Since 1994 Dr. Zimon has been the senior strategic planner for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assigned at Headquarters Department of the Army in the Pentagon, Washington, D.C. His responsibilities include oversight of the National Defense University and the Defense Department's multi-university system that includes three universities, 14 colleges and other educational institutions with some 17,000 students in 11 states. He holds the military rank of colonel.

A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Dr. Zimon holds his master's degree in and Ph.D. in economics and geography with distinction from Ohio State University, where he is the only student to have completed both masters and doctoral programs in three years. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University's JFK School of Government and Harvard Business School.

Dr. Zimon was associate professor of cultural and political geography at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he is the only professor in West Point's history to receive tenure after only two years. At Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government he taught seminars on American global strategy. He is widely published in the discipline of economic geography and the diplomatic history of the last days of the Cold War. His book on national security strategy will be published later this year.

Dr. Zimon's work was integral in both the negotiations that ended the Cold War and in the creation of U.S. post-Cold-War strategy. As senior strategic planner to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon, Dr. Zimon was a chief architect of the U.S. strategic plan, "A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement," signed by President Clinton in 1994. In 1990, he served in Vienna, Austria, as special assistant to U.S. Ambassador R. James Woolsey in writing the treaty and participating in the negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe that contributed significantly to the end of the Cold War. For his work he was awarded the Defense Superior Service Medal and the Department of State Superior Honor Medal.

Between 1971 and 1990, Dr. Zimon served more than nine years in three separate assignments in Germany, including as Commander of the Third Battalion of the 60th Air Defense Artillery. Honored for his service by the German government, Dr. Zimon's awards include the Ehrenkreutz (Cross of Honor) and the Distinguished Service Medal for contributions in defense planning and German-American relations.

A native of the Pittsburgh suburb of Ambridge, Pennsylvania, Dr. Zimon is married to the former Jane Ingram and has two grown children. The Zimons are members of the United Methodist Church.

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