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Kenneth A. Myers III

Former Director of Defense Threat Reduction Agency

 

Kenneth A. Myers III, Former Director, Defense Threat Reduction Agency and U.S. Strategic Command Center for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction

Ken Myers, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the U.S. Strategic Command Center for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction (SCC), located at Fort Belvoir, Va. Mr. Myers is the fourth and longest serving Director of DTRA/SCC having assumed responsibilities on July 27, 2009.

DTRA/SCC manages a $3 billion budget and operates simultaneously as a defense agency, combat support agency, and a Combatant Command component that safeguards America and its allies from weapons of mass destruction (WMD).  With offices in 13 countries, DTRA/SCC is charged with providing the Services and Combatant Commands with expertise and capabilities to deter, defeat, eliminate, and prevent proliferation through 24/7 operations and programs in over 100 international locations daily.  DTRA/SCC implements a research and development portfolio focused on elimination, defense, and detection of WMD and deeply buried targets.  Mr. Myers has expanded DTRA/SCC operations to Africa, SE Asia, and the Middle East as well as increased international R&D cooperation, and transformed the Agency/Center into a "whole of government" resource.  Under Mr. Myers leadership, DTRA/SCC has been awarded with two Joint Meritorious Unit Awards. 

Recently the Standing Joint Force Headquarters for Elimination (SJFHQ-E) joined DTRA/SCC at Fort Belvoir.  Together, they have formed a cohesive team with the goal of "making the world safer." 

Prior to arriving at DTRA, Mr. Myers served from 2003 to 2009 as a senior professional staff member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He also served as the senior advisor to Sen. Dick Lugar, the committee's ranking minority member, on European, former Soviet Union and Central Asian affairs, and the Caucasus, as well as for arms control, arms sales, and combating weapons of mass destruction (CWMD) matters. Mr. Myers assisted Sen. Lugar on the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, the U.S./Russian relationship, arms control, security and confidence building measures, and NATO and European Union issues. He had a leading role in several critical foreign policy debates including NATO enlargement, the Moscow and Strategic Arms Reduction treaties, U.S. nonproliferation and counterproliferation policies, export controls, the U.S./India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act, and the Lugar-Obama Cooperative Proliferation Detection, Interdiction Assistance, and Conventional Threat Reduction Act. In addition, Mr. Myers was a regular advisor on U.S. policy towards the Middle East, South Asia, and North Korea and was also responsible for reviewing nominees for ambassadorial posts in Europe and the former Soviet Union.

From 1995 to 2002, Mr. Myers served as a legislative assistant for national security and foreign affairs for Sen. Lugar. He assisted the senator in his role as a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Senate National Security Working Group and Russia Working Group.

Prior to joining the senator's staff, Mr. Myers was a senior associate at the firm of Robinson Lake Sawyer Miller in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in U.S. public and private sector investments to the successor states to the former Soviet Union and was responsible for establishing that firm's office in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Mr. Myers holds a master's degree from the Catholic University of America and a liberal arts and sciences degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.