President Biden appoints Jasper-native Therese Eutsler to Selective Service System Board
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., recently appointed Therese Eutsler, PT, CCT, CMTPT/DN, LHD, of Linden, to a 20-year term as a US Selective Service System Local Board Member for the State of Indiana.
Governor Eric J. Holcomb nominated her for the appointment. J. Michael Nossett, Indiana Office of the Governor Chief Deputy Counsel, Major Jesse Carlton, US Army Reserve and Selective Service Commissioned Officer, and Joel Spangenberg, Selective Service System Acting Director vetted her for the position.
The Selective Service System’s mission is to register men and maintain a system that, when authorized by the President and Congress, rapidly provides personnel in a fair and equitable manner while managing an alternative service program for conscientious objectors. SSS is a National Defense partner and the sole source of conscripted talent for national security in the event of a national emergency. In the event of a draft, local boards would decide which registrants receive deferments, postponements, and/or exemptions based upon established criteria.
A 1982 graduate of the Indiana University School of Medicine, Eutsler is a physical therapist at Franciscan Alliance in Crawfordsville. She is a Certified Cupping Therapist, Certified Myofascial Trigger Point Therapist-Dry Needling, and specializes in women’s health and orthopaedics. She is a clinical instructor of physical therapy doctoral students at seven universities and a co-facilitator at the Hesch Institute for Sacroiliac Treatment, Research, and Education in Aurora, Colorado. Governor Mike Pence appointed her to the Indiana Board of Podiatric Medicine in 2016. She has also completed advanced training in the Principles of Dance Medicine.
Governor Holcomb appointed her to the newly established Indiana Physical Therapy Board in 2020 where she currently serves. She is an alternate delegate to the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy. She has served on the American Physical Therapy Association Indiana Chapter Ethics Committee and Political Action Network. She serves on the Indiana Department of Transportation’s Americans With Disabilities Act Community Advisory Working Group.
As a volunteer, Eutsler received the Selective Service System’s Honored Patriot Award from former National Director Gil Coronado in 2001. She has attended agency training events at Camp Atterbury, Fort Knox, Grissom Air Reserve Base, the National Data Center at Naval Station Great Lakes, and SSS National Headquarters in Rosslyn, Virginia. She graduated from the FBI Citizens’ Academy in 2015. She has been commissioned a Notary Public since 2001 and is a member of the American Association of Notaries.
A 35-year volunteer with the 500 Festival, Eutsler received the Presidential Volunteer Service Award Bronze and Silver levels from President Donald Trump and the Gold level and President’s Lifetime Achievement Award from President Biden. She is a board member, technical crew member, and actor at Sugar Creek Players in Crawfordsville and is a member of the Montgomery County Wellness Coalition. She is also a member of the Byron Cox American Legion Post 72 Auxiliary, Brian Bowman Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1431 Auxiliary, and the Ladies Auxiliary of the Indiana Sons of the American Revolution.
An accomplished musician, she plays both pipe and electronic organ and has served as a church organist and accompanied choirs in area parishes of several faith traditions and was selected as organist for the Lutheran Orthodox Church (Catholic Church—Lutheran Rite) Diocese of Mid America Ordination Mass in 2018. She studied privately with Mary Jane Habig, a member of the family that founded organ manufacturer Kimball International in Jasper, Indiana. She is an administrator of the Music Arrangement Trust.
A former board member of the John T. Conner Center for East/West Reconciliation, Eutsler was part of a 1994 delegation, in cooperation with the US Department of State and the Embassy of the Russian Federation, that presented copies of the newly adopted Russian National Anthem to civic and government officials during a three-week, 5,400-mile trip aboard the Trans-Siberian Express and Red Arrow from Khabarovsk to St. Petersburg, that culminated at a reception in the House of Composers Palace there.
St. Paul Christian University conferred the Doctor of Humane Letters (honoris causa) and the inaugural Lacy Ecumenical Medal on Eutsler in 2018. Purdue University Bands and Orchestras presented her with the Block P award in 2020. Governor Joe Kernan and Governor Mike Pence each named her a Sagamore of the Wabash during their administrations.