Fred Burton (security expert)

Fred Burton is geopolitical intelligence platform Stratfor's chief security officer and a New York Times bestselling author. His publishers describe him as "one of the world's foremost experts on security, terrorists and terrorist organizations."

Burton was born January 2, 1958, in Beckley, West Virginia, United States. He attended high school in Bethesda, Maryland, and became a volunteer with the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad at age 18, in 1975. He remains a Life Member of the organization, which bills itself as the world's largest volunteer rescue squad. His volunteer activities are briefly referenced in his first book, "Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent."

Some of the events in his early life are recounted in the 2011 book "Chasing Shadows: A Special Agent's Lifelong Hunt to Bring a Cold War Assassin to Justice." Burton has said he was deeply impacted by the murder in 1973 of a neighbor, Joe Alon, who was later discovered to have been an Israeli intelligence operative.

Burton began his career in law enforcement as a police officer in Montgomery County, Maryland and later worked for the U.S. Secret Service. From 1985 to 1999, he was a special agent with the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service (DSS). He eventually became the deputy chief of the DSS counterterrorism division.

While with the DSS, Burton was appointed by Washington to assist in the investigation of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He also investigated the killing of Rabbi Meir Kahane; the al Qaeda New York City bombing plots before the September 11 attacks; and the Libyan-backed terrorist attacks against diplomats in Sana'a and Khartoum. He was involved in the arrest of Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

Mr. Burton joined Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based geopolitical forecasting and analysis company, in 2004.

Additionally, he was appointed to the Texas Border Security Council on September 11, 2007 by Governor Rick Perry. In August 2009, he was hired as the Texas Department of Public Safety's Assistant Director for Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism but left after two months to pursue his writing and speaking career. Burton regularly briefs corporate executive teams on security related issues and speaks at a variety of both public and private events, including the Southern Law Network's 18th Annual General Counsel Event. On Oct. 12, 2017, he moderated a panel at the Fourth Annual Texas National Security Forum at The University of Texas at Austin with former acting Director of Central Intelligence John McLaughlin, former Acting Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency David Shedd, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Intelligence and Analysis Leslie Ireland and former Under Secretary of Defense Marcel Lettre.

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