Jared Lyon was appointed National President & CEO of Student Veterans of America (SVA) in 2016. He leads the organization’s efforts to empower student veterans using the transformative power of higher education. Since he took office, Lyon has overseen SVA’s growth to a network of over 1,600 chapters on campuses in all 50 states and three countries representing over nearly 600,000 student veterans.

During his tenure, he co-authored the National Veteran Education Success Tracker (NVEST), a comprehensive study of the first 854,000 student veterans to use the Post-9/11 GI Bill. In 2017 Lyon led SVA’s commitment to pass the “Forever GI Bill,” the largest expansion of college aid for military veterans in a decade with an economic impact of $3.4 Billion. A veteran of the U.S. Navy, he served as a submariner and diver, taking part in multiple deployments in support of the Global War on Terrorism.

Before joining the headquarters team at SVA, Lyon held key positions, including National Program Manager at the Institute for Veterans and Military Families Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans, and Manager of Florida Operations for the Washington Nationals Major League Baseball team. He is an active member of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans’ Advisory Committee on Education, the Board of Advisors for the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation, the President George W. Bush Institute Advisory Council the Florida State University (FSU) Veteran Advisory Board, and the FSU Student Affairs Development Council.  Additionally, Lyon was recognized as the grand marshal of the 2020 New York City Veterans Day parade, a 2018 Presidential Leadership Scholar and the 2011 SVA National Student Veteran of the Year.

He holds an Associate of Arts from Eastern Florida State College, a Bachelor of Science from Florida State University, and a Master of Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, where he is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Social Science. Jared and his wife, Chayla, share their lives with their sons, Campbell and Nolan, and their dog, Daisy.