John Shassberger

John E. Shassberger serves as a Visiting Lecturer at the Paul H. O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington, where he teaches courses on government finance, including V186 Government Finance, V439 Debates in Public Finance, and V560 Public Budgeting and Finance. His areas of academic interest focus on government and public finance. Shassberger holds an Ed.D. in Leadership from Oakland City University, earned in 2012, with a doctoral dissertation that researched the effect of serving in an operational versus non-operational organization on public service employee motivation. He also possesses an M.S. in Financial Management from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, in 1994, and a B.S. in Political Science from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1989.

With a robust career spanning military service and federal government roles, Shassberger currently acts as the Chief of Naval Installations Command (CNIC) Installation Programs Integrator (IPI), leading the Naval Support Activity Crane as the senior civilian responsible for all installation operations, programs, and personnel. His previous positions include Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) Associate Program Manager, Business and Financial Manager, and Contracting Officer's Representative. He served as the U.S. Navy's Inactive Ships Manager on the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV N9) staff in the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., where he managed an annual operational budget of over $100 million and was financially responsible for a $3 billion U.S. Congressionally Appropriated Department of Defense program. Prior to his second career in government finance, Shassberger served 21 years as an active duty naval officer, retiring as a Commander in 2010. During this time, he commanded a U.S. Navy warship and served as commanding officer of the Navy's third-largest naval installation—one of the largest employers in Southern Indiana with over 5,000 employees—providing an over $1.5 billion budget base annually into the local Indiana economy. In recognition of his teaching excellence, he received the United States Naval Academy Colleen S. Smiley-Owendoff Teaching Excellence Award in 2000. Beyond his professional roles, Shassberger created a State of Indiana 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in 2008 to support local education in Monroe County and established a small farm as a Limited Liability Corporation near Spencer, Indiana, in 2018. He and his wife Heather have seven children and reside in Bloomington.

Professional Email: johnshas@iu.edu