Valerie Ormond is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Veteran Writing Services, LLC. She retired as a naval intelligence officer and launched her second career as a professional writer and consultant in 2014. She started her own publishing company, Veterans Publishing, in 2021.
Experience
Valerie has worked as a consultant and writer for government, industry, and non-profit organizations. Clients have included the U.S. House of Representatives, Invictus International Consulting, LLC, Raytheon Technologies, WhiteHawk CEC, Inc., Prince George’s County, Maryland, and more.
Awards
Her fiction and non-fiction stories and articles have appeared in books, magazines, newspapers, and blogs. Four of her short stories and essays won awards in the National Federation of Press Women (NFPW) Communications Contests in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. Her Young Adult (YA) fiction novels, Believing In Horses, Believing In Horses, Too, and Believing In Horses Out West have won sixteen awards including first place in the NFPW Communications Contest for YA Fiction, Gold Medals in the Military Writers Society of America’s (MWSA’s) Book Awards, First Place in the YA category of the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (NAIWE) awards, and a winner in the International Impact Book Awards. 
Education
Valerie’s education includes a Master of Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College; a Master of Strategic Intelligence from the National Intelligence University; and a Bachelor of Arts in English and Mass Communication from Towson University. She is also a graduate of Syracuse University’s Veteran Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship (V-WISE) Program.
Professional Affiliations
She is currently the Vice President of MWSA, and is on the Advisory Committee to the Animals in War & Peace organization. She has also served on the Board of Directors for the Virginia Press Women Foundation, the Southwest Veterans’ Business Resource Center, the Horse Council Political Action Committee, and as Secretary of the Maryland Horse Council. She is a member of the NFPW and NAIWE.
