Joel Levesque, US Army, Full-Time MBA, Class of 1998

After earning a bachelors degree from the US Military Academy at West Point in 1989, Joel graduated from Army Ranger School at Fort Benning, GA. Joel intended to pursue an MBA shortly after completing his undergraduate degree, but it wasn’t until he was nominated to join the economics faculty at West Point in 1995 that he was able to do so. “One of the conditions of this position was being accepted to one of the top 20 business schools,” he says. “I knew I wanted a school with a strong emphasis on quantitative economics, preferably in the Northeast. Simon ranked No. 1 in the nation in finance that year, so it was a great fit.” Joel earned his MBA with concentrations In Finance and Business Environment and Public Policy in 1998. After  his M.B.A. from Simon, Joel spent three years teaching economics at West Point. Today, his job as homeland defense branch chief for the Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense Organization involves him in activities such as helping to draft national security policy directives and moving technology needs through the acquisition process.