Lieutenant Colonel Leala McCollum began her military career in 2001 with the Florida National Guard as a Cadet at Florida State University and the 83rd Troop Command located in Tallahassee, Florida. She commissioned from the Seminole Battalion in 2003 with a Human Science degree and completed her Master of Business Administration degree in 2013.
Lt. Col. McCollum completed Initial Entry Rotary Wing training in 2004 followed by the UH-60 Blackhawk Advance qualification course and Aviation Maintenance Managers Course before deploying with Florida National Guard in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2006-07. She returned to be the Education Services Officer for Florida before transferring to NGB to work in Recruiting and Advertising managing the Outstanding Athlete Program. She competed in two military pentathlons in Turkey and Denmark on the USA Joint services team.
In 2010 she attended the Carribean Command and Staff College in Jamaica where she was activated and deployed with the DC National Guard in support of Operation Enduring Freedom as a MEDEVAC Platoon Leader flying UH-72 Lakotas at the Joint Training Centers located in Germany.
While studying in Thailand in 2013, McCollum was notified and accepted the OSA-A HHC Command position and returned home to complete the Army fixed wing multi-engine qualification course. Post Command, she continued serving with OSA-A as the Executive Officer from 2015-2017 during the organizational change from a Field Operating Agency to an Activity.
In 2020, after a three-year broadening assignment with Force Management, she became the TAAB S-4 before coming back to OSA-A once again to serve as the Standardization Branch Chief. Her most recent assignment was on the National Guard Bureau (NGB) Joint Staff at the Pentagon serving as the Deputy Director for the Joint Action Control Office for the Chief of NGB.
Lt. Col. McCollum has flown over 1400 total hours and is qualified in the OH-58 Kiowa, UH-60 Blackhawk, LUH-72 Lakota and the C-12 King Air. She is an avid health and fitness enthusiast with her Level 1 CrossFit Certification and 200-hour Yoga certificate. She is the proud mother of two boys.