Lt Col Kenneth J. del Mazo

About

Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth J. del Mazo, representing the U.S. Marine Corps, is a National Security Affairs Fellow for the academic year 2020–21 at the Hoover Institution.

Del Mazo served in a variety of command and support roles throughout his 19-year career as an artillery Marine. As a lieutenant, he deployed to the Pacific as a fire direction officer and platoon commander in the 2d Marine Division, and subsequently to the Al Anbar Province, Iraq as a battery executive officer.  As a captain, he served as an artillery instructor at Fort Sill, Oklahoma before commanding a battery conducting combat operations against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, once again with the 2d Marine Division. As a major, he commanded Marine recruiters throughout South Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. He concluded his tenure as a major serving as an operational planner with U.S. Marine Forces, South, focusing on crisis response in the Caribbean and Latin America, as well as integration with the Colombian Marine Corps. 

As a lieutenant colonel, del Mazo commanded 1st Battalion, 11th Marines, an artillery battalion in the 1st Marine Division. 

He earned an undergraduate degree in political science from the United States Naval Academy, a Master of Public Administration from the University of Oklahoma, and a Master of Operational Studies from Marine Corps University’s School of Advanced Warfighting.  

Lieutenant Colonel del Mazo’s research at Hoover will focus on rising threats to U.S. national security, and the Marine Corps’ plan to optimize itself to meet those threats.