Ariel J. Luna has been serving veterans in higher education and government for more than 18 years. Luna is originally from Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Starrett City section of East New York. AJ's mother is from the Dominican Republic and his father is from Argentina. He enlisted in the U.S. Army at the start of 2000 and he was stationed as a communication soldier in Fort Gordon, Georgia, South Korea, and Fort Bragg, North Carolina. After he left the Army in 2002, he joined the NY National Guard where he was deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004-2005. While serving in the National Guard, Luna was pursing his bachelor’s degree at Brooklyn College. He completed his master’s in administrative science with a concentration in Non-Profit Organizational Development, Human Resource Administration, and Global Leadership from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 2012.
After a successful tenure at FDU, Luna has recently appointed by Bergen County’s new County Executive, James Tedesco III, as the new Director of Veteran Services for Bergen County. Luna plans to bring his experience and expertise to serve the 30,000 resident veterans of Bergen County. Luna focused his efforts on housing, employment opportunities, and good service referral providers.
Luna also served as the Deputy Director for the Office of Government and Community Relations for the NJ Department of Transportation from 2021-2022. He is also one of the founders of the NJ SOS Veteran Stakeholders Group. A Northern NJ non-profit that hosts quarterly county meetings throughout the Northern part of the State that gives organizations an opportunity to network and refer veterans to various services in the community. He assists in putting together Suicide Awareness Seminars to educate the community about resources available to veterans in crisis. There have been successful events in Elmwood Park, Newark, and Trenton.
He is married to his wife, Shevonne Murray-Luna, and has 2 beautiful daughters, Mariah Angel Luna, 10, and AJ Luna, 7.
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