personnel in the Reserve Components.

Mr. Kelley is a career Army Officer serving at all levels of Aviation command to include operational and maintenance units. He is an accomplished Blackhawk, Cobra, Scout and Huey pilot.