COL Brian J. Eastridge, MD, received his BS in biochemistry from Virginia Tech in 1985 and his MD from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1989. He entered the US Army Reserve as a second lieutenant Medical Service Corps officer in 1988. COL Eastridge and did his residency in general surgery at the University of Maryland Medical System and then pursued fellowship training in surgical critical care at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX. During his tenure on the academic faculty at UTSW, COL Eastridge was deployed three times in support of combat operations Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom as a U.S Army Reserve surgeon in 2002, 2003, and 2004. During his deployment in 2004, he was appointed as the first Joint Theater Trauma System Director. COL Eastridge matriculated to active duty U.S Army in 2005 and served as Trauma Medical Director for the Brooke Army Medical Center, Surgical Critical Care Program Director for SAUSHEC, Director of the Joint Trauma System (U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research of the U.S. Army's Medical Research and Material Command (MRMC), and Trauma Consultant to the US Army Surgeon General. During his active duty service, he was deployed two more times to combat in Southwest Asia during which time he lead the development and implementation of the military trauma system. During his career, COL Eastridge has published extensively in the peer reviewed literature and edited three books focused upon improving the military trauma system and improving combat casualty care outcomes for our Wounded Warriors. COL Eastridge left active service and returned to the active US Army Reserves in late 2012 and is currently the DCCS of the 228th Combat Support Hospital. His military awards and decorations include the Combat Medical Badge, Combat Action Badge, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, and the Joint Service Commendation Medal. He is a member of Order of Military Medical Merit. For his military service, he has been awarded the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma Honorary Medal for Combat Surgical Care in 2004 and the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command Combat Casualty Care Program Award for Excellence in 2011.

Currently, he is Professor of Surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center and was appointed as the Trauma Medical Director of the University Health System in San Antonio, TX. He holds the Jocelyn and Joe Straus Endowed Chair in Trauma Research. His current research interests are currently focused on trauma system development, including development of the regional trauma system performance improvement initiatives, predictive modeling of injury outcomes, and improved pre-hospital resuscitation strategies for casualties

Ronald M. Stewart graduated from medical school and completed his surgical residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He then completed a Trauma and Surgical Critical Care Fellowship at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis. He returned to San Antonio in 1993 where he has worked with and built the University Health System’s trauma program.

Over the past three decades, he has actively led the development of an integrated civilian-military trauma system that serves all of South Texas, covering more than 26,000 square miles. At the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio he currently serves as the Chair of the Department of Surgery, holding the Dr. Witten B. Russ Endowed Chair in Surgery. He has received numerous awards for his service to the State of Texas, the University of Texas Health Science Center and the University Health System’s trauma center.

In May 2000, Governor George W. Bush appointed Dr. Stewart to the Governor’s Emergency Medical Services and Trauma Advisory Council where he served for the next 15 years. Dr. Stewart was a founding member and the first Chair of the National Trauma Institute. For the past 20 years he has served on the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Committee on Trauma (COT), and currently serves as the national Chair of the ACS Committee on Trauma. In his tenure as the ACS COT he has worked to lead an approach to firearm injury prevention that has encouraged a collegial, friendly and substantive dialogue from surgeons from all points of view.

In 2013 Dr. Stewart was the recipient of the National Safety Council’s Surgeons Award for Service to Safety, and the American College of Surgeon's Arthur Ellenberger Award for Excellence in State Advocacy.

He is a member of the American Surgical Association, the Southern Surgical Association, the Western Surgical Association, the immediate past President of the Southwestern Surgical Congress and the President-elect of the Texas Surgical Society.