Dr. Suzanne Strohl embarked on her professional journey by earning a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from Marymount University in 1995. During this time, she interned with the United States Department of the Army and did early work as a general engineer with the Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Laboratory at Fort Belvoir. Her specialty was in lasers and electro-optics, and she worked on various weapons systems, including tanks and missiles. In 1995, she became the division chief for instrumentation at the United States Army Test and Evaluation Command and achieved her Master of Science in systems engineering from the University of Virginia in 2002. From 2004 to 2005, Dr. Strohl worked as a general engineer and team chief for test infrastructure at the Department of Defense Test Resource Management Center in Arlington, Virginia.
While in Arlington, Dr. Strohl was additionally the chair of the Resource Enhancement Program for the director of operational test and evaluation. She furthered her studies in 2005 with the senior executive fellow program at Harvard University before going on to serve as the deputy program manager for research, development, test and evaluation and the technical director for the Department of Homeland Security United States Coast Guard in Washington, D.C., from 2005 to 2007. Subsequently returning to the Test Resource Management Center, she held the roles of deputy director of strategic planning and international coordinator until 2014. In 2009, Dr. Strohl completed her Doctor of Management in organizational leadership at the University of Phoenix.
Throughout her career in engineering, Dr. Strohl garnered significant expertise in strategic planning, data analysis and program management and holds a wide range of certifications and licenses in those specialties. Since 2013, she has brought her skills to the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association, also known as FCSLA Life, first as a consultant and then as a national trustee beginning in 2020. She has been a member of the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association for roughly 50 years because of her mother, who was herself Slovak. The organization was founded back in the 1800s by a handful of women who wanted to ensure that the women of their community had the support of insurance should their husbands die as a result of their work in the steel mills.
Today, FCSLA Life is a not-for-profit organization that manages a billion dollars in life insurance and annuities for its members. Dr. Strohl is proud to have been elected to their board of directors as a national trustee. In order to keep abreast of developments in her field, she has maintained affiliation with a variety of professional organizations. These include Federally Employed Women, Women in Defense, the Federal Government Acquisition Corps and the Society of Catholic Scientists. Dr. Strohl is also an active member of her community, serving in different roles within St. Anthony of Padua Parish and its Arlington Diocese. She volunteers with Link2Feed, a United States and Canadian organization that supports food banks and various hunger relief groups.
For her excellence, Dr. Strohl has been the recipient of a number of honors and accolades throughout her career. She was notably named to the Honorable Order of Saint Barbara by the United States Field Artillery Association in 1994 and later received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence in 2004. Beyond these achievements, however, Dr. Strohl considers the highlights of her career to be working her way through her education and her success as a woman in the field of engineering at a time when the field was predominantly men.
Dr. Strohl attributes much of her success to her parents, who supported her and cheered her on through her education, leading her to become the first person in her family to achieve a master’s degree and a doctorate. Her father, in particular, was very proud of her work with the Department of Defense. When she is not working, Dr. Strohl enjoys gardening, scrapbooking, photography and traveling with her husband.
