Rick Saunders

Vice President Rick Saunders, located in the firm’s McLean, Virginia office, plays a leadership role in Booz Allen Hamilton’s homeland security business, focusing on support to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) mission operations. Over the past eight years, he has helped build Booz Allen’s emergency preparedness and response, border protection, and mission integration capabilities and applied them to help government clients meet critical new mission needs. Mr. Saunders supported numerous DHS, US NORTHCOM, and other clients as they took on new organizational structures and responsibilities after 9/11. More recently, he heads Booz Allen’s market development and client delivery for homeland security operations integration services for DHS and other clients. Currently, he oversees Booz Allen efforts for DHS Office of Operations Coordination, Transportation Security Administration (TSA), US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) clients. Prior to joining Booz Allen, Mr. Saunders served as Deputy National Security Advisor to the Vice President, where he worked on national security, defense and foreign policy, and international economic policy issues. Mr. Saunders helped manage several complex interagency activities, such as coordination of US economic sanctions against Serbia and the economic, energy, and scientific dimensions of US relations with former Soviet states. Before that, he served as a member of the National Security Council staff, where he worked on arms transfer and foreign assistance policy. A former Army officer, Mr. Saunders had operational assignments in armored cavalry and airborne units. In addition, he taught national security strategy as a faculty member at the National War College and political science at the US Military Academy. He was a political-military advisor to the Chief of Staff of the Army and Deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large for Burden Sharing at the State Department. He holds a Masters of Public Affairs degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, and a BS from the US Military Academy.