Steven Miska

In his role at VA, Steve serves as a senior advisor to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs providing oversight on the development, adoption and implementation of the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act. This program features a veteran-centric approach to benefits and healthcare and oversees the most significant expansion of veteran eligibility for healthcare in a generation. As a veteran himself, Steve approaches this role with the veteran-centric framework that guides VA support to veterans, family members, survivors and caregivers.

Prior to his service at VA, Steve founded Servant, Leader, Citizen Consulting to serve the non-profit community and also led First Amendment Voice, a nonpartisan non-profit organization. He retired as a Colonel after 25 years in the Army, his last military assignment as the Army Chair at Marine Corps University. Previously, he served in the White House as Director for Iraq on the National Security Council.

In 2007, on his second of three combat tours, Steve led a team that established an underground railroad for dozens of interpreters from Baghdad to Amman to the United States. In 2021 he published Baghdad Underground Railroad, a wartime memoir chronicling that story. He earned top academic honors as a Counterterrorism Fellow at the College of International Security Affairs and has taught economics at the United States Military Academy, West Point.

He is the recipient of the Army’s MacArthur Leadership Award, the State Department’s Superior Honor Award, and numerous military awards and decorations. Steve has served on a variety of non-profit advisory councils and remains passionate about serving others.