WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, today applauded President Trump’s announcement of his intent to nominate Thomas G. Bowman to be deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

Bowman, a veteran himself with a long career working on behalf of veterans, has served as majority staff director of the Senate VA committee since January 2015, when Isakson took over as chairman.

“I applaud President Trump for his wise choice to nominate a veteran of our armed services to this important role,” said Isakson. “Tom is an extraordinary asset to our team, and his experience in the military and past years at the VA has been invaluable. I know he will bring the same passion for serving our veterans to the VA, where he will help oversee the important reforms that are ongoing at the department. I congratulate Tom on his nomination, and I look forward to chairing his upcoming confirmation hearing.”

Bowman is a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel. In addition to his military service, Bowman also spent almost a decade working in the U.S Department of Veterans Affairs, including as chief of staff under two former VA secretaries.

Bowman joined the Senate VA committee in 2014 as senior policy advisor under the ranking Republican in the 113^th Congress, Senator Richard Burr, R-N.C. Bowman previously worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs for almost 10 years, including as chief of staff to VA Secretaries Jim Nicholson and James Peake.

Bowman’s only break in service from the VA during the 10-year period from 2002 through his retirement in 2012 came when he served for one year as State Court administrator for the Rhode Island Judiciary and as chief of staff to the chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court in 2003-04.

Bowman was commissioned into the Marine Corps through the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps program at the University of Texas in 1969, and he received his law degree from Western New England College School of Law in Springfield, Mass., in 1979. He retired from the Marine Corps as a colonel in October 1999.

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The Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs is chaired by U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., in the 115th Congress. Isakson is a veteran himself – having served in the Georgia Air National Guard from 1966-1972 – and has been a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs since he joined the Senate in 2005. Isakson’s home state of Georgia is home to more than a dozen military installations representing each branch of the military as well as more than 750,000 veterans.