MEET JASON RAMER
I am an Indiana native. I was born in Muncie and graduated from Connersville High School in 1995. After attending Purdue, I enlisted on active duty in the US Navy as an Intelligence Specialist with an F/A-18 Hornet squadron and deployed three times on aircraft carriers, including one week after 9-11 on the USS Theodore Roosevelt where we were involved in some of the heaviest bombing in the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and set a US Navy ship record for spending 160 days straight at sea. After leaving active duty I joined the Navy Reserves and I spent some time working in the construction industry in both production and management positions in SC. In 2007, I was mobilized as a reservist and sent to Balad, Iraq, in support of the Joint Special Operations Command. I served as the Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge of an office tasked with implementing a new form of intelligence collection brought about by the unique requirements of fighting an insurgency and the Global War On Terror. It was an incredibly stressful and fast-paced environment, working 14-16 hour days, 7 days a week, to support the operations of the US military's very highest level special operations forces in their fight against Al Qaida in Iraq during the most violent part of the entire insurgency.
A THRIVING CAREER
Upon returning from Iraq, I was lucky enough to find a civilian government contractor position in Virginia as a senior instructor, course developer, and Subject Matter Expert on the same new intelligence discipline that I had helped to develop while deployed. I traveled extensively, all around the world, training service members and advising senior officers and their staffs on the implementation of new procedures and tactics. I was also directly involved in the writing and validation of new US Army doctrine to support those intelligence functions as one of the most experienced and trusted Subject Matter Experts on the topic within the DOD. It was also during this time that I transitioned my military career from the Navy Reserves into the Army National Guard as an infantryman. Upon the termination of that government program as it was transitioned into a permanently funded doctrinal military function, I decided to return to one of my passions, the construction industry. I have two younger sisters that live in Zionsville and had visited numerous times over the years. After starting my construction business in Virginia, I made a trip to Zionsville to work on a small project for one of my sisters and really got to know the town a little better. I realized that with quickly-growing nieces and nephew that I am very close to, as well as aging parents living in Brownsburg, it was time for me to come home to Indiana permanently, and Zionsville was the place I wanted to be.