He attended Navy Officer Candidate School in Pensacola, Florida, and was commissioned an Ensign in December 1997.

After completing flight school and earning his Naval Flight Officer wings, he was assigned to Fleet Air Reconnaissance

Squadron ONE (VQ-1) based at NAS Whidbey Island, Washington. He completed seven detachments to the Middle East

and Western Pacific regions, including numerous combat missions during the opening phases of the war in Afghanistan.

He also was named the EP-3 community’s Fleet NATOPS Evaluator, responsible for the training and qualification of all

Naval Flight Officers within the community.

Between 2002-2006, Commander Schlismann was assigned to United States Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base,

where he was an Air Defense Analyst within the Space and Global Strike Directorate.

Commander Schlismann served aboard the aircraft carrier USS JOHN C. STENNIS (CVN 74) homeported in Bremerton,

Washington between 2006-2008, completing a deployment in support of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As Tactical

Action Officer, he directed employment of the ship’s defensive weapons and sensors.

Between 2008-2011, Commander Schlismann returned to flying duty with Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron TWO (VQ-

2) as NAS Whidbey Island. As the squadron’s Operations Officer, he coordinated numerous EP-3 airborne

reconnaissance detachments throughout the world. He also spent five months as Officer-in-Charge of VQ-2’s

detachment site at Incirlik, Turkey.

Commander Schlismann spent 2011-2014 at United States European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, directing the

planning and execution of airborne reconnaissance missions throughout the European theater.

Between 2014-2018, Commander Schlismann was the Executive Officer of Naval Air Facility El Centro in southern

California, an air base that hosts tactical training for a wide variety of U.S. and Allied aviation units, as well as the Blue

Angels flight demonstration team.

Commander Schlismann next served as Executive Officer of the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps unit at Yale

University in New Haven, Connecticut between 2018-2021, where he taught academic courses and oversaw the training

of future Naval and Marine officers.

Commander Adam Schlismann’s final active-duty tour was back at Offutt AFB as Mission Commander for the E-6B

Airborne Command Post, which is the mobile command-and-control platform for the nation’s nuclear strike forces. He

retired from active-duty service in August 2023.

Commander Schlismann completed a Master of Arts Degree in International Relations at Creighton University in 2005,

and a Master of Public Administration at Penn State in 2017. He lives with his family in Papillion.