I have 26 years experience in CBRN response, security, and antiterrorism. I live and work in London, in the United Kingdom. I currently am the owner and managing director of Strongpoint Security Ltd. I also contribute articles to magazines such as CBRNe World. As time permits, I engage in academic research as a part-time Senior Research Fellow at the International Institute for Non-Proliferation Studies, and I also contribute to Wikistrat, the crowd-sourced analysis and simulation site.
I started out as a Chemical Officer in the United States Army, and served a total of 16 years as a military reservist, first in the US Army Reserve and then in the Maryland Army National Guard, reaching the rank of Captain. I was one of the founding members of one of the first Civil Support Teams. Of course, a military reservist needs to maintain a civilian career as well, and I was very fortunate that I was able to apply my military CBRN skills in civilian life. I served for 12 years in the White House in Washington DC, from 1996 to 2008, in two different jobs spanning two very different Presidential administrations. I spent six years as a Defense Department civil servant detailed to the White House Military Office, where I worked as CBRN advisor and emergency plans program manager. 2002 brought a transfer to the Technical Security Division of the US Secret Service, where I was assigned to CBRN countermeasures and the HAMMER team as well as traditional technical security and protective missions.
At various points in this career I have been trained and qualified as a military CBRN defense specialist (honor graduate at the US Army Chemical School), a fully trained Hazardous Materials Technician, a licensed Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), a Secret Service advance coordinator, an antiterrorist search adviser, and many other qualifications in the defense and security fields.
I moved to the UK in 2008 and worked for Smiths Detection for several years as a business manager for the CBRN detection market in Europe before leaving to start Strongpoint. I have a B.A. degree in Political Science from Texas Christian University and an M.A. in International Affairs from George Washington University in Washington DC. I am the recipient of several awards and decorations. I am the author of “CBRN and Hazmat Incidents at Major Public Events: Planning and Response” (Wiley, 2012) and numerous articles and papers.
