Co-Founder and Executive Director
Christine and Lucas Lewis, founder and president of Project Gallantly Forward, were married in 2006 one week after Lucas returned from his first deployment to Iraq, which was 13 months long. She was 22 and had spent a majority of her senior year in college getting late night calls from Lucas, which were early morning calls for him after he returned from patrols and missions. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, and they were married shortly thereafter.
They moved from Tennessee to upstate New York. It was immediately evident that they were going to have more adjustments to marriage than most due to Lucas’s struggles stemming from PTSD.
Christine has worked in the behavioral health field since 2006, working with mental health consumers initially in a group home, then as a case manager, finally moving into a more administrative role with BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee. Christine has over 10 years’ experience as a quality management professional in behavioral health working in project improvement, accreditation, and quality improvement. Most recently, Christine has moved into a role in data reporting and analytics and has recently completed her Master’s of Science in Data Science.
“Our 15+ year journey toward mental health and reintegration is my motivation behind launching Project Gallantly Forward. I want to offer the opportunity for healing to veterans and their families in the same rural setting that has offered peace for our family, and a feeling of the bond and camaraderie that so many Veterans and their families miss post-military.”
Contact: Christine@projectgallantlyforward.org