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James Westbrooke Spears
On
January 17, 2005
the Honorable Joe Manchin III,
Governor
of the State of
West Virginia
, appointed James Westbrooke Spears Cabinet Secretary of the West
Virginia Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety (MAPS) and
designated him as the West Virginia Homeland Security Advisor.
Secretary
Spears assumes responsibility for 11 divisions of approximately 10,500 employees
with a budget of over half-billion dollars.
Divisions in DMAPS include the Adjutant General/WV National
Guard, Division of Corrections, Division of Criminal Justice
Services, Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management
(formerly OES), Division of Juvenile Services, Division of
Protective Services, Division of Veterans Affairs, Parole Board,
Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority, WV State Fire
Marshal, WV State Police, and the Homeland Security State
Administrative Agency.
Secretary
Spears is the son of the late Col. Lawrence E. Spears; former WV
Deputy Commissioner of Commerce, and Jae Spears; former WV Delegate
and long-term WV State Senator.
Secretary
Spears is a graduate of
Davidson
College
in
North Carolina
, where he earned a BA degree in History and graduated as an ROTC
distinguished military graduate.
While serving in the Army he also completed a master’s
degree in International Relations from the
University
of
Southern California
. He also attended
l’Ecole d’Etat-Major (French General Staff College) in Compeigne,
France; the Strategic Intelligence Postgraduate Program in
Washington, D.C. (Distinguished Graduate); the Postgraduate program
for Foreign Area Specialists at the JFK Special Warfare Center
(Distinguished Graduate); the Defense Language Institute for French
language in Monterey, California (Distinguished Graduate); and the
U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute for Slovak
Language in Washington, D.C. Secretary
Spears’ languages are French, German, and Slovak.
He
brings a wide range of experience to his new position.
He has served as principal advisor to six
United States
ambassadors for various programs, including review, analysis and
development of
U.S.
foreign and economic policy for two
U.S.
ambassadors in Luxemburg and two in
Slovakia
. In
Slovakia
he served as the U.S. Defense Attaché and acted on behalf of the
U.S.
Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to
formulate and coordinate
U.S.
political-military policies in
Slovakia
. In addition, he
managed more than $8 million in sales and assistance programs to the
Slovak
Republic
. His experience also
includes the coordination of congressional and public affairs for
the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Secretary
Spears served for 22 years as a U.S. Army Officer before voluntarily
retiring to serve as Director of Program Development and Training
for the U.S. Department of State’s African Crisis Response
Initiative in
Washington
,
D.C.
Serving as a
principal advisor to two
U.S.
ambassadors, he designed, coordinated and implemented one of our
federal government’s primary assistance programs in
Africa
. He negotiated with the
governments of
Kenya
,
Botswana
,
Senegal
,
Malawi
,
Mali
,
Ghana
,
Ivory Coast
and
Ethiopia
, developing peacekeeping assistance and development programs
totaling as much as $20 million annually.
A
world traveler, he has criss-crossed the African continent multiple
times and lived in various countries for almost 14 years.
Mr. Spears is married and has four children.
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