General Dennis L. Via

Military officer General Dennis Via was born on March 5, 1958, in Martinsville, Virginia, to Curtis and Margaret Via. He received his B.A. degree in 1980 from Virginia State University in Petersburg, Virginia and his M.A. degree in management in 1988 from the Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development in Boston, Massachusetts. Via graduated from the United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in 1991, and from the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1999.

Via was commissioned into the U.S. Army as a Second Lieutenant in 1980, having been assigned to the 35th Signal Brigade, XVIII Airborne Corps. He later took his first command with the 82nd Signal Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division, and then served as aide-de-camp to the chief of staff for the Allied Forces in Southern Europe. Via’s other key assignments included serving as operations officer for the J-6-Armed Forces Inaugural Committee; Division Chief of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council; Principal Director for Operations for the Defense Information Systems Agency; and Deputy Commander of the Joint Task Force-Global network operations for the United States Strategic Command. He oversaw the 3rd Signal Brigade, III Armored Corps at Fort Hood, Texas until 2002. From 2005 to 2007, Via served as commanding general of the 5th Signal Command and U.S. Army Europe CIO, and afterwards served as commander of the Communications Electronics Command. In 2009, he was appointed J6 Director for the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and served in this position until 2011, when he deployed to Southwest Asia and began serving as commander of the Army Materiel Command Responsible Reset Task Force. Via became the eighteenth Commanding General of the United States Army Materiel Command in 2012, serving until his retirement from the United States Army in 2016. The following year, he was hired as Executive Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton.

Via is involved in several organizations including the Association of the United States Army, the Armed Forces Communications Electronics Association, Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, and Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity. He has also served on the Council on Foreign Relations, and on the board of directors for Splunk.

In 2019, Via was recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus by Boston University and received the Lt. Gen. Arthur J. Gregg Sustainment Award in 2021.

Via lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife Linda Arlette Via. Together they have two sons.

General Dennis Via was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on February 24, 2023.