Interim Executive Director's Biography Retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Robert F. Milligan is Interim Executive Director of the Florida Department of Veterans’ Affairs. He was appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist and the Cabinet on Aug. 26, 2010 to succeed the late LeRoy Collins Jr. He directs a state agency responsible for assisting Florida’s more than 1.6 million veterans, their families and survivors in improving their health and economic well-being through quality benefit information, advocacy, education and long-term health services. Milligan’s Marine Corps career culminated as Commanding General of Fleet Marine Forces, Pacific, and Marine Corps Bases, Pacific, with headquarters in Hawaii. General Milligan was responsible for two-thirds of the operating forces of the Marine Corps, consisting of 92,000 Marines and sailors serving at 18 bases and stations and aboard ships at sea, stretching from the continental United States to the far reaches of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. He retired in 1991. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Rochester. He also studied economics at the doctoral level at the University of Maryland. General Milligan was elected to a four-year term as Comptroller of Florida in 1994 and re-elected to a second term in 1998. As Florida’s Comptroller, Milligan was the state’s Chief Financial Officer, serving as the watchdog over taxpayers’ money, head of the Department of Banking and Finance and was a member of the Florida Cabinet. Most recently, he served as the interim director of the State Board of Administration and as chairman of the Florida Veterans Foundation, Inc. General Milligan serves on the Executive Board of the Governor’s Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service.