Col William R. Ryerson, PhD, USAF

Colonel William R. Ryerson is a military instructor at the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, National Defense University, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C. He teaches in the Industrial Mobilization and Competition course and serves as the Course Director for the school’s capstone Joint Warfighting Exercise, preparing senior military and civilian leaders to address strategic challenges in national security and defense resourcing.

Colonel Ryerson is a career weather and environmental sciences officer and a certified space professional. He previously served as the Air Force Chair at Marine Corps University, where he was the senior Air Force advisor and Course Director for Joint Warfare at the Marine Corps War College. He also commanded the 2d Weather Squadron at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, where he led over 150 personnel across three continents conducting the Department of Defense’s only space environment monitoring and prediction mission, as well as environmental forecasting for intelligence and media operations.

Colonel Ryerson has served on the Joint Staff as Chief of the Space and Missile Defense Branch and as the Joint Staff Meteorology and Oceanography Operations Officer. He deployed to Qatar as Executive Officer to the Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Forces Central Command-Forward in support of Operations ENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM.

He earned a Ph.D. and M.S. in Meteorology from the Naval Postgraduate School, with a research focus on numerical weather prediction, and is a distinguished graduate of both the Air Command and Staff College and the Marine Corps War College. He commissioned through Officer Training School in 2001 after graduating from Pennsylvania State University.