Ranking Member, House Armed Services Subcommittee (HASC) on Personnel

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-6th District, Pennsylvania

Responsibilities

• The Subcommittee on Personnel oversees DoD policy, programs, and accounts that affect military personnel and their families. This includes military health care; morale, welfare, and recreation; commissaries; education; retirement; and POW/MIA issues, among others. The subcommittee also oversees the integration and employment of the more than 750,000 Reserve Component forces.
• During an April 2025 hearing, the subcommittee’s Ranking Member and Chair joined together to question the military’s food program managers. Houlahan cited the need to “increase the quality and quantity of food options” in order to maintain readiness and resilience within the Armed Forces. According to a 2023 Military Family Support Programming Survey Data Release, one-in-five respondents experience food insecurity. The number rises to one-in-four among active duty families. 

Quote

Houlahan serves on multiple Congressional caucuses including the Servicewomen and Women Veterans, which she founded in 2019 to “ensure Congress does more to support both women currently serving and women veterans.” 

Committees/Caucuses

• Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Personnel. Also serves on the Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation; the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; and is Ranking Member of the Open-Source Intelligence Subcommittee. Additionally, she is a member of the Defense Intelligence and Overhead Architecture Subcommittee.
• Co-founded the Stakeholder Capitalism Caucus, aimed at driving socially impactful investments by factoring broader metrics into current financial models. “Our environment, our national security, our economy, our health care — they’re all greatly threatened by the inaction that we’ve had on climate change.”

Military Career

Served on Air Force active duty from 1989 –1991, working as a project manager on air and space defense technologies. An Air Force Reserve captain, Houlahan served from 1991–2004.

Political/Professional Career

• Took office in 2019, representing Berks and Chester counties, the first woman to be elected from that district, which was redrawn in 2018.  It sits largely west of Philadelphia, extending from Reading down through Kennett Square.

• President and CFO/COO of the Springboard Collaborative, a national non-profit organization aimed at developing early reading skills for under-resourced children.
• Taught 11th grade science at Simon Gratz High School in North Philadelphia, under the umbrella of a larger, educational program.
• COO of AND1, a basketball apparel company specializing in high-performance footwear; and a non-profit organization called B Lab, which certifies business practices that embrace: transparency, accountability, sustainability, and performance. “There’s no planet B” is its missive.

Education

• Stanford University – BS degree in Engineering in 1989.
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MS degree in Technology and Policy in 1994.

Personal 

Christina Marie Jampoler was born on June 5, 1967, the daughter of an Air Force pilot who fled the Holocaust as a child. Married to Bart Houlahan since 1991, they have two adult children and live in Devon, PA.