Biography provided by participant
Jackson is President and founder of Firebreak Partners, LLC, which was created to integrate, finance and deploy high-value security technologies to protect critical infrastructure.
From 2005 through October 2007, Jackson was Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the chief operating officer responsible for managing day-to-day operations. With 210,000 employees, the department's seven operating components and over 20 supporting organizations span the range of homeland security missions, including counter-terrorism, emergency management, law enforcement, research and development, and intelligence analysis.
He also was Deputy Secretary of the Department of Transportation from May 2001 to August 2003, where his tenure focused particularly on the response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including creation of the Transportation Security Administration and management of the Department's recovery efforts for the nation's aviation industry. He served as a member of the Board of Directors for Amtrak and was chairman of its Audit Committee.
In the Administration of President George H. W. Bush, Jackson served at the White House as Special Assistant to the President for Cabinet Liaison, and later as Chief of Staff for the Secretary of Transportation. He held several positions working for the Secretary of Education in the Administration of President Reagan.
In the private sector, Jackson has been a Senior Vice President of AECOM Technology Corporation, a global family of design and engineering firms, Chief Operating Officer at Lockheed Martin IMS's Transportation Systems and Services, and a senior executive with the American Trucking Associations. Earlier, he was a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute and taught political science at the University of Georgia and at Georgetown University. In 2004, he was a member of the President's Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy, which provided a management roadmap for undertaking NASA's future missions.
Jackson's undergraduate degree is from the University of Houston, and he received a Ph.D. with distinction from the Government Department at Georgetown University in 1985.
