Babette Maxwell

Babette Maxwell is the founder of Military Spouse magazine

Maxwell founded Military Spouse in 2003 with no prior magazine industry experience. She secured distribution and advertising within less than six months, and launched the magazine with an entirely virtual staff. In 2006, the veteran-owned Victory Media, Inc. acquired Military Spouse magazine, integrating it into their stable of military niche media brands but keeping Maxwell as the guiding force.

In 2008, the Military Spouse of the Year Awards Program was launched. Each year, branch winners are chosen by the American public, with the overall winner chosen jointly by a selection committee and public voting. The program has developed initiatives that benefit the entire military family community, developed leaders among the nation's 1.1 military spouses and drawn national media attention to the lives of America’s military families.

An advocate for military spouses for more than a decade, Maxwell is a sought-after public speaker and expert on military spouse issues for national media outlets. She has been featured on NBC Nightly News, and appeared on Fox News, The Kelly Files with Megyn Kelly, CBS Evening News, CNN, and many local and regional news broadcasts. She has also been featured in TIME magazine, the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Associated Press and countless local and regional media outlets.

Prior to founding Military Spouse, Maxwell was an environmental test engineer for the government while based at NAS Atsugi, Japan. During her time with Radian International, she staged air quality testing on Shinkampo, an industrial waste-burning incinerator. It was this testing and analysis that led to Japan's closure of the environmental hazard to the Navy base.

Additionally, she worked for Newport News Shipbuilding conducting HVAC design support work for the Navy's submarines and offered design support for the Air Force on the C-5's TF-39 engine. Maxwell holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas in San Antonio. She is a fourth-generation military dependent, with 30 moves and 44 years dedicated to military life. She currently lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with her retired naval officer husband and their three sons.