ABOUT US

JLO Consulting is a registered Small Business whose team members have over 80 years of combined experience in providing Subject Matter Expertise (SME) to the US Department of Defense (DoD), US Department of State (DoS), the United Nations and other international organizations. JLO Consulting provides subject matter expertise for executive education, senior leadership, workshops, seminars, tabletop exercises, curriculum development and mobile education teams for the Institute of Security Governance (ISG - formerly Center for Civil-Military Relations) as well as the School of International Graduate Studies (SIGS) at the Naval Post-Graduate School (NPS). JLO Consulting staff are augmented by an extensive network of independent SMEs who are experienced practitioners and educators in curriculum development, training, defense analysis, national security affairs, homeland security, global public policy, and defense resource management.

JLO Consulting’s network of over 300 SMEs speak 20 languages and have worked in over 100 countries in all US Combatant Commands. Our network includes former Ambassadors and senior military leaders from NATO and the UN; senior government personnel in policy design and development; specialists in international environments and programs; and academics who are recognized experts in their field of study. Our SMEs have developed, designed, and delivered defense institution and capacity building programs to Partner Nations’ Ministries of Defense, Joint and Service Headquarters staffs, and have contributed to academic publications at institutions worldwide.

OUR TEAM

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John Otte

John Otte, co-founder and strategic advising partner of JLO, is an internationally recognized subject matter expert with over 45 years of experience in peacekeeping operations and training, strategic policy planning, and federal contract management. John has served as an advisor for peacekeeping training programs to the United Nations, U.S. Departments of Defense, and State.

John’s contributions have included: the development of a multi-national training exercise program for the UN and Member States; foundational educational training packages for the GPOI program at US Pacific Command; and operational trainings of multiple, successful humanitarian response missions and capacity building programs around the world.

Prior to founding JLO, John served as a US Army Exchange Instructor at the Australian Command and Staff College where he taught Strategic Studies, Military History, Leadership, and Budgeting and Operational Level planning. From there, John spent four years as a training advisor to the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, where he developed a new doctrine on peacekeeping and peace enforcement. John continued on to create UN-compatible peacekeeping training programs as the Program Manager of Education and Training at the Center of Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance in Honolulu, Hawaii. John then spent 15 years preparing, presenting, and developing education and training curriculum material with a focus on joint programs and multiple methodologies for peace-keeping initiatives for the Center for Civil-Military Relations (CCMR) program in various contractor capacities before continuing this work with JLO.

John holds a graduate diploma in Strategic Planning and Policy Development and a BS in Engineering and Applied Sciences from the United States Military Academy, West Point.

Sarah D'Amico

Sarah D’Amico is a co-member and managing partner to JLO, who has over 12 years of experience in operational management and oversight of Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of State (DoS) security cooperation programs. Over the past six years, Sarah has provided project management, development, and assessment expertise to the Security Governance Initiative and the Global Peace Operations Initiative. Sarah’s primary focus on security cooperation programs is to provide strategic planning and analysis through objectives based research for JLO clients to allow them to achieve exceptional results within specified budgets and delivery timelines. Sarah has also provided expertise in the design, implementation, and analysis of quantitative and qualitative methods for multi-phase security cooperation projects in Africa and Asia.

Sarah has deployed to projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Rwanda, Zambia, and Japan, and has provided project management to client projects in all combatant commands, often in austere locations and venues. This experience has allowed her to conduct site surveys for stakeholders and assess civil-military relations and security cooperation levels in complex environments and provide real-time solutions for project implementation.

Prior to joining JLO, Sarah’s served as a Deputy Sheriff in Monterey County, California for three years. Sarah’s law enforcement background along with experience in international security cooperation programs enables her to understand the outcomes and objectives of security cooperation programs across the entire security sector and bring a civilian focus to civil-military cooperation projects. Sarah’s police training and experience includes working with incident command systems, focusing on interagency communication and coordination in disaster management, and hostage negotiation training with a focus on vulnerable people and settings.

Sarah is PMI-PMP certified (2020), has an MBA from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, is a Police Academy Graduate from South Bay Regional Public Safety Training Consortium, has a BA from the University of Vermont, and is fluent in Russian.

Jason Budnick

Jason Budnick is a co-member and advising partner to JLO, where he leads the sustainment of client relationships and new business partnerships for the company. Jason brings extensive experience with the planning, design, implementation, and analytics of international security cooperation programs for both the US DoD and DoS as well as the UN.

Jason has provided research, program design, and development assistance to US DoD security cooperation programs for over fifteen years. Jason supported early Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) institutional capacity building and security cooperation training programs and was part of the management team for the first Defense Institution Building (DIB) conference in 2011. He has also consulted on monitoring and evaluation and knowledge management analysis for DoD and DoS security cooperation projects around the world, notably DSCA’s Institutional Capacity Building (ICB) program and Global Peace Operations Initiative Program (GPOI) program.

Prior to joining JLO, Jason was the assistant PM to the Defense Institution Reform Initiative (DIRI) Program and lead representative for Camber Corporation clients at the Naval Postgraduate School. His duties involved establishing standardized operating procedures for scoping, engagement, and reporting as well as preparing management reports for DIRI sponsors at OSD Partnership Strategy and Stability Operations and the DSCA. For Camber, he led the management of contractual budgets for program support to client programs, oversaw the execution of all task order award deliverables, and assisted PMs with the creation and maintenance of engagement and, or program implementation strategies.

He is a graduate of the University of Manitoba with a BA in International Relations.

Abigail Hoffman

Abigail Hoffman joined the company in 2019 and has contributed to the growth and development of JLO’s business operations as a project analyst. Abby provides quality control to the company's contracting process and leads strategic communications initiatives for our interactions with implementing partners and clients. Abby brings her previous federal contracting experience in finance and operations with the Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) where she prepared budgets, cost projections, and Ad-Hoc reporting and analysis for government clients.

Abby is currently focused on combining her analytical expertise from CHDS and technical programming skills from her background in economics to provide JLO with the ability to deliver data-driven, actionable insights towards meeting our client’s programmatic and project-level objectives. Abby is also involved in the comparative analysis of current client projects to ensure that best practices and successful program initiatives are documented and can be utilized in the design and planning of future projects.

In addition, Abby leads, develops, and maintains the company’s online presence and social media pages to engage with JLO’s global network of implementing partners, continuously ensuring that the most up-to-date expertise is found within our pool of subject matter experts to support any client requirement.

Abby holds a BA in Economics from the University of California Berkeley.