Combat veteran. Mountain warfare trainer. Saint Albans brewer. UVM professor. Steve Gagner has had four careers in one.

by Compass Vermont

A Vermont National Guard Public Affairs release published Tuesday by Sgt. Denis Nunez profiles retired Lt. Col. Steven Gagner, who spent more than two decades in the Vermont National Guard, deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, commanded the U.S. Army Mountain Warfare School, and finished his military career as deputy commander for Garrison Support Command. He retired Aug. 11, 2023.

“I had my retirement ceremony Aug. 11, 2023, and I was in the classroom two weeks later,” Gagner told Nunez. He now teaches introductory business and entrepreneurial leadership at the University of Vermont’s Grossman School of Business.

The bridge between the two careers was a brewery.

Gagner co-founded 14th Star Brewing Company with fellow veteran Matt Kehaya. The concept was not drafted in a Vermont kitchen or a downtown coworking space. It was sketched at a patrol base in Afghanistan.

“One of the things Matt and I did in the back of one of those green notebooks was sketch out a business plan,” Gagner told Nunez. “The purpose behind the company was to be kind of a focal point in the revitalization of downtown Saint Albans.”

One way to read the 14th Star story is that the brewery was designed from inception as civic infrastructure rather than as a beverage business that later acquired community involvement.

The Saint Albans Anchor

According to the release, 14th Star has supported the Josh Pallotta Fund, Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sports, and what Nunez described as “numerous local charitable initiatives.” Gagner told the release the brewery was designed to be “a place where veterans could go and feel not just welcome, but like it was kind of home.”

The Norwich-to-Guard-to-UVM Pipeline

Gagner’s path into the military was, by his own account, accidental. He told Nunez he was “kind of a slacker in high school” who did not seriously consider college admissions until late in the process and chose Norwich University because of a poster featuring “a gold crest” and the tagline “Creating Leaders Since 1819.” He said he did not initially realize Norwich was a military college.

After enlisting in the Vermont National Guard while in the Corps of Cadets, Gagner left school for active-duty assignments in Korea, New Jersey, and Alabama before returning to complete his degree and commission as an officer.

The path from Mountain Warfare School commander to UVM Grossman faculty ran through 14th Star. Gagner served as a judge in a UVM international business case competition representing the brewery and was subsequently invited by a faculty member to guest-lecture on leadership and entrepreneurship. That invitation became a full-time teaching offer.

What Transfers

In the release, Gagner described the leadership work as continuous across the three roles.

“Getting to know your people so you can make the best decisions to help them get where they’re trying to go is no different than being a commander,” he said.

He compared first-year UVM business students to new soldiers arriving at the Mountain Warfare School: “They arrive excited, and our job is to get them from very little knowledge to fully qualified. It’s the same thing here. You start with the basics and keep scaffolding the whole time.”

Gagner is now pursuing a doctorate while continuing to teach. He remains, by his own framing, in the same business he was in at Mountain Warfare School and inside the Garrison Support Command: developing leaders.

Source: Vermont National Guard Public Affairs release “Retiree Spotlight: From U.S. Soldier to University Educator,” by Sgt. Denis Nunez, posted May 19, 2026 (News ID 565660).