Dr. Hennelly served as officer in the U.S. Army for twenty-one years. During his Army career, he qualified as an Army Ranger, commanded soldiers, and, for two years, gave strategic briefings to four-star generals as a political-military analyst in J5, USSOUTHCOM, Panama where he worked extensively with U.S. embassies and country teams in Central America. His final military assignment was in the Department of Social Sciences at West Point teaching International Relations and Politics of Latin America.
After military retirement, he went to work at the corporate headquarters of Wal-Mart in Bentonville, Arkansas where he was responsible for the distribution logistics team, merchandise logistics team and import logistics team of the Sam’s Club division of Wal-Mart. He also worked directly with the CEO (Lee Scott) on the CEO’s leader development program.
After several years of corporate experience, he entered the doctoral program at the University of Arkansas and earned his doctorate in strategic management. In 2007, he returned to West Point as the first civilian faculty member ever hired with a doctorate in strategic management. He taught strategy, management and leadership to more than six hundred cadets from 2007 to 2014 and was the director of the leadership and management studies programs at West Point for four of those years. During this time, he interviewed and spoke with some of the most prominent CEOs in America (including Howard Schultz, Jeff Immelt, Kevin Plank and Indra Nooyi).