Derek is an economist and intelligence professional with 15+ years of experience supporting the U.S. military and interagency partners, focused primarily in the areas of financial intelligence and counter threat finance (CTF). He is currently a technical advisor at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) supporting economic defense and resiliency projects, and had previously provided financial analysis and intelligence support to numerous law enforcement and military operations aimed at degrading adversarial finances.

 

Prior to joining Whistle Lake, Derek served as a senior CTF analyst for United States Central Command (USCENTCOM), providing intelligence support and planning for finance targeting against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and other adversaries. He has also provided forensic accounting and analysis for U.S. Army Counterintelligence and completed a tour in 2012 with the Afghanistan Threat Finance Cell (ATFC) - serving as the senior CTF analyst for Regional Command North (RC-N).

 

Derek is an Iraq veteran and serves concurrently in the U.S. Army Reserves. He has been a Battalion S-2, Brigade Collection Manager, Division Current Operations Intelligence Officer, a Targeting Intelligence Officer and an ISR/Collection Planner, and is now providing part-time support to the USCENTCOM Intelligence Plans Division (CCJ25). He holds a Bachelor of Science in Management from Purdue University, a Master of Arts in Economics from Clemson University, and a PhD in Economics from George Mason University.