Advisory Board

Flashpoint's Advisory Board includes leaders in the private sector and former senior government officials who provide advice and counsel to Flashpoint's management team.

Don Codling: Don Codling joined Signature Systems LLC as Chief Information Security Officer in July 2011. He retired from the FBI in May 2011 after more than 23 years of service. He served as Supervisory Special Agent (SSA), Unit Chief and DHS National Cyber Security Division Liaison from Cyber Division, FBI in Washington, D.C.

During his FBI career, Codling worked in a variety of investigative programs, including International Cyber Crime Operations, Foreign Counter-Intelligence, Technical Operations, Undercover Operations, and Violent Crime. He was the lead investigator or supervisor on numerous major domestic and international criminal, cyber crime, counterterrorism, and counter-intelligence cases, as well as many long-term undercover operations. Codling served three years as co-chairman of an international cyber crime working group consisting of the heads of the Cyber Investigative Departments of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. He co-chaired several Internet security, stability and governance policy working groups with law enforcement and government agencies in Africa, the Pacific Rim, and Europe. He also served as Assistant FBI Legal Attaché in Paris, as well as Bridgetown, Barbados. The FBI, DHS and members of the international intelligence community have formally recognized him for outstanding inter-agency liaison work.

Before joining the FBI, he was an engineer for a telecommunications firm in Dallas. Following service in the Marine Corps, Codling received his BS in Civil Engineering from Norwich University.

Roger Cressey: A nationally known counterterrorism and cyber security expert, Booz Allen Hamilton Senior Vice President Roger Cressey supports the firm's cyber security business and international government clients. He also oversees Booz Allen's efforts in Smart Power, a whole-of-government approach for advancing national security that requires collaboration among multiple federal agencies with overlapping missions.

Mr. Cressey served in senior cyber security and counterterrorism positions in the Clinton and Bush Administrations, including Chief of Staff of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board from 2001 to 2002. He also served as Deputy of Counterterrorism on the U.S. National Security Council staff, where he oversaw coordination and implementation of U.S. counterterrorism policy. He managed the U.S. government response to numerous terrorism incidents, including the 9/11 and USS Cole attacks. He also held various roles within the Departments of Defense and State.

In addition, Mr. Cressey is the former founder and president of Good Harbor Consulting LLC, a Virginia-based security and risk management firm. His career highlights also include several years as an on-air counterterrorism analyst for NBC News. He taught a graduate course on U.S. counterterrorism policy at Georgetown University. Mr. Cressey received Meritorious and Superior Honor Awards from the State Department and the Defense Department's Exceptional Civilian Service Award.

He earned a M.A. degree in security policy studies from The George Washington University and a B.A. in political science from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

Jim Putt: Jim Putt served in the Central Intelligence Agency's Clandestine Service for nearly 20 years. Mr. Putt is an Arabic speaker and spent some 15 years serving in the Middle East and South Asia, focused on terrorism issues.

Bruce Riedel: Bruce Riedel is a Senior Fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He retired in 2006 after 30 years service at the Central Intelligence Agency including postings overseas. He was a senior advisor on South Asia and the Middle East to the last four Presidents of the United States in the staff of the National Security Council at the White House. He was also Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Near East and South Asia at the Pentagon and a senior advisor at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels. In January 2009, President Barack Obama asked him to chair a review of American policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan, the results of which the President announced in a speech on March 27, 2009.

He is the author of The Search for al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology and Future and contributor to Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia: The Causes and Consequences of the Kargil Conflict, Toughing it Out in Afghanistan, The Reluctant Spy, Which Path to Persia: Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran and The Battle for Yemen: Al Qaeda and the Struggle for Stability. He teaches at Georgetown University’s School for Foreign Service and the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies.

He is a graduate of Brown (BA), Harvard (MA) and the Royal College of Defense Studies in London.

Donald Upson: Donald Upson is a founding partner of UpsonVito, a marketing firm specializing in the government technology and management sectors, and in assisting companies and governments in acquiring and utilizing information and communications technologies to meet government challenges and improve service delivery. In addition to marketing and business services, UpsonVito organizes the government technology sector's premier annual policy conference, CES Government, which is held annually in partnership with International CES. The firm also manages the Government Business Executive Forum, an elite organization of business executives whose primary business interest is the government technology and management arena.

For more than three decades Upson has held senior management positions in government and private sector organizations.

From 2002 to 2009, Upson built a successful marketing firm, ICG Government, where he served as president and founder. ICG Government was sold to UpsonVito in 2009.

Upson served as Virginia and the country's first Secretary of Technology, an office that combined traditional functions of a chief information officer with broader economic development and R&D responsibilities.

He holds a BA in Economics and Political Science from California State University, Chico and completed his graduate work in Public Administration at George Washington University.