Political Science alumni Lieutenant Commander Richard D. Jones, class of 2001, entered the U.S. Navy Officer Candidate School after graduating from Missouri State and received his commission in 2002. Since then, his assignments have included overseas tours in South Korea and Japan, and he has completed deployments to the middle-east, Afghanistan, and Asia. In 2011, his command was a first responder for humanitarian aid and disaster relief efforts during Operation Tomodachi in response to the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Rich was accepted to the Navy’s Civilian Institutions Program for graduate studies and completed his MBA from the University of Notre Dame in 2014. While at Notre Dame, he had the opportunity to study Latin American economics and international finance at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago. Additionally, he was a member of the Business on the Front Lines program, where his team traveled to Lesotho to work with the non-profit organization Touching Tiny Lives (TTL) on income generation and self-sustainment solutions. TTL’s mission is to mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS on infants and children under the age of five. After completing his graduate studies, Rich married his wife Diane, who also serves as a Naval Officer. They enjoy international travel and continue to disagree on whether Star Wars or Star Trek is the superior series. Most recently, he moved from Virginia Beach, Virginia for an assignment with the Defense Logistics Agency in Columbus, Ohio.
While at Missouri State, Rich was a study abroad participant at Qingdao University in China, and was a member of the World Affairs Council and Pi Sigma Alpha Honor Society.