Captain Arex B. Avanni, United States Coast Guard
Captain Arex B. Avanni has over 22 years of experience in a broad array of assignments primarily focused on emergency response, maritime search and rescue, and homeland security missions. He most recently served as the deputy sector commander of Coast Guard Sector Honolulu, overseeing all Coast Guard operational missions across the Hawaiian island chain and American Samoa.
Prior to reporting to Sector Honolulu, Avanni was the commanding officer of the Coast Guard Gulf Strike Team, leading one of the three specialized response units the Coast Guard deploys in response to natural disasters, major oil spills, and hazardous material discharges—to include chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosives and weapons of mass destruction events. The Gulf Strike Team’s area of responsibility encompasses the southeastern United States, Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean. Prior to command, Avanni served as the Coast Guard’s Congressional Fellow on the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations working on congressional budget and resource approval for the Department of Homeland Security. While working on the Appropriations Committee, he was the first military officer to complete the Foreign Policy and National Security Congressional Staff Fellowship offered by the Partnership for a Secure America.
Avanni is a 1994 graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and also holds a master’s in national security and strategic studies from the United States Naval War College.
Captain Geoffrey S. Gage, United States Navy
Captain Geoffrey Gage is a naval aviator with 26 years of operational experience at sea and ashore. An Active Component officer, he most recently commanded the Navy’s only Reserve Component fighter wing, where he was responsible for providing airborne electronic attack, strike, and adversary capabilities to the fleet. Previously, he commanded a strike-fighter squadron and led his team successfully during two aircraft carrier-based combat deployments. Among his additional assignments, Gage served as director of operations for the Joint Enabling Capabilities Command, speechwriter for Commander United States Joint Forces Command, and operational planner during the establishment of International Security Assistance Force Joint Command in Kabul, Afghanistan.
A native of Des Moines, Iowa, Gage graduated from Harvard College with a concentration in government. He holds a Master of Arts in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College and later graduated from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Defense College Senior Course.
Adrienne Janetti, Office of the Director of National Intelligence/National Counterterrorism Center
Adrienne Janetti is a senior analyst in the National Counterterrorism Center’s (NCTC) Directorate of Intelligence and since 2010, has served as one of NCTC’s subject matter experts on terrorism in South Asia, for which she received the NCTC Director’s Award.
Prior to joining NCTC, Adrienne worked as an analyst at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), and at the Defense Intelligence Agency, where she supported projects and analysis for the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff. Her research and analysis at IDA was cited in multiple publications on terrorism and security studies, including the “Terrorist Perspectives Project: Strategic and Operational Views of Al Qaida and Associated Movements.”
Adrienne holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and a Master of Arts in national security studies from Georgetown University.
Maria Langan-Riekhof, Chief/Strategic Insight Department
Maria Langan-Riekhof has spent the past 25 years in the intelligence community as both a senior analyst and manager, serving at the CIA and on the National Intelligence Council (NIC). For 16 years, she focused on a broad range of Middle East issues, rising to senior political analyst, founding the regional contrarian unit, and leading as deputy chief of regional analysis.
Maria worked in the NIC’s Strategic Futures Group as part of the Director of National Intelligence’s exceptional analyst program. Maria returned to the CIA to lead the agency’s Red Cell for six years, and as part of the agency’s modernization last year, she founded the Strategic Insight Department to conduct global strategic and provocative analysis.
Maria is a member of the Senior Analytic Service and the Senior Intelligence Service. She holds degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Denver.
Lieutenant Colonel William B. Mickley III, United States Air Force
Lietenant Colonel William “B.J.” Mickley is a mobility pilot with 21 years of active service. During his tenure in the United States Air Force he has commanded at the squadron level; planned and managed U.S. Northern Command’s theater security cooperation foreign military financing programs; served as wing manpower and organization officer, the chief of wing inspections, and the deputy chief of the headquarters Air Force Global Reach Division. He has led multiple A-76 cost comparison studies; served as the deputy chief of tactics for the Air Mobility Division at the Coalition Air Operations Center; and led the Air Forces Central Command Forward Threat Working Group. Prior to his current assignment as a federal executive fellow at the Brookings Institution, he was executive officer to the principal deputy director of cost assessment and program evaluation (CAPE) in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In this capacity, he provided direct decision support to the CAPE director and deputy enabling the adjustment of readiness, investment, and modernization programs for the Department of Defense.
Mickley received a Bachelor of Science in business administration from The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina. Additionally, he holds a Master of Science in management from Troy State University, and a Master of Science in military operational arts and science from the United States Air Force Air University. Mickley is married and has two children.
Colonel Jeffery M. Morgan, United States Marine Corps
Colonel Jeffery M. Morgan is a Marine artillery officer with 23 years of active service. He most recently served as a crisis response planner, executive officer, and special operations branch chief for the J3 Operations Directorate of the United States European Command where he advised on a wide range of operational, policy, and legislative issues related to national security in Europe.
Prior, Morgan served in a variety of command and staff assignments which provide a unique perspective on the Marine Corps Total Force. In addition to working with the U.S. interagency and partner nation military forces in operational and combat assignments, he has led efforts to develop the Acquisition Primary Military Occupational Specialty; synchronized graduate education programs; commanded the Marine Corps recruiting station in Raleigh, North Carolina; and served as inspector-instructor of a reserve artillery battalion where he oversaw the mobilization of personnel in support of multiple peacetime and combat operations. Morgan is a combat veteran of Operations Southern Watch and Iraqi Freedom.
Morgan graduated from the University of Missouri with a bachelor’s degree in finance. He also holds a master’s in national security affairs and strategic studies from the United States Naval War College. Morgan is married to the former Deborah L. Jones and they have two energetic sons.
Colonel Joel B. Vowell, United States Army
Colonel Joel “JB” Vowell has served as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army for over 25 years. In that time, he has been stationed in Europe, the Pacific, and many posts across the United States. He has been on three combat tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. He recently commanded the 3rd Brigade Combat Team (“Rakkasans”) of the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He was a War College Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation of Stanford University from 2012 to 2013, and is currently the Army Chief of Staff’s Senior Fellow to the Brookings Institution.
He is married and has two teenage boys.