Dallas Brown

Dallas Brown is a Senior Counselor and Organizational Ombudsman for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) at the Department of Homeland Security. A career member of the Senior Executive Service, he joined DHS in 2008, serving initially as Chief Operating Officer and acting Under Secretary for CISA's predecessor, the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) at DHS, which included supervision of national programs in critical infrastructure protection, cyber security and communications, visitor and immigration status technology, and risk management and assessment. Over time, he has focused on NPPD and now CISA's field operating elements across the United States and associated overseas territories.

A proud military veteran, Brown was commissioned with the aid of an ROTC scholarship at Princeton University in 1978 and served 27 years as a Regular Army officer, retiring as a Colonel in 2005. Between 1988 and 1990 he served in the political-military directorate of the Joint Staff and then operations directorate of the Army Staff at the Pentagon, between 1994 and 1997 as a Director for Multilateral Affairs on the National Security Council Staff at the White House, and between 2001 and 2005 as Director for Peacekeeping in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, again at the Pentagon. Between 2005 and 2008, he was Director of U.S. Central Command's Joint Interagency Coordination Group at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida and forward in Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan.­­

Brown's field military experience included assignments with infantry, armor, and mechanized units in the U.S., Europe, and Persian Gulf region. Between 1978 and 1988, he served as a rifle and mortar platoon leader, tank company commander, headquarters company commander, and staff officer at battalion, brigade, and division levels with the 101st Airborne Division, home-based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, and 2nd Armored Division (Forward), near Bremen in northern Germany. Later, he served as operations officer and executive officer of the test battalion for the M1A2 tank at Fort Hood and Fort Irwin, California, as G3 plans officer for III Corps and 3rd Army (Forward) at Camp Doha, Kuwait, as commander of a tank battalion task force and peacekeeping sector with the 1st Armored Division in Bosnia, and as a political-military planner with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He earned Paratroop, Ranger, and Distinguished Tank Crew qualifications as a young officer, and later the Army's 6Z (Strategist) skill identifier.

Brown holds degrees in government, public policy, and military strategy from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton, John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and Army War College. He has been recognized with fellowships sponsored by the Ford Foundation, National Science Foundation, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Council on Foreign Relations. His professional interests include counterterrorism and critical infrastructure protection both at home and abroad, multilateral peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction operations, and the NSC system and interagency process in Washington. Affiliations include the Veterans of Foreign Wars, 10th Cavalry Regiment (Buffalo Soldiers), and NAACP.