Speaker biographies

Mike Barrett is a terrorism and homeland security expert with an extensive background in military intelligence and national security. A former Fulbright Scholar to Ankara, Turkey, Mr. Barrett is currently the Manhattan Institute’s Harbinger/ICx Fellow in Homeland Security and the founder of Counterpoint Assessments, a consulting firm in Annapolis. In the private sector he has successfully developed business opportunities with clients as diverse as the United States Marine Corps, Mitsubishi Chemicals, and Deutsche Bank. He previously served as senior analyst for the War on Terrorism Branch of the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in which capacity he was responsible for operational trends analysis and strategic policy development for a multitude of classified counterterrorism projects. Mr. Barrett was also a counterterrorism human intelligence (HUMINT) targeting officer identifying domestic terrorist threats for the Defense Intelligence Agency, and was lead intelligence officer for the Special Operation/Combating Terrorism Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. In these capacities he managed projects and conducted briefings for senior military leaders, executives of major international financial institutions, and federal and state legislators. Mr. Barrett has been interviewed on numerous television and radio outlets, including FOX News, FRONTLINE, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, Canadian Broadcast Company, and New York Public Radio, as well as in publications such as the Washington Post, New York Metro News, New York Sun, and Baltimore Business Journal. He has been interviewed on more than two dozen radio stations coast-to-coast. Mr. Barrett coauthored two books and authored more than a dozen articles on terrorism and homeland security. He is also a lieutenant in the United States Naval Reserve.

Veronique de Rugy is a research fellow at AEI. She was a fiscal policy analyst at the Cato Institute from 2001 to 2004, a postdoctoral fellow at the George Mason University Department of Economics from 2000 to 2001, and a research fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation from 1999 to 2000. She has also served on the board of directors of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity since 2000. Ms. de Rugy has written extensively on the dangers of European Union and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development tax harmonization proposals. She is the author of numerous op-eds and academic papers, and is the coauthor of Action ou Taxation, published in Switzerland in 1996.

Clark Ervin joined the Aspen Institute in January 2005 to explore the creation of a homeland security initiative. Before joining the Institute, he served as the first Inspector General of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), from January 2003 to December 2004. Prior to his service at DHS, he served as the inspector general of the United States Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors, from August 2001 to January 2003. His service in the administration of President George W. Bush is preceded by his service as the associate director of policy in the White House Office of National Service during the administration of President George H. W. Bush. He served in the state government of Texas from 1995 to 2001, first as assistant secretary of state and then as a deputy attorney general. He has practiced law twice in the private sector, with the Houston based firms of Vinson & Elkins, and Locke, Liddell, & Sapp, respectively. In addition to his work at the Aspen Institute, Mr. Ervin is an on-air analyst and contributor at CNN, where he focuses on homeland security, national security, and intelligence issues. He is frequently cited as an expert on these matters by major national and international publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Time, and The Economist. His opinion pieces have appeared in, among other papers, the New York Times and the Washington Post. His book on homeland security, Open Target: Where America is Vulnerable to Attack, was published by St. Martin’s Press in May 2006. Mr. Ervin is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Association of Rhodes Scholars.

Laura Holgate joined the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a Washington, D.C.-based nongovernmental organization, in February 2001 as the vice president for Russia/New Independent States Programs. Founded in January 2001 by media magnate Ted Turner and former senator Sam Nunn, NTI has established a solid record of achievement based on analysis, advocacy, and action in reducing global threats from nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Prior to joining NTI, Ms. Holgate led the Department of Energy’s Office of Fissile Materials Disposition from August 1998 to January 2001, where she was responsible for consolidating and disposing of excess weapons plutonium and highly enriched uranium in the United States and Russia. From August 1995 through August 1998, she directed the Cooperative Threat Reduction “Nunn-Lugar” program of U.S. assistance to Russia and other former Soviet states in eliminating the weapons-of-mass-destruction legacy of the Cold War. Ms. Holgate served for two years as special assistant to the assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, and spent six months in the Office of the Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, she also serves on the executive board of Women in International Security. She recently joined advisory panels for the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Colonel Randall J. Larsen, USAF (Ret.), is the founding director of the Institute for Homeland Security and a senior associate at the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He previously served as chairman of the Department of Military Strategy and Operations at the National War College, where in 1999 he created the nation’s first graduate course in homeland security. Colonel Larsen began his studies of homeland security in 1994 while on a one-year fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. He was one of the first witnesses to testify before the 9/11 Commission, and since 9/11 he has served as an expert witness to the Senate Armed Services, Senate Judiciary, House Government Reform, House Homeland Security, and House Budget Committees. In March 2005 he designed and ran a two-day workshop at Wye River for twenty-eight members of the House Homeland Security Committee. He has also provided private briefings and tutorials on a wide range of homeland security topics to numerous members of Congress, as well as senior members of the Bush administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary Tom Ridge. He served on the 2003 Defense Science Board summer study on homeland security and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of Our Own Worst Enemy, forthcoming from Warner Books. His other publications include The Executive's Desk Book on Corporate Risks and Response for Homeland Security (National Legal Center for the Public Interest, 2003), What Corporate America Needs to Know about Bioterrorism (National Legal Center for the Public Interest, 2003), and Defending the American Homeland 1993–2003 (US Air Force Counterproliferation Center, 2003). Colonel Larsen has been the homeland security consultant and on-camera analyst to CBS News since March 2003. He is also a frequent guest on radio and television outlets, including CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC, NPR, FOX, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Larry King Live, and Oprah. He is a co-host of the weekly public radio show Homeland Security: Inside and Out. His op-eds have appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, and USA Today. Colonel Larsen served for thirty-two years in both the Army and the Air Force. His flying career began as a nineteen-year-old Cobra pilot in the 101st Airborne Division. He flew 400 combat missions in Vietnam. He also served as military attaché at the United States Embassy in Bangkok, as the chief of legislative liaison at the U.S. Transportation Command, and as the commander of America's fleet of VIP aircraft at Andrews AFB in Maryland. His decorations include the Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, seventeen awards of the Air Medal (three with “V” Device for Valor), and the South Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.

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