John S. Kuhn is a Defense Fellow at Stanford Frontier Technology Lab. 

Before retiring from active-duty military service and transitioning to the private sector in 2014, Kuhn served 20-years in U.S. Army special operations.  He first served five years in the 75th Ranger Regiment then fifteen years as an operational member of a counterterrorism special mission unit.  

Between the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, and the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011 and 2012, Kuhn served in multiple task forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa.  He earned the Silver Star, six Bronze Stars, including one for valor, an Army Commendation Medal for valor, and two Purple Hearts.  

Military career highlights include deployment to Afghanistan in early-2002 to work alongside U.S. Interagency partners, participation as a member of a long-range reconnaissance team during the Iraq invasion in 2003, direct combat leadership throughout the fight against Al-Qaeda in Iraq from 2004 to 2007, and three years designing and managing foreign military training and operations in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Egypt.  

As a senior liaison, he briefed the National Security Council’s Director of Counterterrorism at the White House on special mission unit capabilities.  

Upon retirement from the Army, he attended Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he earned a graduate business degree.  He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of Arizona.

Today, he remains active in Defense Department activities by often helping with mentoring special operations units during training exercises designed around strategic and operational threats currently challenging the United States.  

Since 2014, he has also managed a small business he co-founded that produces high-end digital training content for military and law enforcement customers.