Ronald A. Marks

Marks was born in Portland, Oregon in April 1956 and raised in nearby Gresham. He graduated from Gresham High School in 1974. Marks received his B.Sci. in Business Administration and Economics with honors from Lewis & Clark College in 1978.[4] Marks went on to the study at the Northwestern School of Law, Lewis and Clark College (1978–79) and took his M.Sci. in Economics at the University of Oregon in 1982. He is married and lives in McLean, Virginia.

Starting in October 1983, Marks spent 16 years with the CIA.[5] During that time he occupied a number of increasingly senior positions including serving as Senate Liaison for 5 Directors of Central Intelligence. Marks went on to serve two years (1995–96) as Intelligence Counsel to U.S. Senate Majority Leaders Bob Dole and U.S. Senator Trent Lott.[6]

Since leaving government in 1999, Mr. Marks has been a senior executive and owner in several Defense and Intelligence industry companies focused on managed IT services, software, and open source analysis.[7]

From 2005–10, Marks served as Senior Vice President and Director of Washington, D.C. operations for Oxford Analytica, a leading international risk analysis firm focused on geopolitics and economics, based in Oxford, U.K.[8][9]

In 2011, Marks was appointed and served for three years as Director of Battelle Memorial Institute's Cyber Doctrine Program. He led a series of seminars and produced papers focused on deriving a United States Government Cyber Doctrine that applied to its both domestically and internationally recognizing there is no true separation between the two in the 21st Century.[10]

In January 2011, Marks released his book focusing on the challenges and legalities of U.S. clandestine domestic Intelligence collection. Entitled "Spying in America in the Post 9/11 World: Domestic Threat and the Need for Change."[21][22] Marks expressed his concerns Americans were unaware of rapidly expanding intelligence gathering within the U.S. He also noted a glaring lack of public oversight of the government agencies involved.[23]

In December 2012, Marks served as primary reviewer and a contributor to the Battelle Memorial Institute book, "#Cyber Doctrine No Borders-No Boundaries," published by The Potomac Institute for Policy.[24] The book was meant to stir debate on the development of a national doctrine for America in the cyber era. It also focuses attention on the outmoded concepts of "domestic and international" and "private and public" concerns in Cyber space.

Marks has written on evolving national security and intelligence issues for the academic journals: Washington Quarterly, "The Uses and Limits of U.S. Intelligence" (Winter 2002);[25] The Cambridge Review of International Affairs, "Defining America's Brave New World" (July 2002);[26] and The International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, "Intelligence Analysis—Is It As Good As It Gets (August 2015).[27] And in 2008, he testified as an expert witness before the Senate Government Affairs and Homeland Security Committee on needed reform of the Intelligence Community structure and purpose.[28][29]

In addition to contributions to on-line blogs such as War on the Rocks[30] and Cipher Brief,[31] Marks has been a featured commentator on intelligence and cyber related issues on Fox News Channel, MSNBC, C-SPAN's Washington Journal,[32] and various other media outlets.[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]

Marks is a member of the Cosmos Club where he served on its Board of Management and as chair of its International Affairs Committee from 2010–16.[41] He is also on several other corporate and non-profit boards and advisory groups including: Informatica Federal Operations, a software firm based out of Redwood City, CA, and The Conrad Foundation[42] named in honor of Apollo 12 astronaut Charles "Pete" Conrad and whose efforts focus on STEM education and entrepreneurship for high school aged students worldwide.