From the battlefield to the classroom
Having served more than 27 years in the U.S. Air Force, it’s no surprise that Robert Overstreet runs a disciplined classroom.
He expects his students to show up for class, and, as for cell phones, please be professional and take them outside.
Overstreet, assistant professor of supply chain management, knows he can be tough, but that’s the price of admission when you have the opportunity to learn about supply chain management from someone with nearly three decades of experience supporting U.S. military operations all over the world.
He was assigned to be a medical supply technician after enlisting in the Air Force. Almost a decade later, he earned his bachelor’s degree and a commission as a logistics readiness officer and took on increasingly important supply chain responsibilities, including managing complex operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. He earned his master’s in logistics from the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) and his PhD from Auburn University. He served as an assistant professor and military deputy department head of AFIT’s Department of Operational Sciences. Following his retirement in 2017, he joined the Ivy faculty.
“Experiences and lessons learned from 10 military assignments and deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan provide many real-world examples that help me teach important supply chain lessons,” he said. “More importantly, explaining on the first day of class that I was a farm kid, a first-generation college student, and sometimes a less-than-successful academic helps build a connection with my students.”
