Gov.-elect Younkin makes veterans’ services appointments

Virginia’s Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin has named Craig Crenshaw, a retired U.S. Marine Corps Major General from Stafford, as secretary of veterans and defense affairs and Daniel Gade as commissioner of the Department of Veterans Services, according to Virginia Business.

Crenshaw is the president of Stafford County-based Claxton Logistics Services LLC. He was the Marine Corps’ senior executive of logistics and supply chain management, and prior to that, as the director of manpower management. Crenshaw also served as the commanding general and the director of logistics plans and policies. He also was the vice director for logistics at the Joint Chiefs of Staffs, Virginia Business said.

Crenshaw received a B.S. in political science from Southern University and Agricultural and Mechanical College at Baton Rouge. He holds a master’s degree from Webster University and one from the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy.

Gade is a professor at American University, according to Virginia Business. He retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel in 2017. While serving in Iraq in 2005, he sustained severe injuries that led to the amputation of his right leg. He co-founded The Independence Project to help veterans after his retirement from the army.

For the last six years of his service, Gade worked at the White House and taught at West Point, and most recently was a senior adviser to the secretary of labor in the Veterans Employment and Training Service.

Gade holds a bachelor’s degree from West Point and master’s of public administration and doctorate degrees from the University of Georgia.