Chester Lunner

Mr. Chester F. Lunner has served in several senior leadership roles within the U.S. Government, culminating in his most recent post as Deputy Under Secretary for the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (OIA) within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In this role, Mr. Lunner reported directly to the DHS Chief Intelligence Officer and was responsible for coordination of outreach to DHS’ law enforcement partners, liaison on state and local issues with the federal intelligence community and representation of DHS to various boards and committees of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). He was also charged with the strategic engagement of critical stakeholders inside and outside the Beltway with particular emphasis on the staffing of state intelligence Fusion Centers by qualified federal intelligence analysts. Mr. Lunner tenure saw OIA’s field personnel triple in size while concurrently composing, adopting, and implementing many core OIA foundational documents

Prior to his service at OIA, Mr. Lunner served as the Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of State and Local Government Coordination at DHS. In this capacity, Mr. Lunner was charged with the coordinating DHS activities with state, territorial, local and tribal governments. He worked to develop active and meaningful partnerships with Governors, state Homeland Security Advisors, emergency managers and leaders from across the spectrum of the first responder community, and established and maintained a robust information exchange between DHS and the other levels of government.

From February 2005 until November 2005, Mr. Lunner was detailed to a series of Special Assignments on behalf of DHS. In September 2005, Mr. Lunner was appointed to the staff of the interagency White House Task Force on Hurricane Katrina and led the team charged with resolving high-visibility, high-impact issues arising from the U.S. Government’s response to the hurricane. Prior to that, Mr. Lunner was assigned to the Secure Borders Initiative (SBI) task force, reporting to the acting Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security and assisted in developing a series of recommendations for the reform of U.S. immigration policy. This role was preceded by an appointment to Secretary Chertoff’s Second Stage Review (2SR) Executive Staff, the unit responsible for a top-to-bottom review of DHS with a particular focus on intelligence, policy and operations reforms.

Prior to his service at the Department, Mr. Lunner was a senior leader at the component level of DHS, serving as Assistant Administrator of the Office of Maritime and Land Security at TSA. Mr. Lunner led the Office in its mission to assess the risk of terrorist attacks to all non-aviation transportation modes, establish standards to improve the security of the modes, and enforce compliance with those standards. This was preceded by Mr. Lunner’s service in the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) where he served in parallel roles as both Assistant to the Secretary and as Director of Public Affairs. In this capacity, Mr. Lunner was the chief spokesman for DoT and Secretary Norman Mineta including before, during and after 9/11. He also worked in close support of the White House Press Office regarding national transportation security priorities, helping to craft the President's public message.

Mr. Lunner began his government service in the U.S. Congress, including service as the Chief of Staff for Representative Amo Houghton (NY-31). Prior to joining the government, Mr. Lunner enjoyed success as writer, editor, reporter and correspondent on both local and national levels. Mr. Lunner is the recipient of numerous awards and honors and is a Senior Fellow at the Georgetown University Center for Peace and Security Studies (CPASS) homeland security program.