United States Army – Retired 

Brigadier General Spillman retired from the United States Army after nearly thirty-eight years of active duty service and since 2019 has been an air and missile defense, training and leader development consultant. A career Air and Missile Defense Officer, he has extensive operational experience training and preparing organizations, soldiers and leaders to execute combat operations. He also has extensive experience in strategy development; policy and plan formulation for Army, joint and combined operations; doctrine and operational concept formulation; training and leader development curriculum; Air and Missile Defense weapon system modernization; and emerging weapons system portfolio programming, budgeting and program execution.

His final active duty assignment was as the Commanding General of the 32d Army Air & Missile Defense Command, Fort Bliss, TX where he led a 9,500-man organization equipped with the United States’ most advanced ground-based tactical air and missile defense systems to include the Terminal High Altitude Area Air Defense (THAAD) system, the Patriot weapon system and short-range air and missile defense (SHORAD) systems and sensors.

He has also been a substantive contributor to U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force efforts to improve joint, allied and coalition air and missile defense cooperation with nations possessing advanced air and missile defense capabilities to include UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Germany and Israel. He has delivered remarks as a panel member at many air and missile defense conferences and seminars in the United States and abroad and has provided expert analysis on current U.S. Army air and missile defense doctrine and concepts. He published an article in Army Magazine: “The New Threat: Air and Missile Defense for Brigade Combat Teams” in March 2017.

A graduate of the Air War College with a Master’s Degree in Strategic Studies, he also holds a Master’s Degree in Management from Saint Mary College. He is a graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College, the Infantry Officer Advanced Course and completed the Joint Force Air Component Commanders Course and the National War College Capstone Course. Brigadier General Spillman was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit (3 oak leaf clusters), Saudi Arabia and Kuwait Liberations Medals, the Kosovo Medal and the NATO Medal. He also earned the United States Army Airborne Badge, and the airborne badges of Canada and Germany.

Raised in Santa Rosa, California, he now resides in Kansas City, Missouri with his wife of 38 years Joanne. They have four children and six grandchildren. 

Executive Director of Military & Veterans Affairs and Military Affairs Innovation Center, Kansas State University 

Lieutenant Colonel Retired Arthur S. DeGroat is a combat-decorated former career military officer who holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership from Kansas State University and is the founder and executive director of the Office of Military and Veterans Affairs and Military Affairs Innovation Center at Kansas State University. He is also founder of Invictus Consulting LLC, a Kansas-based company that specializing in assisting corporate, non-profit, and community-based organizations enhance strategic growth and operations.

Over the past 15 years he has conducted research and evidence-based practice in assisting veterans to transition to higher education, the workforce and to reintegrate back into civil society after military service. His white paper, "Looking Critically at Reintegration of Post-9/11 Era Veterans" (August 2013) was lauded by the former Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a myriad of scholars and business executives for its definitive description of the challenges of transition and reintegration. He has recently completed a major human science research project to explore the lived experience of post-military transition as a life event.

He actively serves as board chairman of the country’s premier Veteran Service Organizations (VSO) USO Kansas; and is recognized as a pioneer in the use of performing arts as a catalyst for social change regarding Post 9-11 era veteran's reintegration through his role as executive producer to Hollywood-based DIAVOLO Dance Theater’s Veterans Project. In military healthcare, Dr. DeGroat has been a pioneer in bringing deep transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy (dTMS) to military members struggling with depression and PTSD. Today two major treatment clinics have been established for the U.S. army in Kansas and El Paso, Texas. In 2020 he co-founded Great Plains Partners Innovations and Venture Groups focused upon technology transfer and development for national security-related modernization and regional economic development.

He proudly serves the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division & Fort Riley as a Distinguished Trooper. He also serves as an expert witness and advisor to the U.S. Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, as well as an appointed member by the Kansas Governor’s Kansas Governor’s Military Council. He resides in Manhattan, Kansas.