Esteemed Speaker

www.understandingthethreat.com

John Guandolo is the Founder of UnderstandingTheThreat.com, an organization dedicated to providing strategic and operational threat-focused consultation, education, and training for federal, state and local leadership and agencies, and designing strategies at all levels of the community in order to defeat the jihadi threat.

Mr. Guandolo is a 1989 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who took a commission as an Officer in the United States Marine Corps. He served with 2d Battalion 2d Marines as an Infantry Platoon Commander in combat Operations Desert Shield/Storm. From 1991-1996, he served in 2d Force Reconnaissance Company as a Platoon Commander, Assistant Operations Officer, and the unit’s Airborne and Diving Officer. During this time, he also deployed to the Adriatic/Bosnia. He served for one year as the Unit Leader for the CINC’s In-Extremis Force, directly reporting to a Combatant Commander in a classified mission profile. Mr. Guandolo was a combat diver, military free-fall parachutist, and a graduate of the U.S. Army Ranger School.

In 1996, Mr. Guandolo resigned his commission in the Marine Corps and joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), serving at the Washington Field Office. From 1996-2000, he primarily conducted narcotics investigations domestically and overseas. In 2001, he served for one year as the FBI Liaison to the U.S. Capitol Police investigating threats on high-level government officials. Shortly after 9/11, Mr. Guandolo began an assignment to the Counter-terrorism Division of the FBI’s Washington Field Office developing an expertise in the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Doctrine, the global Islamic Movement, and terrorist organizations including Hamas, Al Qaeda, and others.

In 2006, Mr. Guandolo was designated a “Subject Matter Expert” by FBI Headquarters and

created and implemented the FBI’s first Counterterrorism Training Program focused on the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Doctrine, and the global Islamic Movement, and. This course was hailed as “groundbreaking” by the FBI’s Executive Assistant Director in a brief to the Vice President’s National Security Staff.