CGA Team
Tom Bush, Senior Advisor
Tom Bush is a career intelligence and security executive with more than 30 years’ experience in national security, intelligence, and homeland defense. Tom retired from federal service in 2022, the last dozen years as a member of the Senior Executive Service. Having served in the Department of Defense, Transportation, and Homeland Security, Tom has played a leading role managing, procuring, and modernizing many of the systems used today to secure our nation’s border and transportation systems against a range of evolving threats.
Tom was appointed to the Senior Executive Service in 2010 as the Executive Director for Intelligence and Targeting within Customs and Border Protection (CBP), where he was responsible for analysis of advance traveler and cargo information, providing frontline officers with alerts on high-risk movements approaching the border. He later led the Common Vetting Task Force (CVTF) that defined the future of targeting and vetting operations across CBP and the Department.
Tom was the CBP lead in negotiations with the European Union that led to the landmark 2011 agreement on Passenger Name Records (PNR), playing a key role in complex sessions with the EU over sharing PNR-related information with key law enforcement stakeholders across DHS. He later served a two-year assignment as the Senior Advisor to the DHS Secretaries Janet Napolitano and Jeh Johnson for vetting and intelligence systems.
Most recently, as Executive Assistant Administrator for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Tom was responsible for a budget of $726m and the management of over 1,200 employees across 100 locations globally. He led the development of security policies across aviation, cargo, and surface transportation, and strengthened TSA’s cybersecurity efforts, leading to better integration and information sharing of threats across industry and government.
Before that, Tom served as TSA’s Deputy Executive Assistant Administrator for Operations Support, chairing the agency’s COVID Task Force, and implementing business resumption plans during the pandemic. Tom also served as the agency’s Assistant Administrator for Intelligence and Analysis where he improved security and streamlined the travel experience through innovative identity management and robust vetting and intelligence programs focused on security screening of high risk individuals.
Tom began his career in 1991 as a program analyst for the Department of Defense before moving to the U.S. Customs Service in 1994. He was one of the first DHS graduates of the Naval Post Graduate School Executive Leadership Program, and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Elon University.