Colonel Steven Desjardins

Colonel Steven Desjardins was born in the Sherbrooke Quebec in the Eastern Townships. He enrolled in the artillery in 1985 and served in Valcartier in a variety of functions with the different Arms. In 1990, at the rank of Sgt, he transferred to the Officer corps through the University Training Program for Non Commissioned Members where he obtained a bachelor's degree, Honors Political Science from Concordia University in Montreal. From 1993 to 2003, Colonel Desjardins held the positions of G2 Ops, G2 Training, G2 Plans, J2 Plans and J2 at Secteur du Quebec de la Force Terrestre. From 2003 to 2008, Colonel Desjardins was the Area G2 for Quebec where he was responsible for Intelligence Force generation, force employment, regional liaison as well as overseeing the development of the CF’s PSYOPS and assuming the functions of project director for the creation of Joint Task Force East in Quebec. He assumed command of the All Source Intelligence Center in Kandahar Afghanistan between August 2007 and March 2008. In summer 2008, he was selected to attend Joint Command and Staff Program at the Command and Staff College in Toronto Ontario. He was promoted to the rank of LCol in 2008 and assumed the function of Deputy Director Intelligence Operations within Chief Defence Intelligence at National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa. In the summer of 2010, he assumed the functions of G2 and Director Army Intelligence at the Canadian Army HQ in Ottawa where he led Land Intelligence modernization efforts. He was promoted to Col in July 2013, and subsequently posted to NATO SHAPE in Belgium. Upon his return to Canada in 2015, he was appointed to his current role as the J2 of the Canadian Joint Operations Command. He was awarded the MSM for his tour as CO ASIC Roto 4 OP ATHENA. He was also awarded a CLS commendation for his role in the Summit of the Americas in 2001 and a CANADACOM commendation for his role in CF transformation – Stand up of the Joint Task force Headquarters Quebec