Patrick Holland

Lieutenant Colonel Pat Holland is a National Security Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School. Commissioned into the Marine Corps in 2006, he is a career Infantry Officer, having served in a broad range of operational assignments and key positions delivering organizational readiness.

His operational experience comprises deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as several with Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) across the INDOPACOM, CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and EUCOM areas of responsibility serving as a crisis response force for the Fleet and Combatant Commanders. As a junior officer, highlights of these deployments include assignments as an infantry and mortar platoon commander in Iraq, a company commander in Afghanistan, and a reconnaissance platoon commander and company commander with a MEU. As a field grade officer, he served as the Operations Officer for the 22d MEU, and, most recently, from 2023 to 2025, was the commanding officer of 2d Battalion, 4th Marines at Camp Pendleton, California, where he deployed as Battalion Landing Team 2/4 with the 31st MEU.

Outside the operating forces, Lieutenant Colonel Holland served as an instructor at The Basic School in Quantico, Virginia, where he trained and developed newly commissioned Marine Corps officers in warfighting fundamentals, leadership, and decision-making. In 2022 and 2023, he established the 1st Marine Division’s Resiliency and Force Preservation Directorate, which led advances in training and resource coordination, and optimized knowledge transfer across the 20,000-person organization to provide leaders the tools to oversee programs to increase individual resiliency and reduce incidents of readiness degrading destructive behaviors. 

Throughout his career, he has demonstrated combat-tested leadership and operational excellence, combining a deep understanding of expeditionary and naval operations with sound risk management skills, and serving as a skilled trainer of individuals and organizations.

Lieutenant Colonel Holland holds two advanced degrees: an MA in Defense Studies from King’s College London and a Masters of International Service from the School of International Service at American University in Washington, D.C. He is also a graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School. He earned his undergraduate BS in Political Science from Sam Houston State University.

His military education includes the U.S. Army’s Maneuver Captains Career Course, the Marine Corps’ Command and Staff College and Expeditionary Warfare School through its distance education program, and the UK Defence Academy’s Advanced Command and Staff Course.

A native Texan, Lieutenant Colonel Holland enjoys spending time with his wife, Kaylee, and their two daughters, and looks forward to experiencing all that Harvard, Cambridge, and New England have to offer.