Joseph S. Mahaley

Joe Mahaley is the Assistant Administrator (AA) for Protective Services at NASA. He leads the Office of Protective Services (OPS) and is the focal point for policy formulation, oversight, coordination, and management of the Agency's protective services. As the AA for OPS, he oversees NASA's security management, including agency-wide personnel, physical, and information security policy, intelligence analysis, counterintelligence/counterterrorism (CI/CT) services, national security systems, handling of sensitive and classified information, identity, credential, and systems access management, emergency management, and continuity of operations functions. He is also NASA’s Insider Threat Senior Official.

Mr. Mahaley is the former Director of Security and Emergency Operations at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and has over 35 years of experience in the government, military and private sectors. At DOE, he managed department-wide security policy, continuity of operations, continuity of government, the National Training Center and the security of DOE's Headquarters operations in the National Capital region, with responsibility for 240 federal staff and a $250 million annual operating budget. When he retired from DOE in 2003, he was the DOE's longest serving senior security official. Prior to his appointment as DOE's security director, he served as the Assistant General Counsel for Defense Programs and National Security, the senior legal advisor to DOE's nuclear weapons, nonproliferation and security programs.

Following his service at DOE, Mr. Mahaley served as a security advisor to the Sandia Corporation Board of Directors, overseeing Sandia National Laboratories; a government-owned, contractor operated U.S. National Laboratory. He was also Vice President, Government Strategies and Chief Security Officer at Day and Zimmerman, then Vice President and General Manager, Integrated Security Solutions, at DRS Technologies. Mr. Mahaley also founded Security Strategies LLC, a consulting company, and was the Senior Vice President and Division Manager of the Applied Systems Division at Parsons Corporation.

After leaving Parsons in 2009, he worked as an independent consultant and advisor to numerous companies, including, among others, the Abraham Group, Watermark Risk Management International, ManTech International Corporation, InfoZen, Logan Research, and SRC Incorporated.

Mr. Mahaley is a recipient of the DOE's highest honorary award, the Secretary of Energy's Gold Award with medallion and rosette, the DOE Distinguished Career Service Award, the National Nuclear Security Administration Award for Exceptional Contributions to National Security Programs, the 2003 Nuclear Security Information Exchange Certificate of Excellence and the 2001 Presidential Rank Award, Meritorious Senior Executive. He has also served as a Charter Member of the U.S. Federal Law Enforcement Training Accreditation Board. In 2018, his sustained extraordinary accomplishments, both at DOE and NASA, were formally recognized with his second Presidential Rank Award, Distinguished Senior Executive, an honor bestowed upon only 1% of career SES employees.

Mr. Mahaley graduated with merit from the United States Naval Academy and received his Juris Doctor degree with honors from George Washington University. In 2010, he was named a Distinguished Fellow and Affiliate Faculty Member of the nationally and internationally recognized Center for Infrastructure Protection and Homeland Security at George Mason University Business School. Mr. Mahaley is also a retired U.S. Navy Captain.