James Aldrich, Associate Director for Education & Training , Cyber Florida

James Aldrich Bio:

Jim joined the Center in July 2022 after serving over 50 years in the Intelligence Community (IC) in a variety of positions focused on Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Cyber Security missions as well as associated Education & Training. He is a retired Marine Corps Intelligence Officer, and Arabic linguist, who served 28 years in a wide range of assignments within the U.S. and overseas locations. After retiring in 1998, he worked for the Aerospace Corporation supporting the National Reconnaissance Office from 1998-2002 and then became a National Security Agency (NSA) employee for 20 years; the last 18 as a member of the Senior Executive Service (SES). He held several positions spanning the agency’s SIGINT and Cyber Security missions: NSA Representative to U.S. Special Operations Command, NSA Representative to U.S. Transportation Command and NSA Representative (forward deployed) in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. In these roles he evaluated the customers’ requirements and ensured agency resources were applied - where possible. 2004 – 2010 Jim served as the senior NSA official in Operations at the agency’s facility on Fort Gordon Georgia – focused largely on support to USSOCOM, USCENTCOM, and JSOC. Based on his breadth of experience, and previous work as both an Instructor and Course Director, he was selected to serve as the Deputy Commandant of NSA’s National Cryptologic University; responsible for orchestrating Education & Training to over 40,000 civilians and military members working with the agency. In his last assignment at NSA his office provided strategic planning support to the NSA Board of Directors and several large NSA organizations located both in the U.S. and overseas locations. Jim is a graduate of Texas A&M (BA in International Relations) and the U.S. Naval War College (MA in National Security & Strategic Studies) and has also completed several Senior Executive level leadership courses sponsored by the IC and DoD. He has been married to his wife Marilyn since 1973. Jim & Marilyn both grew up in southeastern Illinois farm country. They live near Center Hill Florida on a 14-acre horse farm. They have three adult children, ten grandchildren and a growing number of great grandchildren.