Brett Lea is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who last served as the PAO for the 82nd Airborne Div. He held PAO positions at Fort Bliss before working for two years as the Army’s liaison to the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. He oversaw the development of compelling entertainment media and coordinated support for many projects including feature films and award-winning TV series that supported the Army’s strategic communication objectives to inform and inspire the American public. He led PAO operations for the evacuation of Afghanistan responsible for communicating about the evacuation of NATO forces and over 124k civilians while messaging with U.S. and international agencies and handling media engagements with only a patchwork staff. Brett also served in Poland as the lead PAO for a multi-agency, multi-nation mission to support Ukraine’s efforts against Russia. His team communicated the mission to diverse audiences in the U.S. and globally. He is President of Discourse Digital. They recently launched the SMART (Social Media Awareness and Readiness Training) to help organizations educate their members about social media. SMART focuses on protecting social media users and arming them with tools to safely navigate the Information Domain. Brett focuses his efforts to counter mis- and disinformation used against US servicemembers and has years of demonstrated expertise managing public relations campaigns in dynamic, and often chaotic, information environments.
