LTC Kevin E. Cronin
Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Kevin Cronin is the Pōhakuloa Training Area commander. Prior to his arrival to Hawaii Island, LTC Cronin served at the NATO Special Operations Headquarters (NSHQ) in Belgium as the Director of the NSHQ Operations and Coordination Center (NOCC).
LTC Cronin was commissioned as an Infantry officer in the U.S. Army upon graduation from the United States Military Academy in 2003. In 2008, following graduation from the Special Forces Qualification Course at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he was assigned as a Special Forces officer.
LTC Cronin has served in a variety of assignments, ranging from tactical to strategic, including four deployments to Afghanistan, two deployments to Iraq, and deployments to Qatar, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.
LTC Cronin’s previous command assignments include: Commander of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) SFG (A) in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Syria, and Lebanon; Commander of Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha 5131 in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 5th SFG (A) in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Iraq, Jordan, and Afghanistan; and a Rifle Platoon Leader in Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division in Fort Benning, Georgia and Iraq.
LTC Cronin’s select staff assignments include: Commander's Action Group planner at NSHQ; Operations Officer for the Military Communications Channel in Doha, Qatar; Battalion Operations Officer for 1st Battalion, 5th SFG (A) in Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Special Assistant for Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Africa, and Cyber Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) for Legislative Affairs; Special Operations Forces (SOF)/Counter-Terrorism (CT) Policy Adviser in the OSD for Policy; Special Projects Officer at the NATO Special Operations Component Command - Afghanistan (NSOCC-A)/Special Operations Joint Task Force - Afghanistan (SOJTF-A) headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan; Aide-de-camp to the Commanding General, Maneuver Center of Excellence and Fort Benning, Georgia; and, Team Chief, Combined Joint Inter-Agency Task Force Shafafiyat (Transparency) at NATO International Security Assurance Force (ISAF) headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan.
LTC Cronin holds a Master in International Public Policy with a concentration in Strategic Studies from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. LTC Cronin is a 2016 Shawn Brimley Next Generation National Security Leaders fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He also participated in the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army’s Strategic Broadening Seminar in the United Kingdom in 2015. From 2013-2014, he served as a U.S. Special Operations Command Legislative Affairs fellow in Washington, D.C.