Andrew Borene JD CISSP

"My first job in the intelligence community was as a Marine Corps officer in 2002. When I deployed to Iraq under General James Mattis with the First Marine Division in 2003, I had the opportunity as a young lieutenant to learn from some legends in military combat intelligence including officers like Jim Howcroft, Michael Groen, and Tim Oliver. Among other things, they taught me that the first responsibility of any intelligence officer is to provide “timely, actionable and relevant” reporting to the supported commander, which makes it a customer-service role.

...After the Marines, I attended law school in Minneapolis but stayed involved in intelligence related issues as a summer clerk for a federal judge who had some counterterrorism matters on his docket.

...Later, I was appointed as an Associate Deputy General Counsel at the Pentagon to assist with counterterrorism litigation and to support intelligence community assessments about some of the most dangerous detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

Since then, I’ve been involved in all kinds of IC work I never would have expected. I’ve been a program manager for open source intelligence, an industry executive at companies that provided things from robotics for SOF operators to software for analysts. I had some amazing experience as a senior advisor to IARPA where I got to learn from some of the world’s leading experts on breakthrough scientific programs with a very wide aperture."

"[What excites me the most about the IC today is] Both the people and the mission. I love seeing the increasing diversity of people in the IC, it’s been wonderful to see more women and minorities leading national agencies and serving in new ways across the enterprise. As for mission - It’s the shared patriotism, integrity and willingness of the people to collaborate that ensures the IC will improve our country’s performance from combat operations to informing wise national strategy. Bottom line, I just love working with people who also want to drive decision advantage in order to prevent US personnel from finding themselves in a “fair fight” with any adversary who means us harm."

"Aside from learning how to work effectively from home in 2020, I suspect we’ll see the continued resurgence of “Great Power Competition” and an increase in “gray zone operations” or what’s sometimes called low-intensity conflict or hybrid warfare.  As a result, I predict we will see a significant shift toward CI, security, public-private-partnerships and efforts to counter nation-state threats from both China and Russia around the globe. We’ll also probably see increased technical expertise to support US victories in the cyber domain and in space."

Favorite Movie This Year: The Russian Five