Mr. Mike Runey
Head of School
Since 2019
M.A. History, Pennsylvania State University
M.A. Strategic Studies, U.S. Army War College
B.S. History, Systems Engineering, The United States Military Academy (West Point)
28 Years Serving and Leading in the U.S. Army
Raised in an Army family, Mike Runey attended the United States Military Academy (West Point) graduating as a lieutenant in 1991. Shortly thereafter he married Lieutenant Christiana (Christy) Cassidy. After nearly a year apart, they were assigned to Korea.
Since then, he has served in numerous leadership and staff positions across the globe, such as leading a platoon fighting forest fires in Montana, commanding a rocket unit in Germany, and teaching military history at his alma mater, West Point.
He has deployed five times, including to Bosnia with the 1st Infantry Division (“Big Red One”) in the mid-1990s and to Iraq twice with the 4th Infantry
Division (“Ivy Division), based out of Fort Hood, Texas between 2005 and 2009. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Major Runey worked with the Marines in Western Iraq as a battalion operations officer. His unit delivered new, high-tech precision missiles in support of Marines and Soldiers fighting in the provincial capital, Ramadi. During his second tour in Iraq, he led the 4th Infantry Division’s planning team in Baghdad during a particularly violent period (the “Awakening and Shia uprising”) and into the transition to Iraqi civil control that included a key round of elections. Following Iraq, Lieutenant Colonel Runey led an Army Reserve Officer Training Corps
(ROTC) battalion of over 300 cadets at Penn State, raising the next generation of Army leaders. He then commanded the Army garrison in Schweinfurt, Germany, a community of 12,000 soldiers and families supporting NATO. In two years there, his team deployed and redeployed all of those soldiers in support of operations in Afghanistan, while caring for their families who remained in Germany.
Colonel Runey then served with US Army Recruiting spearheading the commanding general’s initiatives to sustain the All-Volunteer Force as well as leading mobile technology initiatives for the Army in support of the recruiters nationwide. Following graduation from the U.S Army War College, he deployed again to lead a team of U.S. and allied officers in NATO Headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan. There they coordinated the efforts of hundreds of NATO advisors to assist the Afghan police and army in securing their population and defeating the Taliban.
In the summer of 2016, he returned home, moved the family to Virginia, and assumed leadership of the Joint and Army Concept Development division in the Army’s Future and Concepts Center. His job there was to envision the future (2030 and beyond) and create ways the Army will operate, fight, and win against increasingly capable adversaries in a rapidly changing world.
Mike’s education includes a B.S. from the United States Military Academy (1991), a M.A. from the Pennsylvania State University (History, 2001), and a M.A. from the Army War College (Strategic Studies, 2015).
His historical research and writing focuses on the World War II and Cold War eras, with special emphasis on how citizen soldiers raised, replaced, and sustained leadership in combat. He has also written and published on Division level operations in a brigade-centric Army as well as sustaining America’s All-Volunteer Force amidst 21st Century challenges.
Mike joined PCA as Head of School in 2019. He and his wife, Christy, are blessed with four children—Sarah, Rebekah, Peter, and Caleb—and currently live in Dover, NH and call Durham Evangelical their home church.