President Trump on Monday night nominated Brian Harrell, who manages security for Duke Energy [DUK], to be assistant secretary for Infrastructure Protection at the Department of Homeland Security.
If confirmed by the Senate, Harrell will fill a spot that has been vacant for the past two months. The Office of Infrastructure Protection coordinates national policies on critical infrastructure protection and resilience.
Harrell comes to the position with years of operational experience.
This spring, Harrell was appointed as Managing Director of Enterprise Security at Duke Energy, one of the nation’s largest utilities. Previously, he was a senior fellow at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at the George Washington Univ., and the president and chief security officer for the Cutlass Security Group, which provides advisory services in physical and cyber security for critical infrastructure companies. He also was director of Security and Risk Management at another consulting firm, Navigant.
Before his consulting work, Harrell was director of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Programs at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), which is an international regulatory authority, focused on reliability and security of the energy grid. While at NERC, he also spent more than a year as director of the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center, which collects, analyzes and shares data on security threats with stakeholders.
Harrell also served in security roles in other private sector organizations and spent 18 months toward the end of the administration of former President George W. Bush as a program management and chemical sector specialist within the DHS Office of Infrastructure Protection.
The Office of Infrastructure Protection is part of the National Protection and Programs Directorate. It was previously led in an acting capacity by Bob Kolasky, who became director of the department’s new National Risk Management Center that stood up in August.
Christopher Krebs, undersecretary for NPPD, served as assistant secretary for Infrastructure Protection prior to assuming his current role.
Harrell spent nearly nine years in the Marine Corps, retiring in 2006, listing his experiences on LinkedIn in the infantry in anti-terrorism and force protection roles. He also served in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for 14 months before joining the Marines in January 1998.