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Meet Our Team

Serena Blankenship

Director

About Serena

Serena Blankenship brings more than 20 years of experience in nursing, military and healthcare operations, manpower & personnel and information & technology. As a Navy officer, Serena held leadership positions at the Military Health System headquarters, military installations around the globe and in multiple deployed settings as a trauma nurse.

Prior to joining Ward Circle Strategies, Serena served as an Active Duty Navy Nurse who helped shape Navy healthcare models overseas. As a change management connoisseur, she led Navy Medicine’s transition to the Patient and Family Centered Care Model in the Pacific to improve access to care, quality & continuity of care and patient satisfaction for tens of thousands of DoD beneficiaries.

Deployed to reputably the best and busiest trauma hospital in the world during Operation Enduring Freedom, Serena triaged and treated over 4000 combat and non-combat injured patients when she discovered the need for compilation and analyzation of patient data to evaluate the effectiveness of the pre-hospital care system and improve ED staffing.

As one of the plank owners of the Defense Health Agency’s (DHA) manpower division, Serena was the lead program manager for the DHA manpower baseline and integration of 8000+ civilian and military positions into a newly mandated manpower program of record, producing the first ever joint table of distribution. She subsequently directed a team to develop a system to system interface using AGILE methodology for the purpose of producing the first joint manning document to manage total force human resources.

Serena’s last active duty Navy assignment was at BUMED as the program manager for current and future operations analytics to optimize readiness, support Combatant Command mission requirements and advise the Navy Surgeon General.

Shortly after the DoD COVID-19 Task Force was established, Serena was selected by Military Health System senior leadership to provide strategic advice to the Diagnostics & Testing Lead to develop a DoD testing framework, centralize supply chain management and standardize testing protocols.

Serena holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Colorado and a Master of Science in Management (Manpower Systems Analysis) from the Naval Postgraduate School.

Career Highlights

  • Ward Circle Strategies, Director
  • Ward Circle Strategies, Senior Manager
  • 21-year Navy veteran, 7 years in nuclear power and 14 years in the Nurse Corps

3 Fun Facts

  • Serena joined the Navy as a Nuclear Machinist Mate to be part of the first cohort(s) of female Sailors to serve in the nuclear power community and onboard USN submarines.
  • She is the mother of 4 children – the fourth and only girl is just as spicy as her momma.
  • She grew up in her parents’ printing company, which is the origin for her love of office supplies, including various types of paper – different textures, weights, watermarks and colors – and especially pens! Keep an eye on your pens.