Daniel Rice
Dan Rice first became interested in West Point as a high school freshman when the 52 American hostages were returned from Iran and first arrived at the Thayer Hotel to international attention in January 1981. Finding immediate interest in the idea of visiting West Point, the next weekend Dan's father drove him up to see West Point and stayed at the Historic Thayer Hotel. After that weekend he applied to only one university: West Point. Fortunately he was accepted and entered in 1984. A 1988 West Point graduate with a Bachelors of Science in National Security, he holds a Masters of Business Administration from the Kellogg Graduate School of Business at Northwestern University.
Dan served in Turkey and Colorado and left the Army after his commitment, entering the private sector, first in the medical device field leading a large marketing department and then after earning his MBA he transitioned into finance in New York City. He voluntarily joined the Army again in 2004 after over a decade out of uniform by joining the New York National Guard as an Infantry Captain as it was mobilizing to deploy to Iraq. He served in Iraq for one year working on economic development in the Sunni Triangle based out of FOB Danger in Tikrit where he was awarded the Purple Heart and Combat Action Badge. After returning from Iraq, where he had seen the promise of the Iraqi economy, he and two partners formed the Marshall Fund- the first private equity fund formed to acquire Iraqi factories. The Marshall Fund then made history when it acquired a tomato paste factory, renovated it and helped over 1,000 farms start up again throughout Iraq. After the global financial meltdown of 2008, the partners chose to close the fund since raising additional round was impossible. In 2009 he co-founded SunDial to bring mobile solar power to remote forward operating bases in Afghanistan to reduce fuel, convoys, and save lives and taxpayer dollars. SunDial is the leader in this space and has proven to reliably reduce fuel, reduce convoys, save lives and dollars in the most austere environment.
Dan has Co-Founded several entrepreneurial companies including SunDial Capital Partners, the Thayer Leader Development Group, IronSword, and the Marshall Fund. The Thayer Leader Development Group trains corporate executives at the Historic Thayer Hotel at West Point using the principles used to train West Point cadets. TLDG has trained over 12,500 executives from 36 counties and 165 companies in its first four years including executives from GE, P&G, Mercedes Benz, 7-Eleven, EMCOR, USAA and many other top-tier companies.
His military awards include the Purple Heart, Combat Action Medal, Airborne Badge, and Ranger Tab. Dan is a member of the Author's Guild and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and Small Wars Journal. He has appeared on FOX News, the Neil Cavuto Show, CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg Street Smart the TODAY SHOW and several other networks speaking about leadership, the military and Middle Eastern affairs. Some of the appearances or references to the book are loaded onto this site in the video section.
"West Point Leadership: Profiles of Courage" was awarded three 2014 Benjamin Franklin Silver Awards for Best Biography, Best Gift Book and Best First Book by the Independent Book Publishers Association and was awarded the 2014 Military Writers Society of America Bronze Award for Best Biography.
Dan lives in New York City.
