Lieutenant Commander Marek Jestrab was the 2022-2023 senior US Navy fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

A career surface warfare officer, his division officer assignments were as main propulsion division officer in USS Chafee and as navigator in USS Chung-Hoon. During these tours, he deployed three times to the Western Pacific. During his initial shore assignment, Jestrab served as executive officer for Navy Reserve Center Raleigh in North Carolina. His initial department head tour was as operations officer in USS Gladiator, forward deployed to Manama, Bahrain. His follow-on tour was as operations officer in USS Bunker Hill. During this tour, Jestrab deployed to the Western Pacific where USS Bunker Hill served as Integrated Air and Missile Defense commander for the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group. He has screened for commander Command Afloat, and his next afloat assignments will be as executive officer prior to fleeting-up as commanding officer.

Prior to his current role, he served as program analyst for amphibious and auxiliary ships in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Programing Division. In this assignment, he supported the development of the US Navy’s annual five-year investment program and defended it at the Department of the Navy and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, as well as through the congressional-approval process.

Jestrab is a native of Tacoma, Washington. He graduated from the University of Memphis with a bachelor of science in sport and leisure management and was commissioned through the Navy Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program. He earned a master of business administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.