About > People > Robert Stephan

Colonel Bob Stephan is Managing Director, Dutko Global Risk Management, a core enterprise of the Washington, D.C.-based strategic consulting firm, DutkoWorldwide. Prior to his current position, Colonel Stephan served the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security 2005-08. In this capacity, he was responsible for the Department's efforts to catalog our critical infrastructures and key resources, develop the National Infrastructure Protection Plan and coordinate risk-based strategies and protective measures to secure our infrastructures from terrorist attack and enable their timely restoration in the aftermath of natural disasters and other emergencies. His specific areas of focus included the following critical sectors: Transportation (including ports and maritime facilities), Communications, Energy, Dams, Information Technology, Critical Manufacturing, C hemical, Nuclear, Water, Banking and Finance, Food and Agriculture, Commercial Facilities, Government Facilities, Emergency Services, and Monuments and Icons. His efforts also included extensive partnership building and facilitating risk analysis, contingency/resiliency planning, risk mitigation and emergency response planning across a wide array of Federal, State, and local government and private sector security partners.

With the initial activation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, Colonel Stephan served as Special Assistant to the Secretary and Director of the Secretary's Headquarters Operational Integration Staff. In this capacity, he was responsible for a wide range of activities that included headquarters-level interaction in the areas of strategic and operational planning, core mission integration, domestic incident management, and training and exercises. He also directed the Interagency Incident Management Group, integrating Department and interagency capabilities in response to domestic threats and incidents.

Previously, Colonel Stephan served as the first Senior Director for Critical Infrastructure Protection in the Executive Office of the President (EOP). During his tenure with EOP, his duties included developing and coordinating interagency policy and strategic initiatives to protect the United States against terrorist attack across critical infrastructure sectors, with a specific focus on the transportation sector.

Colonel Stephan held a variety of key operational and command positions in the joint special operations community during a 24-year Air Force career. During Operation Desert Storm, he deployed to Saudi Arabia as a joint battlestaff planner and mission commander supporting Joint Special Operations Task Force strategic interdiction operations in Iraq. As a commander of two Air Force Special Tactics Squadrons, Colonel Stephan organized, trained, and equipped forces for contingency operations in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Croatia, Liberia, Colombia, and Kosovo.

Colonel Stephan currently has access to a Top Secret/Special Compartmentalized Information (TS/SCI) Clearance through the Department of Homeland Security.

Colonel Stephan is a distinguished graduate of the USAF Academy, and holds a Bachelors Degree in Political Science. He is an Olmsted Scholar, and has earned Masters Degrees in International Relations from the University of Belgrano, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and The Johns Hopkins University.