William Chesnutt

William Chesnutt was born and raised in South Texas until he joined the United States Marine Corps in July 2001. Little did he know that the country would be at war two months later. He attended Air Traffic Control School in Pensacola, Florida, and became a certified Federal Aviation Administration Air Traffic Controller. His career in the Marine Corps spanned a little more than 20 years and included three tours to Iraq and one-year deployment to Afghanistan. He also lived and visited the Philippines, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, and Okinawa. He spent three years at the Staff Noncommissioned Officer Academy on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton as a Faculty Advisor, where he taught more than 2,000 students in Personnel Administration, Planning, Training, Leadership, and Culture. He retired from the Marine Corps in July 2021.

William worked as an independent consultant for two years (2019-2021), implementing continuous improvement and quality management programs for organizations in Southern California and trained more than three hundred students at the Lean Six Sigma Yellow and Green Belt levels. At the same time, he volunteered as a small business mentor for SCORE, a national nonprofit that provides free business coaching and mentoring, where he mentored more than 40 businesses across the country and co-launched a five-day virtual workshop for veterans that allowed them to take their business ideas from just an idea to the business started in five weeks. He continues his nonprofit work as the Vice President of The Defeating Epilepsy Foundation. He is also a business mentor for NewChip Accelerator programs, where he guides startups and established organizations in their pursuit of angel, seed, and series A-C Funding options.

William’s educational achievements include a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology Management, a Master of Arts in Management with a concentration in Organizational Leadership, a Graduate Certificate in Human Capital Leadership, and a Graduate Certificate in Logistics Management from American Military University. He also obtained a Master of Business Administration from the University of Redlands. He recently completed a Certificate in Design Thinking from the University of California – Riverside and a Certificate in Business Law from California State University Long Beach. He is a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and a Resilience-Building Leadership Professional – Trainer. He is pursuing his Doctor of Business Administration with a concentration in Organizational Leadership and Development from Capella University.

William is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Strategic Development Group LLC, a management consulting and training company. He is also the Founder and CEO of Strategic U, an online learning academy with a dream of opening access to higher education through micro-credentialing.

In William’s free time, he enjoys attending Major League Baseball games, hiking, taking road trips, and spending time with his family.