Rusty Capps’ Full CV
One of the country's leading instructors and advocates for counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and security awareness education, Capps is sought after by academic, public, and private sector organizations to provide insight on issues relating to our national security. He is an accomplished educator who imparts a passion for these topics and impresses upon students the importance they bear on our national security and foreign policy. He has extraordinary knowledge of cases and events relating to counterterrorism and counterintelligence and is able to speak on numerous different topics, many of which are taken directly from his past experiences as an FBI agent.
In January 2020, Capps accepted the position of Director of the Leadership Initiatives’ Youth Development Program’s Seminar on National Security & Intelligence which is now scheduled to run from June 28th to July 10th, 2020, at Georgetown University.
From August 2017 to January 2018, he was an Adjunct Professor at Radford University, in south-central Virginia. While at Radford he taught Junior-Senior Seminars titled: Terrorism and Homeland Security Issues; and US Intelligence and Federal Law Enforcement: 1776 – Present.
From September 2009 to the present, Capps has been the president of Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence Training Partners LLC. This professional education partnership brings together a number of noted experts to once again provide strategic and tactical training to a broad cross section of the intelligence, CT, CI, law enforcement and security communities.
From 2007 until October, 2012, Capps and other instructors of CT/CI Training Partners LLC, presented 31 runnings of the 5-day course titled Practical Perspectives on Counterterror Operation under contract with the Training Branch of DOE’s Office of Counterintelligence. Attendees numbered more than 1100 students from the following local, state and federal intelligence and law enforcement departments and agencies:
DOD, Air Force OSI, NSA, FBI, OPM, US Coast Guard, US Capitol Police, DOE, TSA, DHS, 902d MI Brigade, ICE, JIEDDO, U.S. Marshals Service, ATF, INTERPOL, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, DIA, Defense Security Service Academy, Joint Chiefs of Staff, State Dept. Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Pennsylvania Task Force, Lancaster PD, Army Intelligence, National Counterterrorism Center, Mechanicsburg Police Department, NCIS, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, DTRA, the Federal Protective Service, NYPD, NY JTTF, National JTTF, US Navy Fleet Antiterrorism Operations, Montgomery County Police Department, Fairfax Police Department, Prince Georges County Fire and Police Departments, DC Metropolitan Police Department, US Bureau of Prisons, Federal Air Marshals Service, Coppin State University, Howard County Police Department, Aberdeen Police Department, Richmond Police Department, Baltimore County Police Department, Maryland Stadium Authority, Minneapolis Police Department, Charleston Police Department (West Virginia).
From October 2006 to June 2007, Capps was employed by TKC Communications Corporation and inserted full-time into the Department of Energy’s Counterintelligence Directorate as a Senior Functional Analyst. In this capacity, he developed and delivered counterterrorism and counterintelligence training to DOE personnel. While at DOE he developed and delivered a 5-day class called Practical Perspectives on Counterterror Operations (PPCTO). The PPCTO course was an overview of the evolution of the international and domestic terror threat; the patterns, myths, tactics, and lessons learned from the study of terror group operations; and the security and counterintelligence tradecraft used to prevent, disrupt, and neutralize terror attacks.
From March 1997 until May 2006, Capps was President of the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies. As CCISS president, he was responsible for administrative and operational functions as well as the preparation and delivery of the various educational products that the Centre provided. He has created and delivered a variety of counterterrorism and counterintelligence courses for government agencies, private sector companies, and university graduate and undergraduate programs. Among the many subjects he has taught are recruitment; elicitation; double agent operations; denial and deception operations in WWII and Vietnam; counterterrorism and counterintelligence history, tactics and strategy; the evolution of terror; and the history of al Qaeda and ISIS.
From September 1996 until March 1997, Capps was on the faculty of the National Intellectual Property Law Institute. As a professor of National Security Affairs, he was responsible for the presentation of courses and lectures on intelligence countermeasures and security topics.
Capps retired as an FBI Supervisory Special Agent in 1995 after 21 years with the Bureau. His first field investigative assignment as an FBI Special Agent was in the San Francisco Division from 1974-1978. There, he worked on the Patty Hearst case, bank robberies, thefts from interstate shipments, and other criminal violations. In 1978, he was transferred to the Los Angeles Division and worked undercover for two years in the Foreign Counterintelligence Program. In 1980, he was an investigator assigned to the Bell-Zacharski espionage case. In 1981, Capps began working on counterterrorism cases and specialized in Iranian and Armenian terrorist groups. In 1984, he managed the Anti-Terrorist Operations Center during the Los Angeles Olympics and oversaw the activities of 300 analysts, investigators and surveillance personnel.
Selected by the FBI in 1990 to be the first national manager of the Development of Espionage and Counterintelligence Awareness (DECA) program, Capps was assigned to FBIHQ and directed the activities of 56 field office coordinators, produced videos, wrote numerous articles, and briefed members of Congress, their staff, government contractors and private organizations. In 1994 he was assigned to manage the private sector outreach program at the newly created National Counterintelligence Center (NACIC), which was staffed with counterintelligence experts from across the US Intelligence Community.
Capps served on active duty as a Regular Army officer for seven years. His highest military grade was Major and his significant assignments included: an Aide-de-Camp to a Major General, command of an infantry company during the Vietnam War, and executive officer of the 1/3 Infantry, The Old Guard. While serving in Vietnam, Captain Capps received 21 awards and decorations, including the Bronze Star and the Army Commendation medals for Valor.
Capps is a Distinguished Military Graduate from the University of Arizona, receiving a bachelor's degree in History in 1965. He also was awarded a master's degree in International Business from the Arizona State University’s American Graduate School of International Management in Glendale, Arizona in 1971, and completed all coursework for a master's in Psychology from California State University at Dominguez Hills in 1984. His FBI teaching experience includes appointment as an FBI Police Instructor in 1982, assignment to the staff of the Counterintelligence Training Unit at FBIHQ in 1990, and as an instructor at the FBI Academy at Quantico Virginia.
He has taught graduate students as an Adjunct Professor for Boston University at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC, beginning in 1996 and as an Associate Professor at George Washington University in 2003. Capps has also taught undergraduate classes at the United States Military Academy at West Point; the University of Maryland; Flagler College in St Augustine, Florida; Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia; and as Adjunct Professor at Radford University in Virginia Homeland Security Issues and the Evolution of federal Law Enforcement and Intelligence in America.
While a Special Agent in the FBI, he completed courses in counterintelligence, espionage investigation, undercover operations, international terrorism investigations, police training instructor, hostage negotiations, media relations, the US Air Force Soviet Studies course, the State Department Foreign Service Institute and the Dale Carnegie course.
Capps has been interviewed by national and international media including major newspapers, TV networks, radio stations, magazines, and documentary programs on counterintelligence, counterterrorism and security matters. He has also spoken to numerous educational, service, and public audiences including the 2005 Flagler College Forum held in St. Augustine, Florida.
Capps is married, the father of three children, a member of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, the Military Officers Association of America, the George C. Marshall Foundation, and a former member of the American Society of Industrial Security and the National Classification Management Society.
Capps held a Top Secret/Q clearance until November of 2013 when it was withdrawn in the wake of the Edward Snowden disclosures and the end of the DOE sponsorship of the Practical Perspective on Counterterror Operations course.
Publications:
“Peer Counseling: An Employee Assistance Program,” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, November 1984, pp. 2 - 9.
“Peer Counseling: An Employee Assistance Program,” Police Personnel, pp, 90-96, Edited by Stephen D. Gladis, Human Resource Development Press, Amherst, Massachusetts, 1990.
“Espionage Awareness Programs,” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, September, 1991, pp.17 - 19.
“The Spy Who Came to Work,” Security Management, February 1997, p. 46 - 55.
Created and edited in 1992 “DECA Notes for Industry,” a classified FBI counterintelligence journal which provides intelligence collection threat data to Defense contractors and other government agencies.
Created and wrote the FBI’s Foreign Travel Briefing Program in 1988.
Participated in the development of the 1995 survey “Trends in Intellectual Property Loss” as a member of the Safeguarding Intellectual Property Committee of the American Society for Industrial Security.
Wrote or edited numerous speeches and articles for the Director and other senior FBI officials including:
“Counterintelligence Challenges in a Changing World,” FBI Director William S. Sessions, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, November 1984.
“Foreign counterintelligence: An FBI Priority,” by SAC James E. Tomlinson. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, November 1984.
Capps is currently writing a book on the growth of the intelligence discipline in the U.S. The preliminary title is “The Secret History of American History, the Evolution of the Intelligence Profession from the American Revolution to the Present.”
Videos:
“CI-TV”: The 150-part Series produced for the CIA from 1997 to 2004: writer, and segment host/narrator.
"The Unintended Victims of Espionage: The Robert Hanssen Case" 2004, writer, producer, director.
"Think Like a Wolf" 2003, writer, producer, director.
"Olympic Security" 2002, technical consultant for the security video for the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City.
“Master Spy: The Robert Hanssen Story,” CBS Mini-series, November 10, 2002, technical consultant.
“Something Wasn't Right” 1995, writer, producer and director.
“Economic Espionage – Piracy in the 20th Century” 1993, writer, producer and director.
“Counterintelligence: Past, Present and Future,” 1991, wrote and produced this Top Secret video prepared for the Clinton Administration’s transition team.
“Briefing the Foreign Traveler,” 1988, producer, writer, speaker.
“Espionage Alert,” 1988, technical advisor, speaker.
“Espionage2000,” 1987, assistant producer, writer, editing assistant.