NEW YORK, Nov. 27, 2006 — Major General (Ret.) Christopher Cortez, former Commanding General of the Marine Corps Recruiting Command in Quantico, Va., has joined Microsoft Corp. as Managing Director, Government Industry Team, Worldwide Public Sector, reports Wes Poriotis, Chairman of Wesley, Brown & Bartle Co. (WB&B).
WB&B is the nation's leading executive search firm dedicated to the recruitment of women and people of color.
Cortez recently retired from the United States Marine Corps as a Major General with over 30 years of leadership experience. He will play a key role in the design, development and execution of Microsoft's Connected Government Framework industry strategy.
About his new post General Cortez said, "Microsoft's mission to help people and businesses to realize their full potential is a great values match for me, and my team and I are working to apply this mission to our government customers around the world."
As Commanding General of the Marine Corps recruiting command, from 2002 to 2004, Cortez directed a national sales force of 4,500 and successfully recruited nearly 40,000 new Marines annually.
General Cortez is one of three Hispanics to become a two-star general in the Marine Corps' 231-year history. At the outset of the first Gulf War, then Lieutenant Colonel Cortez deployed with one of the first Marine Corps units to arrive in Saudi Arabia, leading a reinforced battalion of nearly 1400 marines.
This unit, the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, was one of the ground assault units that participated in the liberation of Kuwait. The unit successfully breached two Iraqi minefields, cleared enemy forces in the zone of action and all members of the unit ultimately returned home unscathed.
From 2000 to 2002, Cortez was Director for Operations of the U.S. Pacific Command in Honolulu, Hawaii. U.S. Pacific Command's operating area encompassed over half the globe and included 300,000 U.S. military personnel.
From 1998 to 2000, Cortez was Director of Plans and Strategy Division at U.S. Marine Corps headquarters in Washington D.C, where he coordinated Marine Corps matters with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
General Cortez holds a B.A. in Spanish from Marietta College and an M.A. in Business Management from Azusa Pacific University. He is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
About Wesley, Brown & Bartle Company, Inc.
WB&B, one of America's leading management consulting and executive search firms, is also the premier diversity search firm. WB&B has placed executive personnel in more than 300 of the Fortune 500 companies. The founder and Chairman of WB&B, Wesley Poriotis, also founded, at the request of President Clinton, the Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives, a nonprofit whose mission is to help veterans compete for quality employment. WB&B, a private company founded in 1973, is headquartered in New York City at 152 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.
For more information, please visit http://www.wbbusa.com.
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