As Steven E. Calvery approaches retirement following 10 years as the director of the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, he leaves a long-lasting legacy of post-9/11 protection and security accomplishments at the Pentagon and other federal agencies in his 40-year career.
Calvery spoke with DoD News about the growth of the protection agency and how his federal career led him to experiences he never would have expected as a law enforcement official.
Calvery credits his Japanese mother for instilling her traits of strength and resilience in him.
She led her two sisters out of Tokyo to safety in the country during the March 1945 fire bombings on the city. She has been a powerful influence on his life.
Mom Provided Strength
“It’s not because she is Japanese,” Calvery said of his mother’s strength. “It’s because of what she went through. It’s hard for me to believe she went through [those experiences] and that she’s the person she is today at age 90 -- still very confident and sure of herself.”
Calvery, an Army helicopter pilot during the Vietnam era, said that resilience combined with his numerous federal law enforcement and security experiences helped to prepare him for his position at PFPA. “This job has been the pinnacle of my career,” he added.
He spent 21 years with the Secret Service, finishing his career serving Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton on their protection detail and managing the service’s training academy. Afterward, he became a Treasury Department senior law enforcement advisor, where he experienced a new learning curve in his law enforcement career.
He went on to the Department of Interior, comprising the third-largest federal law enforcement force in the U.S. government, where he would take on tough national security issues following the Sept. 11, 2011, terrorist attacks on the United States.
9/11 Prompts Increased Security
When the world changed on 9/11, the Department of Interior and its many agencies began security infrastructure measures that never existed before, Calvery said.
“There was no culture of security in DOI, and I was tasked by the secretary to look at the department’s critical assets and come up with a plan to protect them, such as the Statue of Liberty, Lincoln Memorial, Mount Rushmore and major U.S. dams such as the Hoover [in Nevada], operated by DOI’s Bureau of Reclamation,” he said. It became Calvery’s job to stand up DOI’s first security infrastructure.
The director said one achievement in which he takes pride was standing up the post-9/11 security screening infrastructure on The National Mall for the Fourth of July celebration, which screens hundreds of thousands of people every year. “It’s still done today, and I think it’s necessary,” he said.
By 2006, after Calvery set up numerous DOI security measures -- he had worked himself out of his job, he said with a smile -- he began the search for a new challenge. He became the second director, a Senior Executive Service position, with the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, which also was stood up shortly after 9 /11.
Dramatic Changes
“The agency [has] changed dramatically,” he said, noting that it has grown from 340 to more than 1,200 employees. With evolving global threats in today’s world, his job entails keeping safe 25,000 people in the Pentagon, a very complex security environment -- a national icon and the military command center for the Defense Department, he said.
He also is responsible for the security of another 30,000 DoD employees in the National Capital Region facilities and thousands of visitors every day, he said.
While addressing the day-to-day security challenges at the Pentagon, Calvery also plans for the agency’s future workforce. “My goal is to recruit a diverse group of candidates to the agency,” Calvery said.
He said he wants the agency to attract more women than the existing 16 percent it employs.
“[We] try to attract the best and brightest,” he added.
“I’m very proud of the people who work in the agency, of their dedication to the mission and protecting the Pentagon,” he said. “They work very hard -- it’s difficult and challenging work.”