As founder and President of KMEA, Chuck Forrest provides the strategic direction to this award-winning environmental engineering and consulting services firm.

Chuck graduated from the Virginia Military Institute with a degree in engineering. Upon graduation he was commissioned as an officer in Army Intelligence. He ran covert operations in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star.

Before founding KMEA in 1996, Chuck spent several years at Dual Drilling Company, at the time one of the largest offshore and land oil and gas drilling companies in the world, in various technical and leadership roles. During his tenure at Dual, Chuck was the program manager for the design, fabrication and deployment of both land and offshore drilling rigs, managed five offshore drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and was the company’s senior engineer.

The transition from the oil and gas industry into the build-out of the telecommunications infrastructure system was a natural one since both industries require the ability to structure and manage teams and logistics across huge geographical areas. The environmental requirements of both industries formed the basis for the founding of KMEA in 1996.

In 2004 KMEA was the first SDVOSB to ever receive a national contract from the VA. This award was made on a full and open procurement, not a set-aside. KMEA was accepted into the SBA 8(a) Business Development Program in 2009 and graduated in 2018. During this time KMEA was named the 2015 SBA Veteran Business of the Year in San Diego and the 2016 Veteran Business of the Year by the United Veterans Council of San Diego County.

In 2017 Chuck was awarded the John Raque Award for Services to the Veteran Business Community. He sits on the Board of Directors and is the National Treasurer of the Elite Service Disabled Veteran Owned Business (SDVOB) Network; a nationwide non-profit serving service disabled veteran business owners. He is former co-chair of the Veteran Business Advisory Committee to the California Department of Veteran Affairs and former committee member on the federal General Services Administration’s SDVOSB Subcommittee. He is a current member of the California Utilities Diversity Council (CUDC).