Colonel John R. Evans, Jr., United States Army

Colonel John R. Evans, Jr. is a career Army aviator who has spent 19 of his 26 years of service assigned to special operations units in a variety of positions. He relinquished command of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) in June of 2014. Prior to command, Col. Evans served as the deputy commander of Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command – Afghanistan, where he played a pivotal role in the development of Village Stability Operations and the Afghan Local Police Program. He is a combat veteran of Operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

Colonel Evans is a graduate of Appalachian State University.  He holds a master’s in adult education from Kansas State University and in national security and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College.

Captain Robert N. Hein, United States Navy

Captain Bob Hein is a career surface warfare officer. Over the last 27 years, he has served on seven ships around the globe and has had the privilege of commanding two of them: the USS Gettysburg (CG 64), where he also served as the maritime regional air defense commander for U.S. Central Command; and the USS Nitze (DDG 94), where he conducted counter-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa. He has completed two tours as a requirements officer on the Navy staff for combatant modernization and for future logistics capabilities. He was the current operations officer for U.S. Fleet Forces Command, where he coordinated Navy response to natural disasters and homeland defense. He also has served as an action officer on the Joint Staff, Joint Operations Directorate, and as chief of staff to the NATO Mediterranean Fleet.

Captain Hein graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a bachelor’s in physical science. He also holds a master’s in national security affairs and strategic studies from the Naval War College and is a graduate of the Joint Forces Staff College.

Rebecca Kelly, Office of the Director of National Intelligence/National Counterterrorism Center

Rebecca is a 12 year veteran of the intelligence community working at the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation prior to joining National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) as a permanent cadre employee in 2009. During her tenure at NCTC, Rebecca has served as NCTC’s senior analyst for cyberterrorism, terrorist use of the internet and extremist media, and was the intelligence community’s senior analytic advisor to an interagency working group providing critical insights to the president, senior policymakers and federal, state and local law enforcement partners on these issues. Throughout her career, Rebecca has developed expertise on organized crime, narcoterrorism and Al Qaeda. She also worked at Science Applications International Corporation as a conventional weapons analyst.

Rebecca obtained her Bachelor of Arts in international politics from Penn State University and a Master of Public and International Affairs from University of Pittsburgh.

Colonel Scott Kieffer, United States Air Force

Colonel Scott Kieffer, a special agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI), recently served as the director of security for the White House Military Office (WHMO). In this position, he was a principal advisor to the assistant to the president and director, WHMO and led an office responsible for developing, implementing and managing proactive and coordinated security, intelligence, counterintelligence and cybersecurity programs in order to protect WHMO personnel, operations and information in direct support of the Office of the President. As an AFOSI agent, Kieffer has served in multiple leadership roles in which he was responsible for identifying, exploiting and neutralizing criminal, terrorist and intelligence threats to the Air Force and Department of Defense.

Colonel Kieffer graduated from Ohio University with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering. He also holds a Master of Public Administration from Bowie State University, a Master of Science in criminal justice from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and a Master of Science in military operational art and science from the Air Command and Staff College.

Lieutenant Colonel Chandler Seagraves, United States Marine Corps

Lieutenant Colonel Chandler Seagraves has served over 21 years in the United States Marine Corps. He is a naval aviator who has accumulated over 2,900 flight hours in multiple aircraft, including the EA-6B Prowler and the F/A-18 Hornet. He has supported numerous training exercises throughout the U.S. and Europe, as well as conducted combat operations over the skies of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq and Afghanistan, where he conducted electronic warfare against surface-to-air missiles and asymmetrical threats to U.S. and coalition ground combat forces. His operational experience includes tours as squadron commander, executive officer, aircraft group executive officer, electronic warfare officer, operations officer, maintenance officer and executive assistant. Lieutenant Colonel Seagraves’ joint experience includes a tour with the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization as the director of electronic warfare training. He has also served as an advanced flight instructor and was a Blue Angel during the 2003-2004 airshow seasons.

Lieutenant Colonel Seagraves is a graduate of Mississippi State University where he earned a Bachelor of Science in agriculture.  He is also a graduate of the National Defense University and holds a Master of Science in National Security Strategy from the National War College.

Commander Jason Tama, United States Coast Guard

Commander Jason Tama has over 19 years of experience in a broad array of operational and staff assignments. He most recently served as the prevention department head at Coast Guard Sector San Francisco, overseeing marine safety, security and environmental protection operations across Northern California and in some of the nation’s most vital strategic ports.

Prior to reporting to Sector San Francisco, Commander Tama completed the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Sloan Fellows Program. He also previously served as the Coast Guard’s fiscal year 2011 budget coordinator in Washington, D.C., where he formulated the service’s more than $10 billion budget and provided strategic analysis and recommendations to the commandant of the Coast Guard and other senior executives. Additional assignments include chief of waterways management at Sector Puget Sound, chief of vessel compliance at Marine Safety Office Puget Sound, naval architect and marine salvage engineer at the Marine Safety Center and operations officer on a multi-mission Coast Guard cutter.

Commander Tama holds a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the United States Coast Guard Academy, a Master of Science in naval architecture and offshore engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, a Master of Business Administration from the MIT Sloan School of Management and is a Marshall Memorial Fellow.

Cynthia P. Tomlinson, Central Intelligence Agency

Cynthia Tomlinson is a senior manager in the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Directorate of Analysis, with 18 years of experience in the intelligence and policy community. For nine years she has served as a manager responsible for overseeing strategic and tactical analysis on a diverse set of issues. She led analytic efforts to provide critical insights to the president, senior policymakers and senior intelligence customers most recently on Syria and Lebanon, and previously on Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Tomlinson started her career as an analyst and manager covering Latin America and the Caribbean. She has worked at the National Security Council and the U.S. Department of State, where she focused on Western Hemisphere Affairs.

Tomlinson holds a master’s in Latin American studies from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s in international affairs and political science from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She speaks Spanish.