Dr. Richard Hartman

Dr. Richard Hartman
M.S. Engineering & Environmental Management, 1994

Dr. Hartman, who worked as a Bioenvironmental Engineer in the Air Force, graduated AFIT with a master’s degree in Engineering and Environmental Management, focusing on Policy and Management, in 1994. After his graduation, Dr. Hartman went on to work as a Fellow to the Air Force Surgeon and Assistant Secretary of the Air Force.

Once he separated from active duty, Dr. Hartman joined the Air Force Reserves as a Senior Health Affairs Consultant, Special Operations Command. As the Senior Health Affairs Consultant, he consulted for the development of various health surveillance plans and policies to prevent illness, disease, adverse stress responses, and injuries for Special Operations Forces. Furthermore, he earned his doctorate in Health Policy and Management from the University of South Florida. Soon after, Dr. Hartman was mobilized for two years as part of Operations Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom. Furthermore, he was honored as the 2003 Air Force Outstanding Individual Mobilization Augmentee of the Year.

Following his mobilization, Dr. Hartman began working in different executive cabinet departments under the Bush Administration. First he was selected to be the Director for Safety and Health for the Department of Commerce where he served as the Department’s principal Safety and Occupational health Manager responsible for the Department-wide Safety and Occupational Health Program. As a military member within the DoD, he devised and orchestrated the development of Battlefield Medical Information System (BMIST) which was selected as DoD-wide information technology care standard and was named one of the Army’s greatest inventions by the Army Research, Development and Engineering Command in 2004. Currently renamed as Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care, or MC4, there are over 24,000 devices in Iraq and 13 other countries, which allows all medical personnel to quickly input medical information for all service members in Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other combat deployment.

When Dr. Hartman left the Commerce Department, he joined the Defense Threat Reduction Agency as the Director for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health. As the director he was tasked with the responsibility of ensuring the most economical and occupational health objective for all environmental, safety, and occupation health programs. As a civilian with the DoD, he led the medical and environmental assessment group in the first U.S. site assessment in Libya in over 20 years supporting the United States Chemical Weapons Destruction Assistance Assessment Team (DoD and Department of State) which was key to restoring full diplomatic relations with Libya.

Most recently as Director of Policy Analysis and Forecasting at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Dr. Hartman was responsible for program evaluation for legislatively mandated health care delivery programs within the VA and directly oversaw a $320M budget and influenced over $40B.
Of note, he led the efforts to meet the congressional requirements to create an Office of Rural Health.  He identified startup requirements, defended, obtained and obligated funds to staff and development initiatives to include telemental health expansion, the creation of research ‘Regional Resource Centers’, clinical trials, and promotion of education/training.

His success resulted in a $250M congressional appropriation in new funding for Rural Health initiatives where he obligated all funds within eight months creating 74 programs, many of which were either national in scope or affected multiple states with an emphasis on the use of the latest technologies, recruitment and retention of a well-educated and trained health care workforce, and collaborations with non-VA rural health community partners.

Since leaving the federal government, Dr. Hartman joined two partners in the formation of OhMyGov!© Inc. Today, OhMyGov!© provides government news and consulting services at the intersection of social media, communications, and publics affairs for an audience of government and private sector business. Beyond that, OhMyGov!© has an internet traffic rating in the top 0.1% of all U.S. websites, was an Official Honoree of the 2010 Webby Awards, and is regularly followed by The Washington Post. As Chief Operating Officer for OhMyGov!©, Dr. Hartman oversees day-to-day operations of the business and is responsible for outreach, marketing, and media.

Dr. Hartman has authored or co-authored several technical publications and taught at the graduate level.  His current research and business interests are in communication, branding and the evaluation of traditional and new media and bringing those technologies to market.