Joshua W. Welle was born in Mercer Country Hospital and graduated from Wall Township High School in Monmouth County. The proud son of a service-oriented family, he always put his community and country first. His mother, Barbara, was an English teacher at St. John Vianney in Holmdel and his father, Larry, was a career New Jersey prosecutor. A National Honor Society member, Josh revived the Navy Junior ROTC program at Wall High School and was selected for the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. There, he continued to hone his leadership skills and was selected as USNA Class President.

Josh served 12 years active-duty, including an operational tour in Afghanistan and four deployments to the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe. His responsibilities spanned strategic advisory to the U.S. Ambassador in Kabul to being a Tactical Action Officer on a Navy destroyer protecting America’s allies. His final at-sea assignment was Executive Officer of a Navy Mine Countermeasure ship in the Persian Gulf. He is an Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom veteran. He is also a Commander in the Navy Reserve. As a leader within the Navy, Josh was selected to teach International Relations at the Naval Academy; he also became the first Navy Fellow at the Center for New American Security and was a Council on Foreign Relations term member.

In the private sector, Josh worked at the intersection of technology and defense. He was selected as a Top 40 Rising Stars in Government Technology in 2017. He founded a software company and served as its CEO, where he worked with the Department of Defense to develop mobile software and provide innovation consultancy to the government, helping large bureaucracies achieve their missions.

Since returning home, Josh has become very active in trying to better his community. He has become increasingly concerned with the direction of our country and our planet. He believes we ought to advance American principles over partisan interests. Josh saw firsthand the potentially disastrous impact of climate change on our national security strategy and has become a leader in trying to combat it. Because we too often isolate our veterans, he has become active in advocating on behalf of homeless vets. He is a member of non-profit groups working to combat climate change and advocate on behalf of homeless veterans. In 2016, he was the lead organizer for Veterans and Military Families for the Democratic Party in Ohio. Most importantly, he is concerned about the power of special interests and the way New Jersey’s middle class is being squeezed. He is part of a new generation of post-9/11 leaders ready to serve in elected office.

Josh is the lead editor of In the Shadow of Greatness, an LA Times bestseller and non-profit book, that Tom Brokaw heralded as a “must read for all Americans.” His work was also published in the Harvard Business Review, Proceedings, and Joint Forces Quarterly. Josh received a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from the U.S. Naval Academy, a Masters of Arts in International Relations and Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School - where he was on full merit scholarship as a Glenn Dubin Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership and earned the Littauer Award for public service. Josh enjoys coaching soccer, triathlons, and bodysurfing on the Jersey Shore.