OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY TED HESS ASPEN ATTORNEY

Brigadier General Hess was commissioned in 1969 through the NROTC program at Cornell University after receiving a B.A. degree. He also holds a law degree, cum laude, from the State University of New York at Buffalo (1978); and an M.A. degree, with distinction, from the U.S. Naval War College (1990).

General Hess began his career as an infantry officer and served in all four Marine divisions. He served as an infantry commander with 1st Battalion, 7th Marines and 2d Battalion, 5th Marines in Vietnam from June 1970 to February 1971. After completing the Amphibious Warfare School in 1975, he was selected to study law.

Completing the Naval Justice School in 1978, General Hess then served as a military prosecutor. After his promotion to major, he was assigned as the chief defense counsel at the 1st Marine Division, Camp Pendleton, California. Following the Graduate Course at the Army's Judge Advocate General's School in 1982, he served in house counsel positions at Headquarters Marine Corps. Assigned to the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 1984, General Hess served as a lobbyist for Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger at the Pentagon. He worked with Congress on a variety of issues, including covert intelligence programs and revitalization of Special Operations Forces.

Transferred to Okinawa, Japan in 1986, General Hess served as Circuit Military Judge, Keystone Judicial Circuit. Reassigned to Hawaii in 1987, he served as Staff Judge Advocate and Law Center Director for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade and Marine Corps Air Station, Kaneohe Bay, until his assignment to the Naval War College in 1989. In Hawaii, he led a successful campaign to stop banks from preventing servicemembers, who financed new cars in the state, from removing cars from Hawaii when they were transferred.

Upon graduation from the Naval War College in 1990, General Hess served as head of Marine Corps Administrative and Civil Law. During the Gulf War, he was responsible for the legal problems presented by conscientious objectors in the service and Marine Corps' first Reserve mobilization since the Korean War. In 1991, he was assigned to the Office of the Judge Advocate General of the Navy as Director, Appellate Government Division. In that position, General Hess had the opportunity to argue several significant military justice cases before the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces and represent the military in two court-martial appeals decided in the U.S. Supreme Court.

From 1994 to 1996, General Hess was the Circuit Military Judge, Sierra Judicial Circuit, located at Camp Pendleton, California.

Selected as the top lawyer in the Marine Corps in 1996 and promoted to brigadier general, General Hess served as the Staff Judge Advocate to the Commandant under the 31st Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Charles C. Krulak, from 1996 to 1999. In that position, he supervised 400 lawyers and 600 legal assistants at 20 bases and stations in the U.S. and overseas.

After completing his military service on January 1, 2000, General Hess moved to the Western Slope of Colorado and practices law as trial lawyer along the I-70 corridor from Vail to Rifle and in the Roaring Fork Valley from Glenwood Springs to Aspen. He opened the The Law Firm of Ted Hess, P.C. in 2003. In July 2005, he began to develop an immigration practice.

General Hess’ medals and decorations include the Legion of Merit with two gold stars; the Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V”; the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal; the Navy Commendation Medal; and the Combat Action Ribbon.

During his career, he was admitted to practice in Colorado, New York, and the District of Columbia and before the U.S. Supreme Court, The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals.

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