LTC Robert Budimir-Bekan was born on 22 November 1977 and raised in Split, Republic of Croatia. He joined the Croatian Armed Forces in 1996. After completing college, he was assigned as a Platoon leader at the Combat engineer company, Engineer Battalion, Mechanized Brigade. Prior reported for his duty as a 2nd Lieutenant he graduated from the Croatian Military Academy “Dr. Franjo Tuđman” in 2004. While attending Military Academy, he also completed a Bachelor’s degree in the Study of administrative law, in Split, Croatia. In addition, he holds a Master’s degree as an Occupational Safety and Health Engineer at the Accredited College of Occupational Safety and Health, Zagreb, Croatia since 2008. After graduating he started pre-deployment training as a training officer for Operational Mentoring and Liason Team OMLT and subsequently deployed under the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operation in Afghanistan. During 2008 and 2010, as a mentor of Infantry Company Commander of the Afghan National Army (ANA) LTC Budimir-Bekan was conducting stability operations combined with ANA and NATO allied forces. Upon redeployment in 2011, LTC Budimir-Bekan assumed command of the Combat Engineer Company conducting mobility, counter mobility, survivability missions, and sustainment engineering tasks in support of the Mechanized Brigade. In addition to the traditional role of Company Commander, LTC Budimir-Bekan was also responsible for planning, and conducting Brigade level training events. Therefore, he achieved considerable experience from numerous major domestic and international Field Training Exercises (FTX) and Live Fire Exercises (LFX). He has attended several NATO courses (EOD – Explosive Ordnance Disposal Course, Counter improvised explosive devices (CIED) course – Train the Trainer, etc.). In 2021 LTC Budimir-Bekan graduated from the United States Marine Corps Command and Staff College, Quantico, Virginia. Being fully immersed in a foreign academic environment LTC Budimir-Bekan had the great opportunity to learn and to strengthen its knowledge about military history, current geopolitical problem-solving, the operational planning process, the campaign design, and the leadership in the profession of arms.