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Keynote Presenter Stephen L. Caldwell Director, Maritime Security and Coast Guard Issues Homeland Security and Justice Team U.S. Government Accountability Office |
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Stephen Caldwell has almost 30 years of experience evaluating national security programs for Congress, and is a recognized expert on maritime security. As Director for Maritime Security and Coast Guard Issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), he provides briefings, reports and testimony to congressional committees and individual members of the House and Senate. He has testified at more than two dozen Congressional hearings and led the publication of more than 125 GAO reports on a variety of topics including piracy, vessel tracking, passenger vessel security, energy tanker security, port state control, port facility security, offshore infrastructure security, supply chain security, port security operations and exercises, maritime domain awareness, maritime threat information sharing, Arctic issues, and risk management for critical maritime infrastructure. Mr. Caldwell was selected into the Senior Executive Service program in July 2005. As an executive candidate, he was detailed from GAO to the House Select Committee on Hurricane Katrina to help investigate and write a report on the preparations and response for that natural disaster.
Previously, as an Assistant Director, he led many of GAO’s reviews of counterterrorism and homeland security programs. In this capacity, Mr. Caldwell pioneered some of GAO’s homeland security work to develop criteria for assessing national intelligence estimates, writing national strategies, and applying risk management. In addition to this work examining homeland security programs, Mr. Caldwell has also researched and published GAO studies on DOD strategic wargaming, unified command planning and organization, intelligence community activities, foreign military and economic assistance, as well as United States involvement with NATO, the United Nations, and other international organizations. He has extensive international experience, having spent almost one-third of his career working overseas and having conducted 44 missions to 29 countries as part of his work on maritime security and other issues. Before coming to GAO’s Headquarters in Washington, D.C., Mr. Caldwell worked in GAO’s European Office (1986-1992) and San Francisco Office (1983-1986) reporting to Congress on a variety of military and civilian topics. Prior to GAO, he worked for the U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (1981-1982) to build governance capacity in the Palau Islands.
Mr. Caldwell earned a Bachelor’s degree in political science (1980) and Master’s degree in public policy (1983), both from the University of California at Berkeley, where he specialized in national security affairs. He also earned a diploma from the U.S. Naval War College (1996), where he received the Director's Award for Academic Excellence. He is the recipient of numerous other honors, including GAO’s Client Service Award, Meritorious Service Award, Big Picture Award and several others. Mr. Caldwell has made appearances and presentations before the media, professionals at conferences, and students at top universities. He was a Senior Executive Fellow at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (2006). In addition to his GAO testimonies and reports, he is the author of more than a dozen articles and commentary in Armed Forces Journal, Defense Intelligence Journal, Journal of International Peace Operations, OSCE’s Counterterrorism Network Bulletin, Cargo Security International, Bunkerspot, Mediterranean Quarterly, The CIP Report, and Issues in Science and Technology.
