Richard Clarke is the former U.S. national coordinator for security, infrastructure protection and counter-terrorism and served in a number of other national security roles during his career.

Clarke most recently served as presidential special advisor on cybersecurity until 2003 under former President George W. Bush.

He was appointed counter-terrorism security group chairman and National Security Council member in 1992 after working for the State Department as assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs under former President Ronald Reagan.

Clarke became the NSC’s national coordinator for security, infrastructure protection and counter-terrorism in 1998 when he was appointed to the role by former President Bill Clinton.

Since retiring from public service, Clarke has written a number of books including Defeating the Jihadists: A Blueprint for Action, Against All Enemies,  The Scorpion’s Gate, Breakpoint and Cyber War.

Juan Zarate serves as senior adviser of transnational threats, homeland security and counterterrorism programs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Zarate most recently worked to implement U.S. counterterrorism and security policies as presidential deputy assistant and deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism between 2005 and 2009.

He previously led efforts to crack down on terrorist financing worldwide, wielded the Treasury Department’s national security jurisdictions and aided in the capture of Saddam Hussein’s assets in his role as assistant treasury secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes.

A former Rotary International Fellow at Universidad de Salamanca, Spain, Zarate also served on terrorism prosecution panels before the 9/11 attacks.

The visiting lecturer at Harvard Law School authored the book “Treasury’s War: The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare, Forging Democracy” and contributed articles for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, among other publications.

He hosts the “Flash Points” program on CBSNews.com and serves on the advisory boards of the National Counterterrorism Center and HSBC’s Financial Services Vulnerabilities Committee.

Zarate holds a degree from Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

Rear Adm. Katherine Gregory has been commander of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command and chief of civil engineers since Oct. 26, 2012.

She was most recently the commander of Naval Facilities Engineering Command Pacific and the Pacific Fleet civil engineer.

Her tenure at the Naval Construction Force, Seabee, was spent mostly with the Amphibious Construction Battalion One and Naval Mobile Construction Battalion One, where she served as commanding officer of NMCB 133 and commander of the 30th Naval Construction Regiment.

Gregory was the First Naval Construction Division’s chief of staff and had been deployed to the Western Pacific, Mediterranean, Iraq and Haiti during her Seabee tours.

She also toured in Japan, Italy, San Francisco, Alaska and Pearl Harbor and conducted staff tours in Washington as action officer of Seabee and Chief of Naval Operations Overseas Bases.

A 1982 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Gregory is a registered professional engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a qualified military parachutist and a Seabee combat warfare officer.

She earned graduate degrees from the University of Southern California and George Washington University and attended the Senior Executive Program at the London School of Business.

Darren Dick formerly served as deputy staff director of the House Intelligence Committee from January 2011 to July 2013.

He served as deputy staff director and counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee prior to his move to the other chamber.

Dick was senior manager and counsel for government relations and public policy at EMC Corp. before joining the federal government.

The U.S. Navy Reserves intelligence officer served as military legislative assistant to Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) from 1992 to 1996.

He was also previously a three-year national security adviser to Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) after working as litigation lawyer in Overland Park, Kan.

Dick earned a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College and Juris Doctor from the University of Kansas School of Law.

Gemma Berdahl serves as procurement executive at the CIA, where she is responsible for that agency’s acquisition system.

Berdahl leads a team of contracting employees in helping CIA components such as the National Reconnaissance Office, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence process procurements.

She most recently served as senior contracting officer for the CIA’s science and technology directorate.

A practicing lawyer and lobbyist for two years, Berdahl started as a CIA contracting officer in 1986 and later moved into other contracting tasks for every CIA directorate until 2002, when she was appointed executive officer and chief of staff to the CIA chief financial officer.

She previously performed an intelligence community tour at NRO and helped manage contracting support services for the National Counterterroism center and other ODNI components.

Berdahl holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Minnesota and a Juris Doctor from Hamline Law School in St. Paul.

W. Ralph Basham formerly served as commissioner of the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection, the agency tasked with monitoring and securing U.S. borders.

Basham most recently served as director of both the U.S. Secret Service and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and as chief of staff of the Transportation Security Administration.

He joined the Secret Service in 1970 as a special agent based in Washington, D.C., and took on higher roles at the agency until elevating to become its director in 2003.

The law enforcement veteran was previously a special agent overseeing the Cleveland Field Office, the Washington Field Office and the Vice Presidential Protective Division and also managed the administrative division of the Office of Administration as assistant director.

Basham became Federal Law Enforcement Training Center’s director in January 1998, with responsibility in training the U.S. federal law enforcement officers at the state, local and federal levels.

In 2002, he was appointed chief of staff at TSA where he was responsible for leading the recruitment of federal security directors to be assigned in 429 airports.

The 1992 and 2000 Meritorious Presidential Rank awardee holds a bachelor’s degree from Southeastern University in Washington, D.C.

David Shedd has been serving as deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency since August 2010.

In this role, Shedd helps the DIA director manage more than 16,500 military and civilian workers and lead the Defense Intelligence Enterprise, an organization within the Defense Department focused on intelligence operations.

Shedd most recently served as the National Security Council’s special assistant to the president and as intelligence programs and reform senior director.

He also helped to implement an intelligence reform based on the 2004 9/11 Commission report, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act and the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission’s report to the president in 2005.

Shedd served as chief of staff and the national intelligence director’s acting director of the intelligence staff between May 2005 and April 2007 after holding intelligence policy roles at the NSC from 2001 to 2005.

From May 2007 to August 2010, he helped implement policies on information sharing, intelligence community authorities and analytic standards as director of national intelligence – deputy for policy, plans and requirements.

Shedd was responsible for the review of an intelligence policy that former President George W. Bush revised in July 2008.

He also worked to develop an intelligence strategy for the IC that was published in 2009 and served as the Central Intelligence Agency’s chief of congressional liaison.

Shedd earned his bachelor’s degree from Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pa., and a master’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Latin American Studies.

Keith Trippie serves as executive director for the Department of Homeland Security’s enterprise system development office which is a part of the Office of the Chief Information Officer.

In this role, Trippie oversees the department’s enterprise application service offerings and the department’s cloud strategy.

The role also includes responsibility for information sharing across the department, reducing time and cost for new services and providing the neccessary capabilities for a mobile workforce.

The 18-year information technology and logistics veteran also serves as the chair for the DHS Applications and Services Council which provides guidance for DHS cloud capabilities.

Prior to his current role, Trippie was acting executive director for the enterprise business management office within the CIO’s office at DHS where he was responsible for IT business management enterprise strategies.

Trippie began at DHS at the beginning of its formation and served in the Transportation Security Administration’s Maritime and Land Division.

In 2011, he was named a FED100 awardee and serves on the executive committee for the American Council for Technology.

Trippie is a graduate of the University of Arkansas and the Harvard Business School Executive Education Program for Leadership Development.

The Center for Security Policy – a non-profit national security organization – will recognize Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young (R-Fla.) on Oct. 23 at its “Keeper of the Flame Award Dinner“.

The honor was first awarded in 1990 and is meant to “bestow recognition on those individuals who devote their public careers to the propagation of democracy and the respect for individual rights throughout
the world,” among other distinctions, the center says on its website.

Young serves as chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and has represented his district in the House since 1971, having been re-elected 20 times over that period.

The longest-tenured Republican currently in Congress, Young has held public office for more than 50 years and served as chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations between 1999 and 2005.

The center cites the U.S. Army National Guard veteran as a prominent advocate for increased biomedical research who oversaw improvements in military base housing, medical care, pay and equipment.

The center will also honor retired Gen. Al Gray, the 29th Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, with its Freedom’s Shield award that is meant to recognize “those whose distinguished public service in uniform and continuing efforts on behalf of liberty serve as an inspiration and lodestar to freedom-loving people everywhere.”

10/21 UPDATE: Current Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Jim Amos will introduce Gray, while retired Gen. Jim Jones will introduce retired Major Gen. Randy West, who will accept the Keeper of the Flame award on behalf of Young, who has passed away this week after an illness.

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Frank Gaffney founded the Center in 1988 in an effort to pioneer public policy coalitions that promote U.S. national security and to engage executive branch officials, legislators and others to catalyze the adoption of such bodies’ recommendations and other products.

Described as a “Special Forces in the War of Ideas,” the Center works to produced “informed and penetrating” analyses of matters relating to foreign and defense policy as part of its efforts to promote “peace through strength.”

Gaffney is the former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy under President Reagan who also served as chairman of NATO‘s senior politico-military committee, the High Level Group. He earlier served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy and was a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Along with his non-profit and non-partisan organization, Gaffney is a public figure in the pursuit of his goal to “identify challenges and opportunities likely to affect American security broadly defined, and to act promptly and creatively to ensure that they are the subject of focused national examination and effective action.”

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The proceedings will include a morning “Symposium on Law, Policy and Innovative Technologies in National Security,” which will feature panels on:

• Legal, Policy and Innovation Trends and the Deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
• Securing America from Electromagnetic Pulse: Overcoming the Technical and Policy Challenges

Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), representative for Virginia’s fourth congressional district and chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee, will also address the audience at the dinner as a guest speaker.

Forbes has served in Congress since 2001 and also rose through state government, serving in Virginia’s house of delegates from 1989 to 1997 and serving in the state senate from 1997 until his election to Congress. He has previously served as chairman of the HASC Readiness subcommittee.

Sally Ericsson serves as associate director for natural resources, energy and science at the Office of Management and Budget and represents OMB on the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force.

The task force, created in October 2010 by President Barack Obama, is responsible for forming a restoration strategy aimed at helping the Gulf Coast ecosystem recover from the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.

Her previous government service includes time in the Clinton administration as associate director for natural resources at the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality, where she developed policies and coordinated federal agency programs on natural resources issues facing the Florida Everglades, Pacific Northwest salmon population and California’s water supply.

She also served as deputy chief of staff for management and associate undersecretary for economic affairs at the Commerce Department.

In between her stints at the White House, she worked as a climate change policy consultant with The Pacific Forest Trust to promote climate change policy that works to incorporate private forests as a climate mitigation tool.

Ericsson also served as director of outreach at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, where she worked with the center’s business environmental leadership council, a group of Fortune 500 companies that address climate change issues.

She also coordinated the Pew Center’s outreach efforts to state and local governments, federal agencies, Congress and nongovernmental organizations.

Before joining the Clinton administration, she worked as a policy and research assistant for the president of the Service Employees International Union.

Ericsson also spent eight years on Capitol Hill and served as a staff member for House Speaker “Tip” O’Neill, Rep. Sam Gejdenson and Sen. John Kerry.

She holds a masters degree in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a bachelors degree in urban and regional planning from the University of Illinois.