Biography of David Lawrence Englin

David Englin was born David English at the U.S. Army's 97th General Hospital in Frankfurt, Germany. His mother, Stephanie, was a Department of Defense elementary school teacher, and his father was a soldier stationed at Hanau Army Base. Just after David was born, Stephanie transferred to RAF Chicksands, a U.S. Air Force base in England, which is where David spent his early childhood. David's parents separated shortly after his brother, Michael, was born, and Stephanie raised her two sons as a single mother. A New York City native, Stephanie moved her family to the Bronx between 1984 and 1985 to return to school. The Defense Department then sent Stephanie and her sons back overseas to RAF Croughton, England.

While growing up on American bases during the Cold War, David traveled extensively throughout Europe and developed both an appreciation for other peoples and cultures and a deep commitment to serving America. He also developed a love of aviation and became a student pilot at RAF Upper Heyford, where his single-engine aero club plane shared the runway with F-111s from the 20th Tactical Fighter Wing. An Eagle Scout, varsity athlete, and Air Force Junior ROTC cadet, David graduated valedictorian from Croughton High School in 1992 and won an appointment to the U.S. Air Force Academy.


At the beginning of his junior year at the Air Force Academy, David met Shayna Wolin on the steps of the Cadet Chapel when she was visiting her brother, who was then a freshman cadet. David and Shayna were engaged shortly thereafter. In May 1996, Shayna graduated summa cum laude from the University of Colorado at Denver with majors in Political Science and Psychology, and David graduated with honors from the Air Force Academy with a major in History and a minor in Russian and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force. The following Sunday, David and Shayna were married, and they combined their last names, English and Wolin, to Englin.


The Air Force sent the Englins to Cambridge, Mass., where David spent two years as an Air Force-sponsored graduate student at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. During the summer between his two years at Harvard, David worked at the Pentagon in the Secretary of the Air Force Office of Public Affairs. In 1998, he graduated from the Kennedy School with a Masters in Public Policy degree with concentrations in press, politics, and public policy and media relations.

David's next Air Force assignment was 20 minutes up the road from Cambridge at Hanscom AFB, Mass., where he worked in community relations and crisis action planning in the Electronic Systems Center Office of Public Affairs. While David was serving at Hanscom, Shayna took her turn at Harvard in the same masters degree program, and their son, Caleb, was born a few days before Shayna began her second year of school.


In July 2000, shortly after Shayna's graduation, the Englins moved from Cambridge to Washington, D.C., where David was assigned to the Pentagon in the Secretary of the Air Force Office of Public Affairs. David served in a variety of positions during his four years at the Pentagon, including a year and a half in the Air Force's Public Communications Division, an overseas deployment to Operation Joint Forge / Joint Guardian as the Chief of Public Affairs for the 16th Air Expeditionary Wing, which was spread throughout the Balkans, and two years as the Deputy Director and Executive Officer of the Your Guardians of Freedom war on terrorism outreach program.

A lifelong Democrat, David's experiences at the Pentagon inspired him to speak out publicly about the direction of our country. As early as his cadet years, David advocated to his military peers that gays ought to be allowed to serve openly in the military and that all military jobs ought to be open to women. When the Bush Administration came into power, David argued with his military peers -- and even with some Bush political appointees -- the folly of Bush's acerbic, unilateralist approach to foreign policy. David was on duty at the Pentagon when it was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. After doing what he could to aid the wounded, he was one of hundreds of people preparing to go into the building to recover remains. As they stood there, senior officers around him wondered out loud if this would be the excuse the Bush Administration had been looking for to attack Iraq. In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, David publicly implored his Pentagon colleagues to stand against the wave of anti-Muslim discrimination that seemed to be sweeping the country. At the request of a friend who was an editor at the American Prospect, David wrote the first of many public articles about the direction of our country, which for David has become an ongoing endeavor.


While David was stationed at the Pentagon, the Englins decided to settle permanently in Alexandria, Va., where they fell in love with the city's Del Ray neighborhood and immediately became active in Alexandria's civic affairs. The Alexandria City Council appointed David to the city's Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, and he became an active member of the Alexandria Democratic Committee and the Del Ray Citizens Association. The Englins also began attending Alexandria's Beth El Hebrew Congregation, where they are now members.


David separated from the Air Force with an honorable discharge in May 2004. In the weeks that followed, he was a delegate for John Kerry to the district and state Democratic conventions, a consultant to a congressional campaign, and teaching communications to the staff of a Maryland state senate reelection campaign. When he's not developing his post-military career as a campaign consultant, activist, writer, and policy entrepreneur, David spends his time before and after Caleb's school day as a stay-at-home Dad.