ADVISORY BOARD
At Decision Sciences, we recognize the value of teaming with industry experts and developing strategic relationships to accelerate the development and deployment of this critically-needed technology. The Company’s commitment to building relationships with leaders and experts with complementary capabilities will help us meet market demand and will ultimately increase the security of the global community. Decision Sciences benefits from its relationship with a diverse group of successful scientists, business leaders and entrepreneurs. Each brings unique and valuable knowledge from government relations to strategic business advice, from expertise in the defense and homeland security sectors to finance and construction. Our outstanding Advisory Board members are listed below.
Pasquale "Pat" D'Amuro - Advisory Board Chair
Mr. D'Amuro is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Giuliani Security & Safety LLC, a division of Giuliani Partners LLC dedicated to security consulting. Before joining Giuliani Security & Safety, Mr. D'Amuro served as the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York FBI Office, where he began his FBI career in 1979. Much of Mr. D'Amuro's twenty-six year career has been devoted to counterterrorism, in which he is an internationally recognized expert.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Mr. D'Amuro was appointed Inspector in Charge of the FBI's investigation of those attacks. Subsequently, Mr. D'Amuro served as Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division at FBI Headquarters and, later, Executive Assistant Director for Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence. In these capacities, he was instrumental in the creation and management of the FBI's Terrorism Threat Integration Center and Terrorism Watch List.
During his distinguished career at the FBI, Mr. D'Amuro contributed to or led several high profile investigations, including the investigations of the 1998 bombings of the American Embassies in East Africa and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, as well as the latter stages of the investigations of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Manila Air plot, and the crash of TWA Flight 800. Mr. D'Amuro has provided advice and briefings to the President of the United States, the U.S. Attorney General, the Director of the FBI, and the National Security Council, among others.
Dr. Raphael "Raffi" Amit - Advisor
Dr. Amit is the Robert B. Goergen Professor of Entrepreneurship and a Professor of Management at the Wharton School. Dr. Amit is the Academic Director of the Goergen Entrepreneurial Management Programs which encompasses all of Wharton’s entrepreneurial programs. As well, he co-founded and leads the Wharton Global Family Alliance (WGFA), a unique academic-family business partnership established to enhance the marketplace advantage and the social wealth creation contributions of global families through thought leadership, knowledge transfer and the sharing of ideas and best practices among influential global families. Dr Amit has published extensively his empirical and field research on a broad range of issues that relate to Families and their businesses and is frequently quoted in the press.
Prior to joining the Wharton Faculty, Dr. Amit has been the Peter Wall Distinguished Professor at the Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration, University of British Columbia (UBC), where he was the founding director of the W. Maurice Young Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research Center. Between 1983 and 1990, Dr. Amit served on the faculty of the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, where he received the J.L. Kellogg Research Professorship and the Richard M. Paget Research Chair in Business Policy.
Dr. Amit holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in Economics, and received his Ph.D. in Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences from Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
Dr. Amit serves on the editorial board of Wharton Publishing. He completed a three-year term as an Associate Editor of Management Science; a 7 year term on the Editorial Board of the European Management Journal; a 9 year term on the Editorial Board of Organizational Science; a 12 year term on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Business Venturing; and a 15 year term on the editorial board of the Strategic Management Journal. His research and teaching interests center on performance implications of family owned, controlled, or managed firms, entrepreneurship in independent and corporate settings, business models and business strategy, and on venture capital and private equity investments. Among the journals that have published his extensive academic research are the Academy of Management Journal, California Management Review, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Business Venturing, the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, the Journal of Management, Management Science, Operations Research, the Strategic Management Journal, the European Journal of Management, and a range of trade publications.
Professor Amit has extensive industry and consulting experience. He consults to substantial families throughout the world on strategy, governance and wealth management issues. He has held a range of management and Board of Directors positions in entrepreneurial settings and participated in the formation and growth of numerous companies.
He served as Chair of the Board of Directors of Creo Products Inc., (NASDAQ symbol CREO until May 2005 when it was acquired by Kodak.), between January 1996 and February 2001. Creo is a global high technology firm, with unique imaging technology, that is the world’s leading supplier of computer to plate imaging equipment for the printing industry. Dr. Amit served on both the Audit and Compensation Committees of Creo. Dr. Amit has been an active early stage Venture Capital investor, and has also consulted to private and public sector organizations in North America and Europe on a broad range of strategic issues, and on entrepreneurial management and new venture formation issues. Professor Amit has helped form the Korean Global IT Fund, a $100 million VC fund with offices in Palo Alto and Seoul and has served as the first Chairman of the KGIF Advisory Board. He now serves on the Board of Directors of Alvarion Ltd. (NASDAQ: ALVR), a leading wireless communication equipment company.
Dr. Amit is a member of the Compensation, Nominating and Governance Committee of Alvarion Ltd. He also serves on the Audit Committee, where he is the designated financial expert. As well, Dr. Amit provides advice to management on a range of strategic issues.
Dr. Amit has extensive experience in executive education having taught a range of courses in North America, Europe, Asia, and in Australia.
Justin G. Cooper- Advisor
Mr. Cooper serves as Senior Advisor to President William J. Clinton.
He advises President Clinton on a broad range of issues, including finances, business matters, public affairs and politics. Additionally, Mr. Cooper advises and assists in operating the Clinton Foundation, Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Family Foundation. As a key member of his inner-most team, Mr. Cooper's advice and influence is unrivalled.
Mr. Cooper manages the President's foreign and domestic travel, his professional and personal relationships, as well as daily operations of his organization and staff activities. In this capacity, he has traveled the world with the President participating in bilateral meetings with foreign dignitaries and as his adviser and liaison for his relationships with world leaders, on speaking engagements, fundraisers, conferences and other events.
Mr. Cooper began working in the White House in 1999 and over the past 12 years, has served as Staff Assistant in the Oval Office, Special Assistant to President Clinton and The President's Aide.
He played the lead role with the President and the publishers on Clinton's best selling memoir My Life and his philanthropic book Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World. Assisting with archival research, editing, and sourcing, Mr. Cooper managed the books from start to finish.
Mr. Cooper holds a Juris Doctorate from Fordham University Law School in New York City, and a Bachelor of Arts cum laude from American University in Washington, DC. Currently he serves on the Board of Directors of the American University in Dubai and as a Senior Advisor to Teneo Holdings.
Dr. Stephen Flynn - Advisor
Dr. Stephen Flynn is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on container and port security. In 1991, he began investigating the exploitation of containerized cargo for smuggling contraband while serving as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast Guard and a scholar at the Brookings Institution.
Dr. Flynn has presented congressional testimony before the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives on container, port, and maritime security on 14 occasions. From 2003-2004 he served as the Principal Advisor, for the Bi-partisan Congressional Port Security Caucus, U.S. House of Representatives & U.S. Senate. He provided expert advice and comments and recommendations in support of the drafting of the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002, the Safe Port Act of 2006, and the 9/11 Recommendations Act of 2007. Dr. Flynn also developed and secured the original funding and legislative support for the post-9/11 Operation Safe Commerce initiative. From 2003-2010 he served as a member of the National Research Council’s Marine Board.
Dr. Flynn has traveled extensively abroad where he has investigated port and container security and provided expert advice to government and industry leaders in the ports of Hong Kong, Singapore, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Bremerhaven, Felixstowe, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Panama, Vancouver, Montreal, and Halifax. He has visited all the major ports in the United States and has been sought out for his expert advice by the Port of Los Angeles, Port Authority of New York/New Jersey, Port of Seattle, Port of Tacoma, Port of Long Beach, Port of Miami, and Port of Baltimore.
Dr. Flynn served as the principal investigator and co-author of the first comprehensive analytical and technical assessment on “Measuring the Operational Impact of Container Inspections at International Ports” with Prof. Nitin Bakshi, London Business School and Prof. Noah Gans, the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
In addition to specializing in container/supply chain, port, and maritime security, Dr. Flynn is recognized as one the nation’s top authorities on homeland security. In the fall of 2008 he served as the lead homeland security policy adviser for the Presidential Transition Team for President Barack Obama and currently serves as part of a blue-ribbon panel on homeland security co-chaired by former 9/11 co-chairs, Governor Tom Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton. Prior to September 11, 2001, he served as an expert advisor on homeland security to U.S. Commission on National Security (Hart-Rudman Commission), and following the 9/11 attacks he was the executive director of a blue-ribbon Council on Foreign Relations homeland security task force, again co-led by former Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman. He has written numerous articles and two of the most widely-cited books on homeland security The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation (Random House, 2000) and America the Vulnerable (HarperCollins 2004)] and frequently advised the Bush Administration on maritime and homeland security issues. Within the Obama Administration he served as a lead-advisor to the Congressionally-mandated Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) working group on transportation security, critical infrastructure protection, weapons of mass destruction, and cyber security. The strategic guidance prepared by this group for the federal government on these issues was released in January 2010.
A 1982 graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Dr. Flynn served in the Coast Guard on active duty for 20 years, including two tours as commanding officer at sea, received several professional awards including the Legion of Merit, and retired at the rank of Commander. As a Coast Guard officer, he served in the White House Military Office during the George H.W. Bush administration and as a director for Global Issues on the National Security Council staff during the Clinton administration.
Joseph L. Patanella - Advisor
Mr. Patanella is an innovative and driven leader focused on achieving exceptional results in new and emerging markets. As CEO of Trusted Knight Corporation, a leading provider of security solutions focused on defeating newly developed crimeware trojans responsible for the vast majority of financial fraud being perpetrated online, the company has brought two commercial products to market and sold a three-year enterprise license to a top 10 U.S. bank within 6 months.
He founded and serves on the Board of Directors of TrustWave Corporation, a leader in information security worldwide, where he established TrustWave as the dominant market leader in worldwide information security in the electronic payments industry (~75% market share). Leveraging expertise and relationships developed during his 18 year career with the National Security Agency, Mr. Patanella opened new and lucrative sales channels with government agencies and top tier banks.
Mr. Patanella served as the National Security Agency's representative to the Senate Intelligence Committee's Technical Advisory Group, which included world-renowned former government and industry leaders. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Maryland and attended John Hopkins University for post-graduate study.
Mr. Patanella is a recognized industry expert on information security and compliance and has been involved in several successful entrepreneurial projects and start-up companies throughout the years in a wide variety of areas.
Lee R. Raymond - Advisor
Lee R. Raymond was Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of ExxonMobil from 1999 until his retirement in December 2005. Prior to his tenure at ExxonMobil, Mr. Raymond was Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Exxon Corporation from 1993 until its merger with Mobil Oil Corporation in 1999, having begun his career in 1963 with Exxon. Mr. Raymond graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1960 and received a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1963. He is a director of the Business Council for International Understanding, a director of JP Morgan Chase & Co., a Trustee of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, a Trustee of the Mayo Clinic, a member of the Innovations in Medicine Leadership Council of UT Southwestern Medical Center, a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a member and past Chairman of the National Petroleum Council. Mr. Raymond also serves on an advisory panel to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
Luke Ritter - Advisor
Mr.Ritter leads the Global Trade Security practice at Ridge Global, which provides strategic management consulting services to clients focused on critical infrastructure protection.
His expertise is in the areas of global trade and transportation operations, security and resiliency, and business process improvement. He is the co-author of: Securing Global Transportation Networks, which has received widespread critical acclaim from industry publications such as Logistics Today, The Maritime Executive, Traffic World, and Supply Chain Management Review, and was selected as the American Society for Industrial Security, ‘Book of the Month’, in December of 2006.
Prior to joining Ridge Global, Mr. Ritter was the founder and CEO of Trident Global Partners, a management consulting firm specializing in transportation security.
Mr. Ritter has spoken at more than twenty five industry and trade events in the last five years, including keynote addresses at The American Association of Port Authorities Annual Security Conference, and the Logistics Management Magazine Global Supply Chain Conference. He has recently been published and quoted in Journal of Commerce, Security Management, Directors Monthly, Traffic World, and Cargo Security International.
He has pioneered the concept of Total Security Management (TSM), an enterprise risk management methodology that connects the fundamental principles of quality management with security management. TSM has been described as: “the place for corporations to draw the line in the sand where security and resilience is concerned.”
Mr. Ritter is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and holds an M.B.A from Old Dominion University, with a concentration in maritime and logistics management. He is board certified by the American Society of Transportation and Logistics (AST&L), and recently completed his tenure as the Vice Chairman of the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS) Transportation Security Council. He serves on the Advisory Boards of iJET, Inc., and Decision Sciences, and is a contributing scholar at the Heritage Foundation.
Dr. William Schneider, Jr. - Advisor
William Schneider, Jr. is President of International Planning Services, Inc., a Washington-based international trade and finance advisory firm, and is an Adjunct Fellow of the Hudson Institute. He was formerly Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and Technology (1982-1986). He served as Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget (1981-2) prior to being nominated as Under Secretary by the President. In addition, Dr. Schneider serves as an advisor to the U.S. government in several capacities. He currently serves as Member of the Department of State's Defense Trade Advisory Group was Chairman from 1992-2010. He previously served as Chairman of the President's General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament from 1987 to 1993, and the Defense Science Board from 2001-2009. He currently serves as a Senior Fellow of the DSB.
He is an economist and defense analyst and was formerly a Staff Associate of the Subcommittees on Defense and Foreign Operations of the Committee on Appropriations in the U.S. House of Representatives and a consultant to the Hudson Institute (New York). Prior to joining the House of Representatives staff in 1977, he was a U.S. Senate staff member (1971-7) and a professional staff member of the Hudson Institute (1967-71).
Dr. Schneider received his Ph.D. degree from New York University in 1968. He is a member of the American Economic Association, the Econometric Society, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Frances F. Townsend - Advisor
Frances Fragos Townsend is the Senior Vice President of Worldwide Government, Legal and Business Affairs at MacAndrews and Forbes Holdings, Inc. Ms. Townsend was a corporate partner at the law firm of Baker Botts, LLP. Previously, she served as Assistant to President George W. Bush for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism and chaired the Homeland Security Council from May 2004 until January 2008. She previously served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism from May 2003 to May 2004. Ms.Townsend is an on air contributor for CNN as a counterterrorism, national and homeland security expert. Prior to serving the President, Ms. Townsend was the first Assistant Commandant for Intelligence for the U. S. Coast Guard. Before that, Ms. Townsend spent 13 years at the U.S. Department of Justice under the administrations of President George H. W. Bush, President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush. Ms. Townsend is a Director and chairs the compensation committees of 2 private company Boards and serves as Director of a public company. She serves on numerous government advisory and nonprofit boards. Ms. Townsend chairs the Board of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.