Ann E. Dunwoody

Ann E. Dunwoody (born January 1953, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, U.S.) is a U.S. general who in 2008 became the first woman to reach four-star status in the U.S. Army.

Dunwoody’s father was a career army officer and a decorated veteran, and her childhood was spent traveling with her family from post to post. Though she had planned on a career in physical education, she joined the army during her senior year at the State University of New York at Cortland. After graduating in 1975, she received a two-year commission as a second lieutenant at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. She later earned two master’s degrees during her service—in logistics management from the Florida Institute of Technology (1988) and in national resource strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (1995).

Having found that she enjoyed army life, Dunwoody continued to serve after her first commission ended. She became the first female battalion commander for the 82nd Airborne Division in 1992 and the first female general at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 2000—a position she ascended to from her first assignment there, as division property-book officer. For her service she was decorated a number of times, receiving the Distinguished Service Medal and the Defense Superior Service Medal, among other awards.

On November 14, 2008, after 33 years of service, Dunwoody was promoted to four-star general—the first American woman to be so honoured. That day she was also sworn in as head of the U.S. Army Materiel Command at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Shortly after stepping down from that post in August 2012, Dunwoody retired from the army. In 2015 she published A Higher Standard: Leadership Strategies from America’s First Female Four-Star General (cowritten with Tomago Collins).