Rear Admiral (Ret.) Tom Steffens

Rear Adm. (Ret.) Tom Steffens, served as a Navy SEAL for more than three and a half decades. He served as the commanding officer of the SEAL’s mini-sub Deliver Vehicle Command, commodore of the SEAL’s Patrol Boat Squadron, and the director of SEAL Training in Coronado, California, where he established the Naval Special Warfare Center. During his career, he also founded the Special Operations Center for Intelligence and Information Operations and served in the Pentagon as the director of the Navy SEAL Division.

Following the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, Tom Steffens was recalled to active duty to serve as the special assistant for Homeland Security and as the director of Anti-Terrorism for the United States Navy.

Today, he works with several nonprofit organizations focusing on breaking the cycle of generational homelessness in families. Also, as a result of an injury in 1997, Tom Steffens began a yoga practice, which he continues to this day. With his longtime yoga teacher, Annie Okerlin, he helped found the Exalted Warrior Foundation in 2005, which brings adaptive yoga to Wounded Warriors, their families, and their caregivers at seven different military and Veterans Administration hospitals, and to active duty Wounded Warrior Battalions and to other locations nationwide.