Brigadier General John Adams, United States Army (Retired)
John Adams is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board. retired from the US Army in September 2007. As the President of Guardian Six Consulting LLC, he assists clients in successfully analyzing national security issues and addressing US and allied national security requirements. He is a Ph.D. Candidate at the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona, focusing on comparative political economy. He has also served as an Adjunct Instructor in Political Science at the University of Arizona South, teaching a course in National Security Policy. His final military assignment was as Deputy United States Military Representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Military Committee in Brussels, Belgium, the highest military authority of NATO. Read more…
Miranda Ballentine
Miranda Ballentine is a member of the Center for Climate and Security’s Advisory Board. Miranda Chief Executive Officer of Constant Power Inc. Ms. Ballentine was most recently the Managing Director of Rocky Mountain Institute’s (RMI) Business Renewable Center. Previously, Miranda served as the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Installations, Environment, and Energy). Ms. Ballentine was an integral member of the Air Force’s top executive team, alongside the Secretary of the Air Force. As a member of the C-suite of this $120 billion organization, Ms. Ballentine was responsible for the oversight, formulation, and execution of plans, policies, programs, and budgets. Read more…
Brigadier General J. Robert “Bob” Barnes, United States Army (Retired)
Bob Barnes is Senior Fellow at the Center for Climate and Security, and member of the Advisory Board. He provides policy advice for the Center on addressing the security implications of climate change. He previously served as a Senior Policy Advisor for The Nature Conservancy, focusing on environmental security and interagency and public-private collaboration on climate change and other environmental matters with national security implications. He retired from the Army in 2001, where his last assignment was as the Assistant Judge Advocate General (Civil Law and Litigations). Read more…
Lieutenant General John G. Castellaw, United States Marine Corps (Retired)
John Castellaw is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board and president of the Crockett Policy Institute (CPI), a non-partisan policy and research organization chartered in Tennessee.Castellaw served in the Marines for 36 years holding several operational commands and flying more than two dozen different aircraft. His duties included service with the UN during the Siege of Sarajevo, command of a U.S. joint force in a multi-national security and stability operation in East Timor, and as the chief of staff for the U.S. Central Command during the Iraq War. Other service included assignments ashore and afloat in Africa, Europe, the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. Read more…
Dr. Daniel Y. Chiu
Dr. Daniel Y. Chiu is Director of the Joint Advanced Warfighting Division at the Institute for Defense Analyses, a Federally Funded Research and Development Center. He leads a diverse team of military, technical, and analytic experts to support the US Department of Defense in concept and capability development through Joint Experimentation and Defense Innovation. Working primarily with the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff, his team focuses on analytic wargaming, dynamic red-teaming, broad-spectrum horizon scanning as well as technical and historic lessons-learned. Read more…
The Honorable John Conger
John Conger is Director Emeritus of the Center for Climate and Security. He is also a Senior US Advisor to the International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS). Mr. Conger previously served as Senior Policy Advisor with the Center, and as the Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) at the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). As principal deputy comptroller, he assisted the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) by providing advice to the Secretary of Defense on all budgetary and financial matters, including development and execution of DoD’s annual budget of over $500 billion, and oversaw the DoD’s efforts to achieve audit readiness. Read more…
Stephanie Epner
Stephanie Epner is the Senior Director for Global Initiatives at the Climate Imperative Foundation and a member of the Advisory Board for the Center for Climate and Security, an institute of the Council on Strategic Risks. Most recently, she served on the White House National Security Council (NSC) staff, where Epner led the directorate responsible for coordinating the Biden Administration’s international climate and energy policy. Prior to that, she served as senior advisor to Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and as the climate and energy lead on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff. Read more…
Brigadier General Gerald Galloway, United States Army (Retired)
Dr. Gerald E. Galloway, Jr. is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board, and Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and an Affiliate Professor, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, where his focus is on water resources policy and management. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the US Army Corps of Engineers Institute for Water Resources. He joined the faculty of the University of Maryland following a 38 year career in the U.S. Army, retiring as Brigadier General, and served eight additional years in the federal government, most of which was associated with water resources management. Read more…
Sherri Goodman
Sherri Goodman serves as Chair of the Board at the Council on Strategic Risks, Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate and Security, Senior Strategist and Advisory Board member at the Center for Climate and Security, and Senior Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center’s Polar Institute and Environmental Change and Security Program. Sherri serves as Vice Chair of the Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board. She is also a member of the EXIM Bank Council on Climate. Sherri is credited with educating a generation of US military and government officials about the nexus between climate change and national security, using her famous coinage, “threat multiplier,” to fundamentally reshape the national discourse on the topic. Read more…
Lukas Haynes
Lukas Haynes is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board, and Executive Director of the David Rockefeller Fund. Previously, he was Vice President of the Mertz Gilmore Foundation where he was responsible since 2006 for a philanthropic strategy to mitigate the risks of global warming, invest in low-income New York City communities, and protect human rights. He is also an adjunct associate professor of global affairs and philanthropy at New York University. He was previously New York director of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and program officer for international peace and security. Read more…
Alice C. Hill
Alice Hill is a member of the Center for Climate and Security’s Advisory Board. Alice Hill is also the Senior Fellow for Climate Change Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Prior to that, she was Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Her work focuses on catastrophic risk, including the impacts of climate change. She previously served at the White House as Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Senior Director for Resilience Policy on the National Security Council. Hill led the creation of national policy regarding resilience to catastrophic risk. Her work spanned development of the first ever federal flood risk standard, creation of a national drought plan, expanding federal focus on the Arctic and addressing national security and climate change. Hill previously served as Senior Counselor to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Read more…
Rear Admiral Leendert “Len” Hering Sr., United States Navy (Retired)
Rear Admiral Leendert “Len” Hering Sr. is a member of the Center for Climate and Security’s Advisory Board. A native of Portsmouth, Va., he retired from the US Navy in 2009 after serving with distinction for over 32 years. A Surface Warrior by trade he rose to become a prominent military and civilian sustainability leader with a broad background in base operations, facility support, energy and environmental issues. His passion in sustainability lies in educating people on the dangers the future holds without taking responsible actions to address climate change, securing our nation’s energy independence, preserving access to clean water, air quality and other resources. Read more…
Lieutenant General Arlen D. Jameson, United States Air Force (Retired)
Retired Lt. Gen. Dirk Jameson is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board, and the Vice Chairman of the Air Force Academy’s Board of Visitors, retired from the Air Force in 1996 after more than three decades of service. Jameson’s final assignment was a Deputy Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Strategic Command. Jameson commanded 20th Air Force and was responsible for U.S. ICBM forces. Jameson served as Chief of Staff and Director of Command Control, Strategic Air Command, and commanded the Air Force Strategic Missile Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Read more…
General Ron Keys, United States Air Force (Retired)
General Ron Keys is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board, and a retired Air Force 4-star General. He retired in November 2007 after completing a career of more than forty years. He is a command pilot with more than 4,000 flying hours in fighter aircraft, including more than 300 hours of combat time. No stranger to energy security challenges, Gen Keys first faced them operationally as a young Air Force Captain, piloting F-4s during the fuel embargo of the 1970s. Later, as Director of Operations for European Command, fuel and logistic supply provisioning were critical decisions during humanitarian, rescue, and combat operations from the Balkans deep into Africa… many driven by floods and famine. Read more…
Richard G. Kidd
Richard G. Kidd IV is a member of the Center for Climate and Security’s Advisory Board. He joins the board following over 31 years of combined Federal service, including Senior Executive Service assignments in three federal agencies and the White House. Additionally, he has been an international civil servant with over five years of work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme. Read more…
Dr. Marcus D. King
Marcus D. King is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board, and John O Rankin Associate Professor, and Director of the Master of Arts in International Affairs Program at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. Dr. King previously served as Director of Research and Associate Research Professor where he led the identification and development of sponsored research opportunities on behalf of the school’s nine policy-focused research institutes. Read more…
Ellen Laipson
Ellen Laipson is the Director of the International Security program at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and directs the Center for Security Policy Studies. She joined GMU in 2017 after a distinguished 25 -year career in government and as President and CEO of the Stimson Center (2002-2015). She serves on a number of non-governmental boards related to international security and diplomacy. Her last post in government was Vice Chair of the National Intelligence Council (1997-2002). She also served on the State Department’s policy planning staff, the National Security Council staff, and worked at the Congressional Research Service for more than a decade. Read more…
Lieutenant General Stephen Lanza, United States Army (Retired)
Lieutenant General Stephen Lanza is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board. Before retiring from the Army, his last assignment was as U.S. Army Commanding General and Senior Mission Commander for Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) in Tacoma, Washington. As the Senior Army Commander of JBLM, he led the nation’s most important joint power projection platform in the West Coast, providing superior leadership to 14 major subordinate commands and seven directorates and orchestrating their efforts to train, equip, and care for over 155,000 service members and civilians across the U.S. Armed Forces. Read more…
Lyston Lea
Mr. Lyston Lea is a member of the Center for Climate and Security’s Advisory Board. He has over 38 years of professional experience working in the Intelligence Community (IC), where his leadership included resourceful response during the COVID-19 pandemic, serving as the senior level advisor, thought leader and mentor for the Global Maritime Community of Interest, which includes the IC, Federal, State & Local Interagency, International, Industry, Academia, and NGOs. Before retiring from Defense Intelligence Senior Level Federal service in March 2022, he served as the Principal Advisor to the Director of the National Maritime Intelligence-Integration Office (NMIO). Read more…
Alan Leung
Alan Leung is Senior Vice President for Threat Intelligence, Global Security at Macquarie Group, a global financial services group providing clients with asset management, retail and business banking, wealth management, leasing and asset financing, market access, commodity trading, renewables development, specialist advice, access to capital, and principal investment. Read more…
Admiral Sam
J. Locklear, United States Navy (Retired)
Admiral Locklear is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board. He recently retired from the US Navy after serving with distinction for over 39 years, including 15 years of service as a Flag Officer. During his significant tenure as a four star, Admiral Locklear lead at the highest levels serving as Commander U.S. Pacific Command, Commander U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa, and Commander of NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command. As Commander U.S. Pacific Command, the United States’ oldest and largest geographic unified combatant command, he commanded all U.S. military forces operating across more than half the globe. Read more…
Vice Admiral Dennis V. McGinn, United States Navy (Retired)
Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board. Admiral Dennis McGinn served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment from September 2013 until January 2017. In this role, he led the transformation of naval installations toward greater mission resiliency though energy efficiency, renewable energy, microgrids, and other technologies. Read more…
General Tom Middendorp, (Retired)
General Tom Middendorp, Chief of Defence of the Netherlands (Ret) is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board and the Chair of the International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS). Previously, he served as the Netherlands Chief of Defense for five and a half years and after 38 years of serving his country. As the Chief of Defense he was the most senior military advisor to the Minister of Defense, responsible for the readiness, the international cooperation and the modernization of the Dutch Armed Forces, as well as the planning and execution of its military deployments. Read more…
Colone
l Mark “Puck” Mykleby, United States Marine Corps (Retired)
Mark Mykleby is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps following his graduation from the United States Naval Academy in 1987. He was designated a naval aviator in April 1990 and as a qualified F/A-18 pilot in December 1990. From January 1991 to May 2006, he served in five fleet fighter squadrons and performed numerous operational squadron billets to include Director of Safety and Standardization, Pilot Training Officer, Aircraft Maintenance Officer, Operations Officer, Executive Officer, and Commanding Officer. Read more…
Dr. Janne E. Nolan (In Memoriam: 2010-2019)
Janne E. Nolan was a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board for 9 years until she passed away in 2019. She was also on the international affairs faculty at George Washington University and a Senior Fellow at the Association for Diplomatic Studies. She held numerous senior positions in the private sector, including as Professor of International Affairs and Deputy Director of the Ridgway Center at the University of Pittsburgh; project director and research faculty at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service; Read more…
Dr. Rod Schoonover
Rod Schoonover is a member of the Center for Climate and Security’s Advisory Board. Dr. Schoonover is the Founder and CEO of the Ecological Futures Group, which focuses on the security implications of global ecological disruption and climate change, and an Adjunct Professor in Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He served for a decade in the U.S. intelligence community, as Senior Analyst and Senior Scientist in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the U.S. Department of State and as the Director of Environment and Natural Resources at the National Intelligence Council (NIC). (Read more…)
Commander David Slayton, United States Navy (Retired)
David Slayton is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a member of the Shultz-Stephenson Task Force on Energy Policy, and Co-Chair and Executive Director of the Arctic Security Initiative. He was a national security affairs fellow from 2010 to 2011 and a visiting fellow from 2011 to 2012, during which time he was also engaged with legislative matters and national security policy development in Washington, DC. Read more…
Dr. Troy Sternberg
Dr. Troy Sternberg is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board, and a British Academy Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the School of Geography, Oxford University. His research focuses on the interaction of natural hazards with societies and the environment in the Gobi Desert, including hazard identification, social exposure and resilience and the evolving climate and hazard impact on human systems. In particular, he explores how drought, dzud (extreme winter) and climate influence human opportunity and security in the Gobi region of northern China and southern Mongolia. Read more…
General Gordon R. Sullivan, United States Army (Retired) (2019-2024)
General Gordon Russell Sullivan is a member of the Center for Climate and Security’s Advisory Board. Sullivan culminated his service in uniform as the 32nd Chief of Staff of the United States Army—the senior general officer in the army—and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As the Chief of Staff of the Army, Sullivan created the vision and led the team that transitioned the army from its Cold War posture. In August 1993, President Bill Clinton assigned the duties and responsibility of acting Secretary of the Army to Sullivan who continued to serve as Chief of Staff. Read more…
Maureen Sullivan
Ms. Sullivan is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Environment). In that role she was responsible for DoD’s policies and programs related to compliance with environmental laws; management of natural and cultural resources; cleanup of contaminated sites; fire and emergency services; green/sustainable buildings; installation emergency management; international environmental policy; and planning to address emerging chemicals of concern. Additionally, Ms. Sullivan was also responsible for the DoD Native American program, oversaw the Armed Forces Pest Management Board, the DoD Explosives Safety Board, and the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program/ Environmental Security Technology Certification Program. Read more…
Robert S. Taylor
Robert S. Taylor is a member of the Center for Climate and Security’s Advisory Board. He is currently the General Counsel of MCE Social Capital, an entity dedicated to providing financing and support to microfinance and other organizations in roughly 40 countries throughout the developing world. In this position, Bob is addressing the challenge of lifting people and regions out of poverty in a sustainable fashion. In addition, Bob is a veteran of the Department of Defense (DoD), where he served as Principal Deputy General Counsel (PDGC) of DoD from 2009 to 2017. He spent nearly two of those years as Acting General Counsel. He also served as the first Deputy General Counsel (Environment and Installations) in DoD, from 1995 to 2002. Read more…
Rear Admiral David W. Titley, United States Navy (Retired)
Dr. Titley is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board, and a nationally known expert in the field of climate, the Arctic, and National Security. He served as a naval officer for 32 years and rose to the rank of Rear Admiral. Dr. Titley’s career included duties as Oceanographer and Navigator of the Navy and Deputy Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Information Dominance. While serving in the Pentagon, Dr. Titley initiated and led the US Navy’s Task Force on Climate Change. After retiring from the Navy, Dr. Titley served as the Deputy Undersecretary of Commerce for Operations, the Chief Operating Officer position at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Read more…
Amali Tower
Amali is the founder and executive director of Climate Refugees. She has extensive global experience in refugee protection, refugee resettlement and in forced migration and displacement contexts, having worked for numerous NGOs, the UN Refugee Agency and the US Refugee Admissions Program. Years of interviewing refugees fleeing conflict afforded her the chance to hear their stories of also fleeing climate change. Through this, Climate Refugees was born. She has conducted country and regional visits of case studies and research in climate-induced displacement contexts, including in urban and camp settings. Her research on climate, conflict and displacement in the Lake Chad Basin in Africa’s Sahel was presented as evidence of loss and damage at COP 26 in Glasgow. Read more…
Joan D. B. VanDervort
Ms VanDervort, has over 28 years of professional experience working with the Department of Defense across a broad spectrum of issues from climate change and energy security to environmental regulatory and encroachment impacts on military training. Before retiring from federal service in May 2014, she served as the Deputy Director for Ranges, Sea and Airspace in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Readiness). Her portfolio included oversight of the Defense Department’s Sustainable Range Initiative, a multi-faceted program with Congressional oversight, designed to address training constraints and Readiness implications brought about by environmental requirements, renewable energy, climate change, and incompatible development. Read more…
Swathi Veeravalli
Swathi Veeravalli is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board, and an an interdisciplinary research scientist at the Geospatial Research Laboratory, Engineer Research and Development Center, US Army Corps of Engineers. Since 2010, she has been Principal Investigator on several basic and applied research projects where she focuses on developing the capability to better understand the impact of climate variability upon humans and the environment. Read more…
General Charles F. Wald, United States Air Force (Retired)
General Charles F. Wald (USAF, Ret.) is a member of the Center for Climate and Security’s Advisory Board. General Wald retired from the U.S. Air Force as a four-star general after serving over 35 years in the U.S. military as a command pilot with more than 3,600 flying hours and 430 combat hours. In his last position, he served as deputy commander of U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) from 2002 until his retirement from the U.S. Air Force in July 2006. In that role he was responsible for U.S. forces operating across 92 countries in Europe, Africa, Russia, parts of Asia, the Middle East, and most of the Atlantic Ocean. During his command, he developed the European Command’s first ever Strategic Plan that included energy assurance and sustainment for the EUCOM Area of Responsibility (AOR). Read more…
Rear Admiral Jonathan White, United States Navy (Retired)
Admiral White is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board. He joined the Consortium for Ocean Leadership in Sep 2015 as the Vice President for Ocean Science and Strategy. Prior to this he had a distinguished 32-year career in the U.S. Navy and retired at the rank of Rear Admiral. White’s passion for the ocean and science began at a very early age as he grew up near Florida’s Gulf coast. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Oceanographic Technology from the Florida Institute of Technology in 1981 and holds a master’s degree in Meteorology and Oceanography from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. After working at sea as a civilian oceanographer on board a seismic survey vessel, he was commissioned through Navy Officer Candidate School in 1983, and served for as a surface warfare officer for four years. Read more…
General Anthony C. Zinni, United States Marine Corps (Retired)
General Zinni is a member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board, and a retired Marine Corps 4-star General. He joined the Marine Corps’ Platoon Leader Class program in 1961 and was commissioned an infantry second lieutenant in 1965 upon graduation from Villanova University. He held numerous command and staff assignments that included platoon, company, battalion, regimental, Marine Expeditionary Unit, and Marine Expeditionary Force command. His staff assignments included service in operations, training, special operations, counter-terrorism, and manpower billets. He has been a tactics and operations instructor at several Marine Corps schools and was selected as a fellow on the Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group. General Zinni’s joint assignments included command of a joint task force and a unified command. He has also had several joint and combined staff billets at task force and unified command levels. Read more…
Admiral Paul Zukunft, United States Coast Guard (Retired)
Admiral Zukunft is a member of the Climate and Security’s Advisory Board. He served as the 25th Commandant of the Coast Guard from 2014 until 2018. During his tenure as Commandant, the Coast Guard attained its highest appropriation in history to modernize its fleet and upgrade aging infrastructure while concurrently attaining four clean financial audit opinions – the only Armed Service to do so. His 41 years of active duty service and 8 commands to include three Coast Guard cutters spanned the globe and the Service has emerged as the gold standard for promoting maritime safety and security. In 2010, he served as the Federal On-Scene Coordinator during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill where he directed over 47,000 first responders, a flotilla of more than 6,700 vessels and over 120 aircraft. Read more…`