Barrett Y. Bogue is President and Founder of Evocati Public Relations. Prior to founding the firm, he served as Vice President at Student Veterans of America (SVA) and Acting Assistant Director for GI Bill Oversight and Outreach with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). 

Barrett holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science and Master of Science in higher education administration and policy from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

He served six years in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and was deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom II where he earned a Combat Action Ribbon and Meritorious Mast for effectively leading his team under enemy fire. He was the Lima Company Marine of the Year in 2003.

For over a decade, and with increasing organizational responsibility in the federal and nonprofit sectors, he’s dedicated his career towards improving the outcomes of non-traditional students in higher education, building nationally recognized programs and brands, and improving federal and state policies.

He successfully executed public campaigns promoting the largest expansion of education benefits for veterans since World War II. He helped implement and advertise the Post-9/11 GI Bill, now the most widely used VA education benefit, during his tenure.

He directed more than 15 national public relations and marketing campaigns with cross-functional and multi-agency teams including VA’s Post-9/11 GI Bill national integrated marketing campaign from 2009 – 2011, which increased program participation from 300,000 to over 2,000,000 people in five years.

Other notable high-profile campaigns include a nationwide 70th anniversary celebration of the GI Bill in 2014, and SVA’s annual national conference in 2017 and 2018. He created one of the first Facebook pages in VA history, the first NASCAR race and car sponsorship, first email marketing campaign, and first Google advertising campaign for VA. For his work he was awarded the Advancements in the Customer Experience Award for the Social Experience by Oracle.

In 2016, he joined SVA as the Vice President for Public Relations and Chapter Engagement. In 2017, he co-authored the National Veteran Education Success Tracker, a peer-reviewed report on the academic outcomes of nearly 900,000 student veterans using the GI Bill, which transformed the country’s prevailing narrative around veterans in higher education.

During his tenure he established over 160 new chapters including at schools that never had one like George Mason University, hosted over 150 chapter consultation sessions, graduated nearly 200 chapter leaders through a completely revamped and improved Leadership Institute, hosted a season of Chapter Leader Academy training for over 500 chapters, and executed the most profitable and attended NatCon in a decade. A tireless advocate, he led the grassroots campaign at SVA to pass the Forever GI Bill. A truly bipartisan achievement that made the GI Bill a lifetime education benefit; something never achieved in its nearly 75-year history.

In 2019, he was selected for the George W. Bush Stand-To Veteran Leadership Program, which supports leaders from a wide range of sectors who are working to improve outcomes for veterans and military families through professional and/or community engagement.

In 2020, he co-authored Called to Lead, a qualitative research project at CNAS that examined the connections between military service and higher education leadership roles based on interviews with veterans who work in the industry. He was also selected to participate in Bunker Labs + WeWork Veterans in Residence Program, a six-month startup incubator and leadership program that provides veteran and military family member entrepreneurs the community, business support, and workspace to help launch and grow their businesses.

In 2021, he completed Stanford University’s Ignite, Post-9/11 Veterans Program, an intensive, four-week program for entrepreneurs that’s academically rigorous, hands-on, and collaborative where participants engage directly with the same renowned faculty who teach in the Stanford MBA program.

In 2024, his firm was nominated by Ragan Communications and PR Daily for Nonprofit PR Campaign of the Year for its work titled, “Launching MilitaryConnected.org in a Sea of Goodwill.”

A thought-leader, entrepreneur, and expert in policy formulation, he’s published original research and pieces on state policy, higher education legislation, higher education leadership, public relations best practices, and veteran employment. Barrett has been widely quoted in media including The Tennessean, Military Times, Stars & Stripes, TIME, The Atlantic, Task & Purpose, and The Hill.

Barrett lives with his wife and daughters in Virginia.