Lieutenant Colonel Mike Bowers was raised in the West End of Hagerstown, Maryland. He enlisted into the Marine Corps in 1994 and after a short stint as an Infantry Marine earned his commission as a Second Lieutenant. He has graduated Summa Cum Laude from Bridgewater College, as Distinguished Graduate of the Marine Corps Command and Staff College in Quantico, and with Master Degrees in Management from the University of Maryland and Strategic Studies from the Air Force’s War College in Alabama.
After The Basic School, he graduated with honors from the Artillery Officer Basic Course in Fort Sill, Oklahoma in July 1996 and then checked into Echo Battery, 2d Battalion, 11th Marines. He was the Fire Direction Officer for four Combined Arms Exercises (CAXs) and deployment with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. The last year of his first tour he was selected to serve as the Battalion S-3A / Fire Direction Officer and then the Headquarters Battery Commander.
In July 1999, he reported to Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina for duty with Lima Company, 3d Recruit Training Battalion. He served as a Series Commander, Executive Officer, and Company Commander for 10 training cycles and supervised the training of over 4000 Marine Recruits. In December 2001, he was a hot-fill assignment to Inspector-Instructor duty with Battery I, 3d Battalion, 14th Marines in Reading, Pennsylvania and supervised the annual training of the unit in Twentynine Palms, California, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and Fort Drum, New York.
He checked into 5th Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Okinawa, Japan in July 2005. As the plank owner S-3, he was instrumental in activating the unit and deploying elements of it to Operation IRAQI FREEDOM only six months later. He also coordinated the unit’s participation in the 2d Republic of Korea Marine Division’s Mountain Ranger School – the first time a U.S. organization had participated in that training. After serving as the S-3 and Executive Officer, he was selected to serve as the 1st Brigade Platoon Commander for their deployment to Ramadi, Iraq to provide fires and MAGTF liaison to a U.S. Army Brigade Combat Team and various units of two Iraqi Army Divisions.
Next, he reported for duty with Joint Task Force – National Capital Region as the Land Domain and Current Operations Officer and planned and supervised the execution of DOD civil support for nine National Security Special Events to include the 2009 Presidential Inauguration, Nuclear Summits, and State of the Union Addresses. After a quick stint as the regional SOUTHCOM planner at MARFORCOM in Norfolk, he took command of Headquarters Battalion, MAGTF Training Command / Marine Air Ground Combat Center in Twenty-nine Palms in July 2012. During his time as a battalion commander, his force preservation programs were recognized by USMC senior leadership and he was asked to brief at the Combined Commandership Course in Quantico on three separate occasions.
After a year at Top Level School in Alabama and a lead planner for the Joint Land, Aerospace, and Sea Simulation (JLASS), he was nominated and selected to be the first Marine Administrative Aide to the 75th Secretary of the Navy where he briefed SECNAV on all executive correspondence. Following this tour, he was assigned to DC Manpower and Reserve Affairs as the Head of Enlisted Plans, Head of Officer Plans, and the Head of Future Operations.
He was sent to his current duty as the Executive Officer of HQ Battalion, TECOM (formerly H&S Battalion, Marine Corps Base Quantico) in June 2019 to apply critical lessons learned from his HQ battalion command tour in Twentynine Palms to the battalion here in Quantico.