Joe Ruffini

Joe Ruffini is an established anti-terrorism, homeland defense, and school safety subject matter expert, practitioner, and speaker. Joe has logged more than 8,000 presentation hours internationally, training diverse audiences to include Fortune 500 companies, the Department of Defense, intelligence agencies, first responders, schools, and civic organizations. His most requested presentation topics include anti-terrorism awareness, preparedness and prevention; strategic communications and information operations; homeland security & defense; school safety & active shooter prevention; and DoD Program Protection & Operations Security. Mr. Ruffini was accredited by the Anti-Terrorism Accreditation Board (ATAB) as a Certified Master Anti-Terrorism Specialist.

Joe Ruffini was born in Washington, D.C. He attended the University of Virginia on an Army ROTC scholarship. His diverse military experience includes command of armor and armored cavalry units in both the U.S. and British Armies and counter-terror experience in Germany and Cyprus. In the early 1990s, as a space operations expert, Major Ruffini commanded the United States Space Surveillance Center and the Space Defense Operations Center in Cheyenne Mountain. As a Lieutenant Colonel, Joe served the U.S. Space Command as its Chief of Special Plans and Chief of Special Technical Operations, where he honed his expertise across the full spectrum of defense security disciplines. Joe Ruffini monitors international affairs, current and emerging threats to the United States Government and private enterprise on a wide scale –from the overseas theft of American intellectual property and the terror threats to the Middle East and global, nation state power struggles. In the private sector, Joe is a seasoned business developer, marketer, and program manager. His commercial initiatives span the spectrum from entrepreneurial projects in the Middle East to enterprise security consulting for Fortune 1000 companies.

Joe served our nation as an Executive Consultant supporting several Department of Defense Unified Commands and the White House National Security Council in support of counter insurgency and information operations for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most recently, he spearheaded a five and one-half year effort at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) resurrecting and promulgating Program Protection planning and operations security for that 14,000 member agency.

Joe teamed with the University of Rhode Island Feinstein College of Education and Professional Studies, as an adjunct instructor, where he created and taught online courses in Transnational Terror, Homeland Security and Defense. His first book, When Terror Comes to Main Street: A Citizens Guide to Terror Awareness, Preparedness, and Prevention,” was published in 2008 by the Special Operations Association. Joe’s second book, Osama bin Laden: His Death and the Future of Al Qaeda and the Islamist Jihad was published by eBook company Hyperink, Inc., and became available for download on Amazon.com quickly after bin Laden’s demise in May of 2011. He is completing his third citizen awareness book, Vigilance Not Paranoia: What We Need to Know and Do About Terrorists and Active Shooters.

Joe lives in Severn, Maryland.