Robert Alvarez
Chief Operating Officer
Robert Alvarez is the COO of USJAG.
Robert Brian Alvarez was born in New York city in 1959 of Cuban-American parents, relocating to Miami in 1964 and growing up in the inner city of Miami in the 1960’s, a time of great racial challenges and in an economically depressed community.
He became an All City, All County football player at Miami Carol City Senior High and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1976, graduated high school and went on to serve in Marine aviation as an Avionics Technician. He served the majority of his time with VMA 142 a Squadron of A-4 aircraft in NAS Jacksonville, Florida. Upon completion of service in the Marine Corps with a degree of Bachelors in Industrial Education, returned to his hometown Miami Florida and began a teaching career in the same high school he graduated from. He relocated to Tampa Florida the following year and continued his career in education and coaching high school football, baseball, wresting and soccer.
Returning to graduate school earning advanced certifications in vocational assessment and evaluation and was assigned to the Special Programs division of the Hillsborough County Schools, Tampa, Florida, and was selected to manage a new federally funded effort to assess county inmates in the county jail, was assigned to the Sheriff’s office and to assist the courts in developing rehabilitation plans for felony probationers . This program won several awards and recognitions and much of the work identified many of the foundations of what would later become Florida’s new Drug Courts.
Completing a master’s degree in Rehabilitation Counseling, from the University of South Florida, he accepted another new federal initiative with the Florida Department of Corrections, evaluating and counseling newly released inmates from state prisons. In 1997 he and his new family relocated to Colorado Springs and was selected to design and develop a Colorado Department of Education pilot for at-risk and expelled students for 21 school districts. Two years later this project was selected as the state’s model and is still in existence today. He returned to his love of counseling volunteering for the next 4 years with the El Paso county District Attorney, Juvenile Diversion program. In January of 2007 the war in Iraq was escalating, he took a position as a counselor at Ft. Carson working with transitioning and wounded Soldiers and part time began work in a private practice treating convicted sex offenders.
He was selected to become the first counselor for the new Warrior Transition unit (WTU), designed to assist injured Soldiers. This experience led to his assignment as the National Organization ‘s Counselor to the U.S. Army Wounded Warrior program pilot program, additionally joining a military mental health provider (Give an Hour) tasked with assisting the Army’s suicide prevention task force. In 2009 he chaired the successful Colorado effort to implement the 6th national Veterans Court in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Since meeting Andrew Pogany in early 2007 till today, he has worked pro bono as a Veterans Advocate and Therapist, logging thousands of hours working with active duty service members, investigating their discharges and successfully preventing the wrongful adverse discharges of 100s of our wounded combat veterans.
He is a father of two teenage boys, a community volunteer in many Marine Corps efforts, a life member of the Marine Corps League, a martial artist, an avid motorcyclist a therapist in private practice in a state approved sex offender program.