As a former national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence and a woman who grew up in small-town South Dakota, Army Col. Andrea Thompson of Sioux Falls is uniquely positioned to serve on a new coalition that will put a Rushmore State focus on political and economic issues of global importance.
Thompson will be one of about 75 thought leaders statewide who will serve on the new South Dakota advisory committee of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC), a bipartisan national group that seeks to define and strengthen America's role in worldwide governmental, economic and diplomatic affairs.
The South Dakota state advisory committee of USGLC is the 33rd state chapter to advise the national group. It hopes to usher in new opportunities for the state and its leaders to expand knowledge and understanding of global affairs and the worldwide marketplace. The panel will also seek to provide South Dakota businesses and individuals with opportunities to expand into new international markets.
The new state chapter will launch during a global affairs conference in Sioux Falls on Wednesday, March 27. Speakers include U.S. Sen. John Thune, former South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard and Col. Thompson.
"This is really just another resource for our community leaders, our business leaders, our political leaders to gain insight on areas of the world that we might not now be familiar with," Thompson said.
Access to new opportunities
Thompson grew up in Pierre, attended the University of South Dakota and spent 28 years in the Army, serving tours as an intelligence officer in Iraq and Afghanistan. She then served as national security adviser to the vice president and undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.
Thompson retired from the Army in 2016 and returned to South Dakota in November 2023 to become CEO of the Dakota State University Applied Research Corp., planned for a space in northwest Sioux Falls.
Thompson, who served on the national board of USGLC, said the new state committee will bring together leaders in industry, the nonprofit sector, education, agriculture, politics and the faith-based community to focus on two major objectives.
"It allows us to educate and inform the U.S. and international communities about what South Dakota brings to the economy and it gives us access to senior leaders and decision-makers that we may not normally have access to," Thompson told News Watch in an interview.
The committee will be co-chaired by Daugaard and Jim Abbott, former president of the University of South Dakota.
The South Dakota committee will create new lines of communication with leaders in a wide range of fields from other states, in Washington and across the world, Thompson said.
"I find that almost all of our problems can be solved with communication," she said. "I've told our soldiers, my government peers and business leaders that we're better together when we share ideas and when we share the lessons learned by others."
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Categories: South Dakota, Business, Government & Policy