Matt Pelak, a career civil servant, has spent over 15 years in the Army on active duty and in the National Guard, including a deployment to Iraq in 2004.He is currently serving as a Long Range Surveillance team leader in the Maryland National Guard. Matt has served as a contractor for the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service with multiple deployments to Iraq as well as work in Africa. In the civilian sector, Matt has worked as a paramedic for over 12 years and currently works in Poughkeepsie, NY as a firefighter/paramedic.Matt, a Truman National Security Project fellow, is also adjunct faculty at the National Center for Security and Preparedness at SUNY Albany and is a graduate of Harvard University’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard’s Kennedy School.