Why Field Council exists.
Field Council was forged from frustration in the modern leadership development ecosystem. Most of those programs fail to create lasting results because they’re dull and abstract. They rely on passive, instructor-centric learning instead of active, student-centric learning. At Field Council, we invert that model.
Field Council was founded by Jon Gustafson, a Marine officer for more than a decade who led and trained Marines to operate around the world. He built the company to develop judgment the way it has always actually been built — through guided experience and reflection, on the ground where the stakes were real. Navigate to the “Our Programs” tab for more information on the Field Council staff.
Meet the Field Council Staff
Future Team Member Coming Soon
Jon Gustafson
Dr. Chris Fonvielle, Jr.
Dr. Chris Fonvielle is a Professor Emeritus, Department of History at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He is a native Wilmingtonian with a lifelong interest in American Civil War, North Carolina, and Cape Fear history. After a brief teaching stint at East Carolina University, Dr. Fonvielle returned to his undergraduate alma mater at UNCW in 1996, where he taught courses on the Civil War, Wilmington and the Lower Cape Fear, and Antebellum America. His in-depth research focuses on coastal operations and defenses, and blockade running in southeastern North Carolina during the Civil War. He has published books and articles including The Wilmington Campaign: Last Rays of Departing Hope; Wilmington and the Lower Cape Fear: An Illustrated History; Fort Fisher 1865: The Photographs of T.H. O’Sullivan.
In 2014, then-Governor Pat McCrory appointed Dr. Fonvielle to the North Carolina Historical Commission. Upon his retirement from UNC Wilmington in 2018, Chris was presented with the Order of the Long Leaf Pine for distinguished service to the State of North Carolina, signed by incumbent Governor Roy Cooper. Jon ‘Brad’ Gustafson is the founder of Field Council L.L.C. He was born and raised in the Chicago area to a hardworking middle-class family. He graduated from Purdue University in 2017 with a bachelor's in science in aerospace financial analysis. He was commissioned in the United States Marine Corps in 2017 and served as an officer for almost a decade with multiple overseas deployments. His passion for history and experience developing leaders in the Marine Corps inspired him to found Field Council. 