Brian Poe

Upon graduating from Goshen High School in 1986, Lieutenant Colonel Brian Poe attended the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York. He graduated in 1990 with a Bachelor of Science degree in French and was commissioned into the Regular Army as a Second Lieutenant. During his senior year at West Point he finished in the top 5% of his class and was awarded the Order of Lafayette as the top French major for the Class of 1990.

     Brian’s first Army assignment was as an Armor officer in Mannheim, Germany, where he served as an M1A1 Tank Platoon Leader, Company Executive Officer, and Assistant Battalion Intelligence Officer. As a Platoon Leader, he and his tank crew were the battalion’s "Top Gun," shooting 962 of a possible 1,000 points on annual tank gunnery qualification.

     Upon departing Germany in January 1994, Brian attended Military Intelligence training at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, was promoted to Captain, and was subsequently assigned to Fort Meade, Maryland, as a Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) specialist, working at the National Security Agency. There he directed formal training programs for 2,200 Soldiers, deployed 166 personnel to 27 different countries in support of tactical and national SIGINT operations, and provided national level SIGINT support to tactical Army and Marine units. He concluded his Fort Meade assignment as a Company Commander, directly responsible for the professional development, training, and welfare of more than 250 Soldiers.

    Brian then attended the University of Maryland at College Park, earning a Master of Arts degree in French Language and Literature in 2000 and reporting back to West Point to serve as an Instructor and Assistant Professor of French. He was promoted to Major the following spring. As part of West Point’s Bicentennial celebration in 2002, he helped lead a group of 168 Cadets to France where they marched in the Bastille Day Parade in Paris and participated in the French Military Academy’s graduation exercises. Brian conducted several live and recorded television and radio interviews in French during these events.

     From the summer of 2003 to fall of 2007, Brian was assigned to series of critical SIGINT leadership roles at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and at the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland. He and his teams of specialists provided 24x7 support to Army tactical and Special Operations forces engaged in combat as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, producing intelligence that directly aided in the capture or killing of numerous High-Value Individuals, providing tailored training for over 600 Soldiers to prepare them Iraq and Afghanistan combat missions, and delivering critical tippers and actionable intelligence to US allies in the Global War on Terror. During this time he received the Knowlton Award for excellence in Military Intelligence.

     Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 2007, Brian was selected to be the SIGINT Advisor to the XVIIIth Airborne Corps and deployed to Iraq in this capacity for 15 months from December 2007 through February 2009. In Iraq, Brian coordinated the daily efforts of Soldiers employing nearly 650 SIGINT collection, processing, analysis, and exploitation assets. He developed a number of initiatives that were critical to increasing combat units’ access to precision targeting capabilities, allowing them to significantly increase their capture rate of High-Value Individuals. For his efforts, Brian was awarded the Bronze Star Medal.

     Since last spring, Lieutenant Colonel Poe has worked at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, as Director of a 170-person intelligence analysis and production center providing support to units in Iraq and Afghanistan.

     Brian has been married for 16 years to the former Amy Medell of Edison, New Jersey. They have three children: a 10-year-old daughter, Helen; a 7-year-old son, Andrew; and a 22-month old daughter, Vivian.

    On July 31, 2010, Brian will retire from the Army, concluding just over 20 years of service. He and his family plan to remain in Northern Virginia where Brian will begin a second career in the defense industry.