Why ERETAI
The home we were missing
The most capable planning community in the world has been scattered like light in the fog. ERETAI exists to bring it home.
The cost of drifting apart
Thirteen years. One consistent pattern.
Every year, the U.S. military’s planning and strategy schools (SAMS, SAASS, SAW, MAWS, JAWS, BSAP, JADS) graduate officers trained to turn a commander’s intent into coherent, executable direction, or the strategy behind it. And every year, the Services scatter them across the globe to fill immediate needs.
Contact information goes stale. Volunteers burn out. Alumni rosters decay. The most capable planning community in the world becomes invisible, even to itself. No single program is large enough to fix this alone.
ERETAI’s founder watched it happen to his own cohorts at SAMS and JAWS, then confirmed it with the directors of program after program. The conclusion was unavoidable: sometimes to solve a problem, you have to make it bigger: something big enough for an established organization to carry. The realization was as simple as it was large: we can solve so many of our own problems, and create so many opportunities, if we just knew each other exists.
Built by one of us
Built by one of those standing in the gap.
Eric S. Fowler, PhD, Founder and Managing Director, is a career Army Intelligence Officer with over 27 years of active-duty service, a graduate of both SAMS (2012) and JAWS (2021), and the former Director of JAWS at the National Defense University. Responsible there for an alumni population of over 900 with no mechanism to keep them connected, he identified the systemic gap that became ERETAI.
His career spans the Joint Enabling Capabilities Command, command of a Strategic Intelligence Battalion and deputy brigade command at the National Security Agency, a research fellowship at RAND, Pentagon staff tours, and lead operational planner in Korea. He holds a PhD in International Studies and four additional degrees in strategy, design, diplomacy, and international relations.
ERETAI’s governance is stewarded by the Compass Advisory Body, an independent civilian group of executives and institutional leaders who bring the perspective the founder alone cannot. It is actively being built.
Always needed, often misunderstood
The Operational Planner & The Strategist
Two faces of the same coin, one looking upwards and outwards, the other looking deep within. Operational planners, forged principally at SAMS, SAW, MAWS, and JAWS, turn a commander’s intent into the campaign-level plans tens of thousands of people can execute under pressure. Strategists, forged in schools like SAASS, BSAP, and JADS, shape the logic of longer horizons: how power compounds across domains and decades, and whether the aim is worth blood and treasure in the first place. Each school was built on purpose, to solve real problems.
Their graduates are not mere theorists. They are practitioners who translate ambiguous guidance into concrete direction under compressed timelines, in chaotic environments, and across organizational and cultural boundaries. Distinct as the two disciplines are, they share a mindset, skillset, and toolset: frame the problem, work together, and make complex direction clear enough that a team can act on it. Each school, and the identity it confers, is its own story (see The Schools for more).
Naming a time, a place, a people
The name is more than a word.
In ancient Greece, skilled oarsmen were the human engine of the triremes, massive wooden warships that dominated the Mediterranean for centuries. The name for these professional oarsmen: ERETAI (ἐρέται). A fully-manned trireme required 170 eretai, each pulling their own share of the load to propel the ship forward. No single rower could move that ship alone. It moved forward because every oar pulled as one.
For as long as anyone can remember, staff sections throughout military headquarters have referred to the hard work of planning as “rowing.” The metaphor is absolutely everywhere in the planner community; on farewell paddles, in unit mottos, on challenge coins. The task may be grueling and thankless, the days grind on and the individual is lost in the churn, but these professional rowers do have a name: ERETAI.
What we’re for
Move operational mastery from where it is forged to where it is needed.
ERETAI exists to organize, equip, and ethically place the operational planning and strategy strength found in the Military Operational Planning and Strategy Schools. We do this by building an ecosystem that connects planners and strategists to one another, and then to the world. Because no worthy vision should fail for want of planning, and no planner’s talent should go to waste.
ERETAI is that home. A governed, purpose-built professional community backed by products and services that make military planning and strategy accessible, portable, and valued beyond the uniform.
How the pieces fit
Eight parts, one community.
Connect is the ecosystem’s center of gravity, live today. Each capability beyond it comes online as the community grows to carry it.
Community Products
ERETAI Connect
The structured professional network where verified planner-strategists find each other, exchange ideas, and build professional relationships.
Available Now.
ERETAI Commons
Curated venue where the planner-strategists community engages in professional discourse with the rest of the world.
Under Development.
ERETAI Coaching
One-on-one professional development for career transition, skill development, and leadership growth.
Under Development.
ERETAI Compass
Independent civilian advisory oversight ensuring ERETAI remains relevant and accountable.
Under Development.
Capability Services
ERETAI Calibrate
Professional credentialing for operational planning competencies in non-Defense contexts.
Under Development.
ERETAI Continue
Talent placement connecting planner-strategists with organizations that need operational planning expertise.
Future Capability.
ERETAI Consulting
Operational planning services for organizations, delivered by credentialed planner-strategists.
Under Development.
ERETAI Conduit
Partnership enablement through governed introductions between organizations and the planner-strategist community.
Future Capability.
Operating Entities
The ERETAI Group, LLC
The active parent organization (current).
Eretai Foundation, 501(c)(3)
Scholarships, research, and community service (planned 2027).
Eretai Institute, 501(c)(6)
Credentialing standards and industry advocacy (planned 2029).
Where this is going
What we’re building toward.
By Academic Year 2028, we intend to sponsor every graduate from every Military Operational Planning and Strategy School Program with a full first-year ERETAI Connect membership. That same year, we plan to graduate our first cohort of ERETAI Calibrate-certified operational artists.
The aim is simple: every person who has earned these skills, whether through a formal School Program or through years of demonstrated practice, should have a professional home, a recognized credential, and a community that makes their expertise visible and accessible to the organizations that need it most.
Row Well and Live.
Life is better when we live it together.
Get in and start rowing