Jim Mattis was raised in Southeastern Washington and graduated from Central Washington State College.
He served over 40 years in the Marine Corps as an infantry officer, plus duty in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, as NATO Supreme Allied Commander, and as Commander of U.S. Central Command comprised of 250,000 U.S. and allied troops in combat across the Middle East and South Asia.
Retiring in 2013, he was a Davies Family Scholar at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
Subsequently he served as the 26th Secretary of Defense from January 2017 through December 2018.
