Doug Fears

Douglas Margrave Fears is a United States Coast Guard rear admiral (lower half) currently serving as Assistant Commandant for Response Policy. He was the Homeland Security Advisor to President Donald Trump for approximately one year.

Career
Fears was born in Maryland and enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1982, receiving an appointment to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 1985. He was commissioned as an ensign in 1989 after earning a bachelor of science in government from the Coast Guard Academy. He later received a master of arts in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College and a master of public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Fears has been the captain of three vessels, including the USCGC Diligence and the USCGC Hamilton, a National Security cutter, and has served on five others. He has also been in charge of the Coast Guard's Office of Law Enforcement, has been a program reviewer in the Coast Guard headquarters, has been a liaison to the U.S. House of Representatives, and has served as chief of staff to the commander of the Coast Guard Atlantic Area Command. He currently holds the rank of rear admiral (lower half) in the Coast Guard.

Additionally, Fears was a Coast Guard Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies from 2009 to 2010 and a fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Seminar XXI on Foreign Politics, International Relations, and the National Interest.

In addition to his Coast Guard career, Fears has served in the administration of President Donald Trump as a special assistant to the President, as director for Central America and the Caribbean on the National Security Council staff, and as senior director for resilience policy for the National Security Council. He also served as acting Homeland Security Advisor from the middle of May 2018 until his permanent appointment in June. Fears was scheduled to be appointed head of the Coast Guard's Cyber Command when, on June 1, 2018, National Security Advisor John Bolton announced Fears' appointment as the permanent Homeland Security Advisor, with the official title of Deputy Assistant to the President.