Jared Lyon

Jared Lyon is the national president and CEO of Student Veterans of America, where he leads efforts to empower student veterans using the transformative power of higher education. Since taking office in 2016, Lyon has overseen SVA’s growth to more than 1,600 chapters, representing over 750,000 student veterans. He co-authored the National Veteran Education Success Tracker, a comprehensive study of the first 854,000 student veterans to use the Post-9/11 GI Bill. He led SVA’s commitment to pass the “Forever GI Bill,” the largest expansion of college aid for military veterans in a decade with an economic impact of $3.4 Billion. A veteran of the U.S. Navy, Lyon served as a submariner and diver. He also held prior roles at the Institute for Veterans and Military Families Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans and the Washington Nationals Major League Baseball team. He is a member of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans’ Advisory Committee on Education, board of advisors for the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation, member of the President George W. Bush Institute Advisory Council, FSU Veteran Advisory Board and FSU Student Affairs Development Council. Additionally, Lyon was recognized as the grand marshal of the 2020 New York City Veterans Day parade, as a 2018 Presidential Leadership Scholar and 2011 SVA National Student Veteran of the Year. He holds an A.A. from Eastern Florida State College, a B.S. from FSU and an MPA from Syracuse University, where he is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in social science.