KASIM YARN

Director

On February 17, 2016, Governor Gina Raimondo appointed Kasim J. Yarn to the first Director of Veterans Affairs for the State of Rhode Island. Kasim is an active-duty naval officer who retired May 16, 2016, after 20 years of faithful service to our nation and joined the Raimondo administration the following day. While from Jackson, Mississippi, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy the day after graduating high school. His first duty station was in South Weymouth, Massachusetts, a time that began Kasim’s lifelong love affair with New England. While stationed at Naval Station Newport in 1995, the Navy selected Kasim to attend college and become an officer. That same year, he met his future wife, Rosaria, a native of Italy who grew up in Westerly, Rhode Island. Kasim also received his commission as a naval officer that year and was deployed in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf area of operations. After his assignments at sea, Kasim became an instructor at the Surface Warfare Officers School at Naval Station Newport in 2004. While in Newport, Kasim earned a Master’s Degree in National Strategic Studies at the U.S. Naval War College in 2006. Beginning in July 2007, Kasim served on several deployments with the Navy’s Sixth and Fifth Fleets in increasing roles of responsibility and returned home to Rhode Island in July 2013 to become a faculty member at the Naval War College.

DAVID DOSREIS

Chief

David.DosReis@vets.ri.gov

David DosReis joined us from the Providence VA Medical Center, where he served as the Patient Advocate for the past eight years. In that role, he worked with veterans to get the care they needed and their concerns addressed. David enlisted in the Massachusetts Army National Guard a month after high school graduation and was at basic training when we were attacked on 9/11. He served as a combat medic and deployed to Iraq in 2004/2005, where was awarded the Combat Medical Badge for his rendering of care to wounded soldiers and civilians while under fire. Following his honorable discharge from the Army, David began his career helping his fellow veterans and earned his bachelor’s in communications from Bridgewater State University while working at the VA full-time. He is married with seven children and lives in Riverside.