Mr. Norwitz Biography
Jeffrey H. Norwitz has five decades of national security experience at the military, municipal, federal levels and as an author and educator. He completed a BS in Criminal Justice at Eastern Kentucky University in 1974. After graduation, he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Military Police Corps guarding nuclear weapons. in 1977 he joined the El Paso County Sheriff's Office in Colorado Springs where his specialty assignments included SWAT team sniper, firearms instructor, traffic accident reconstruction, DUI enforcement, as well as Commander of the Bomb Squad responding to more than 500 incidents involving explosives.
He joined the civilian ranks of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) in 1985 and served tours of duty stateside and overseas specializing in counterintelligence, counterespionage, and counterterrorism. This included an assignment at Camp Delta, Guantanamo with the Criminal Investigation Task Force interviewing al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. His last assignment was as NCIS supervisory special agent responsible for counterintelligence throughout New England.
In 2001, Mr. Norwitz earned an MA in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College and thereafter joined the faculty as Professor of National Security Studies and the NCIS advisor for eight years. He held the John Nicholas Brown Chair of Counterterrorism at the Naval War College and lectured extensively across the country and for allied militaries on matters relating to terrorism, intelligence, and homeland security. In February 2009, Mr. Norwitz spoke at the United Nations on global water security.
In 1994, the Honorable John H. Dalton, Secretary of the Navy, personally presented Mr. Norwitz the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Medal for highly classified national security intelligence work. He received a second Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Medal for his intelligence and counterterrorism accomplishments during the 1998 hostilities of Operation Desert Fox. In 2006, he was voted Eastern Kentucky University’s College of Business and Technology’s Distinguished Alumnus. In 2008, he was awarded the Defense Department's Counterintelligence and Law Enforcement Award for Teaching Excellence. Upon his retirement from NCIS in 2009, he was awarded the Navy Superior Civilian Service Medal for his academic achievements and the Defense Department Civilian Service Medal for the Global War on Terrorism.
Mr. Norwitz is a celebrated author. His articles have been published in the Naval War College Review, Military Review, Journal of Homeland Security, Singapore Home Team Academy Journal, and Officer Review. His scholarly work also appears in Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Understanding the New Security Environment (McGraw-Hill, 2003); American Defense Policy, 8th ed. (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005); Practical Bomb Scene Investigation (CRC Press, 2006); Defending the Homeland: Historical Perspectives on Radicalism, Terrorism, and State Responses (West Virginia University Press: 2007) ; Armed Groups: Studies in National Security, Counterterrorism, and Counterinsurgency (Naval War College: 2008) ; and Homeland Security and Intelligence (Westwood: Praeger Publishers, 2010).
After retiring from NCIS in 2009, Mr. Norwitz was a Senior Instructor with the Counterterrorism Division at Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Brunswick, Georgia. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard University, Qatar International Academy for Security Studies, and lectured at The Geneva Centre for Security Policy.
Since 2011, Mr. Norwitz teaches a 3-day course on Middle Eastern Intelligence for law enforcement and military intelligence audiences.
Mr. Norwitz has three grown children, one of whom is United States Air Force retired.
