CAPT Mitchel Kirk Holliday, EdD, RDN, CDCES, FAND
Chief Dietitian Officer
As Chief Dietitian Officer, CAPT Holliday serves as the Surgeon General’s representative to USPHS Dietitian Category and a primary connection between the Office of the Surgeon General (OSG) and Commissioned Corps Headquarters (CCHQ) to the Dietitian Category. As USPHS Chief Dietitian Officer, CAPT Holliday also provides advice and counsel to senior Corps leadership on category/profession-specific and cross-category matters, leadership and direction for Officers, and facilitates relationships with professional organizations and academia to promote collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services and the USPHS Commissioned Corps.
CAPT Holliday currently serves as the Chief of Nutrition and Dietetics for the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). In this role, CAPT Holliday’s major responsibilities include nutritional management of BOP food service operations responsible for providing meals to approximately 145,000 individuals per day and serving as the BOP senior subject matter expert on clinical and public health nutrition policies and guidelines. CAPT Holliday began his dietetic career in 2006 as the Director of Nutrition Services for the Ho-Chunk Nation in Black River Falls, WI. In 2007, he began his career as a Clinical Dietitian with the Commissioned Corps at the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade with the Indian Health Service serving at the Whiteriver Service Unit in Whiteriver, AZ. In 2009, CAPT Holliday transferred to the BOP and has since taken on multiple positions of increasing levels of responsibility.
CAPT Holliday has served in a number of leadership roles supporting Office of the Surgeon General initiatives and groups, including Chair of the Professional Advisory Committee (PAC) Chairs Group, Dietitian PAC (Diet-PAC) Chair, two terms as Diet-PAC Professional Development Chair, three terms as Diet-PAC Voting Member and as a Junior Officer Advisory Group Voting Member. CAPT Holliday also served on the former Rapid Deployment Force 5 (RDF-5) in various roles from 2008-2017. CAPT Holliday has deployed numerous times, to include serving as part of the Monrovia Medical Unit (MMU) in Liberia, West Africa, and as a remote dietetic liaison for the Commonwealth Healthcare Hospital Mission in Saipan.
CAPT Holliday attended the University of Wisconsin-Stout where he completed a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology (2003), Master of Science in Food and Nutritional Sciences (2006), Master of Science in Education (2007), and Doctor of Education (2018). CAPT Holliday has also received a Graduate Certificate in Public Health Concepts (2010) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an Executive Certificate in Business Administration (2011) from the University of Notre Dame. CAPT Holliday is board certified as Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist and has been a Fellow of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics since 2013.
CAPT Holliday is inspired and supported by his wife, Stephanie, and their two sons, Ian and Payton.