 | This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification .(April 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) |
James JA. Thomson is an American businessman who was the RAND Corporation's president and chief executive officer from August 1989 through October 2011 and a member of the RAND staff since 1981.
Thomson holds a B.S. in physics from the University of New Hampshire (1967) and an M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from Purdue University. He was a postdoctoral research associate in physics (1972) and did basic research in experimental nuclear physics (1972–1974) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has honorary doctorates from Purdue University, Pepperdine University, and the University of New Hampshire.
Thomson previously served as director of RAND's research programs in national security, foreign policy, defense policy, and arms control; vice president in charge of the Project AIR FORCE division; and executive vice president.
From 1977 to January 1981, Thomson was a member of the National Security Council staff at the White House, where he was primarily responsible for defense and arms control matters related to Europe. He was on the staff of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1974-1977.
homson is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, New York; the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London; and the board of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. He is a director of AK Steel Corporation, Encysive Pharmaceuticals, and Object Reservoir.
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), founded in 1921, is a United States nonprofit think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs. It is headquartered in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C. Its membership, which numbers 5,103, has included senior politicians, more than a dozen secretaries of state, CIA directors, bankers, lawyers, professors, and senior media figures.
Charles Woodruff Yost was a career U.S. Career Ambassador who was assigned as his country's representative to the United Nations from 1969 to 1971.
Stephen John Hadley is an American attorney and government employee who served as the 21st United States National Security Advisor from 2005 to 2009. He served under President George W. Bush during the second term of his administration. Hadley was Deputy National Security Advisor during Bush's first term. Before that Hadley served in a variety of capacities in the defense and national security fields. He has also worked as a lawyer and consultant in private practice.
James Gerard Roche is an American politician. He served as the 20th Secretary of the Air Force, serving from January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2005. Prior to serving as secretary, Roche served in the United States Navy for 23 years, and as an executive with Northrop Grumman.
Richard Jeffrey Danzig is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 71st Secretary of the Navy under President Bill Clinton. He served as an advisor of the President Barack Obama during his presidential campaign and was later the chairman of the national security think-tank, the Center for a New American Security.
Michael Rich is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the RAND Corporation, the institution's highest-ranking position, which he has held since November 2011. Rich became the fifth president and CEO of the Santa Monica, California-based research institution, succeeding James A. Thomson, who had led RAND since 1989. His father, Ben Rich (1925-1995), was a prominent aeronautical engineer with Lockheed Skunk Works, most famous for developing the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter.
Marina von Neumann Whitman is an American economist, writer and former automobile executive. She is a professor of business administration and public policy at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business as well as The Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) is a council, chartered in each administration with a broad mandate to advise the President of the United States on science and technology. The current PCAST was established by Executive Order 13226 on September 30, 2001, by President George W. Bush, was re-chartered by President Obama's April 21, 2010, Executive Order 13539, and was most recently re-chartered by President Trump's October 22, 2019, Executive Order 13895.
John Alexander Gordon was an American air force general who served as Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He also served as the President's Homeland Security advisor from 2003 to 2004.
Donald Blessing Rice is a California businessman and senior government official. He has been president and chief executive officer of several large companies including RAND Corporation, and has sat on numerous boards of directors, including Wells Fargo & Company. Rice also served as the seventeenth Secretary of the Air Force, 1989–93.
John Patrick White was an American university professor and a government official who served in the Clinton Administration.
Michael Bruce Donley is a former senior United States government official, who served as the 22nd Secretary of the United States Air Force, amongst other positions. Donley has 30 years of experience in the national security community, including service on the staff of the United States Senate, White House and The Pentagon. Donley previously served as the Director of Administration and Management in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Robert Edwards Hunter is an American government employee and foreign policy expert, who served as United States Ambassador to NATO during the Clinton Administration.
Kenneth E. deGraffenreid retired in 2012 from his position as Professor of Intelligence Studies at The Institute of World Politics, where he taught since the graduate school's first summer session in 1992. He is now a professor emeritus at the IWP. Numerous published sources indicate that deGraffenreid has been involved in the highest echelons of the United States Intelligence Community: a 2004 article in The New Yorker mentioned that he was responsible for all Department of Defense "Special Access Programs" (SAPs). He is recognized as a leading authority in intelligence, foreign propaganda, information warfare, and counterintelligence. He was an early pioneer in the academic sub-discipline of intelligence studies which was in its nascency when he began teaching in 1992.
Michael Paul Pillsbury is a non-profit director, author, and former public official in the United States. He has served as the Director of the Center on Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. since 2014. Before coming to Hudson, he held various postings in the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Senate throughout his career, continuing to serve as an advisor to the Pentagon. He has been called a "China-hawk", an "architect" of Trump's signature policy on China and a driving force behind the recent evolution of American foreign policy toward China. He was described by President Trump as the leading authority on China in 2018. Pillsbury is the author of three books on Chinese foreign policy strategy and Sino-American relations. His most recent book, The Hundred-Year Marathon, appeared as a selection of the 2017 U.S. Special Operations Command, Commanders Reading List, as well as number one on the Washington Post bestsellers list. According to The New York Times, Pillsbury's book "has become a lodestar for those in the West Wing pushing for a more forceful response to the threat that China's rise poses to the United States." Pillsbury's work has not been siloed to the American right, finding bipartisan interest as many Democrats look to continue his work in incorporating a version of Trump's China doctrine in the incoming Biden Administration. In December 2020, the Trump administration announced it intended to appoint him as the chair of the Defense Policy Board.
RAND Corporation is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed by the U.S. government and private endowment, corporations, universities and private individuals. The company has grown to assist other governments, international organizations, private companies and foundations with a host of defense and non-defense issues, including healthcare. RAND aims for interdisciplinary and quantitative problem solving by translating theoretical concepts from formal economics and the physical sciences into novel applications in other areas, using applied science and operations research.
William B. Quandt is an American scholar, author, professor emeritus in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. He previously served as senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and as a member on the National Security Council in the Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter administrations. He was actively involved in the negotiations that led to the Camp David Accords and the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty. His areas of expertise include Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, and U.S. foreign policy.
David Laurence Aaron is an American diplomat and writer who served in the Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton administrations. He graduated from Occidental College with a BA, and from Princeton University with an MPA. He later received an honorary Ph.D from Occidental College. He is currently director of the RAND Corporation's Center for Middle East Public Policy.
Stephen Joseph Lukasik was an American physicist who served in multiple high-level defense and scientific related positions for advancing the technologies and techniques for national defense and the detection and control of diverse types of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear devices. He was the second longest serving Director of DARPA - the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – during which numerous new technologies including packet and internet protocols were developed. He was also the first Chief Scientist of the Federal Communications Commission where he created its Office of Science and Technology and which facilitated the commercial deployment of new technology that included spread spectrum technology.
Charles Martin Kupperman was the United States Deputy National Security Advisor for President Donald Trump, a position he held from January to September 2019. He also was the acting United States National Security Advisor for eight days in September 2019 between John Bolton and Robert C. O'Brien.