The County of San Luis Obispo Administrative Officer Wade Horton has appointed Army veteran and Atascadero resident Morgan Boyd to serve as the County’s new Veterans Services Officer, effective Monday, March 16. 

“Morgan is a battle-tested leader that will bring a thoughtful approach working with his team and nonprofit organizations to best serve our communities’ veterans,” Horton said. 

As Veterans Services Officer, Boyd will oversee the County’s Veterans Services Office to provide advocacy and benefit services for the thousands of veterans and their dependents who live in San Luis Obispo County. He will manage a staff of about eight full-time equivalent employees and an annual budget of about $962,000. 

“I am honored to serve as our County’s next Veterans Services Officer and will continue to build upon my predecessor’s efforts to provide our community’s veterans with access to the benefits that they earned while serving our country,” Boyd said of his new role. 

Boyd previously served in the United States Army from 2001 to 2014 in a variety of roles including Company Commander, Regimental Assistant Intelligence Officer and as an enlisted Cavalry Trooper. He served in combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Since then he has been a small business owner, a Cal Poly instructor, and most recently a program manager for the County’s Treatment Courts and Drug Testing Unit in the County’s Behavioral Health Department.

The mission of the Veterans Services Office is to promote the health, safety, and welfare of local veterans and their dependents or survivors by advocating on their behalf to the Department of Veterans Affairs and other service organizations in order to provide them with the benefits and services that they have earned. The office’s Administrative Services Officer Hans Poschman served for several weeks as Interim Veterans Services Officer after the former VSO was tapped to serve as the County’s new Central Services Officer in January 2020.

The County Board of Supervisors will review his employment contract on March 24.