Robert D. Rodriguez spent over 22 years as a Special Agent with the United States Secret Service. During this tenure he held a number of leadership roles with Executive Protection, Protective Intelligence, Team Leader on the Presidential Protective Detail Counter Assault Team and Criminal Investigations. He has had significant success in bringing subject matter experts together to operationally achieve common goals. His 36,000 hours of executive protection experience include 11 years at the White House serving Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, Vice President Dan Quayle and numerous heads of state. These assignments led to extensive international travel to over 60 countries and broad experience at both the tactical and strategic levels in executive leadership roles. He has completed over 1,000 physical security assessments of both public and private structures including the White House, the Naval Observatory (Vice President's Residence) and large and small venues, both domestically and internationally. His protective and investigative responsibilities led to extensive experience in the strategic deployment of programs, critical problem solving and analytical assessments of vulnerabilities, risks and threats.
For the last two-and-a-half years of his career Robert managed Secret Service operations for the Northern District of California and spearheaded the development of the Secret Service’s public-private partnership initiative in the Bay Area. He was at the forefront of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) effort to establish partnerships with key government and public, private and international stakeholders to create an environment that enables them to better protect their critical infrastructures. Through these partnerships Robert has obtained federal grants for the development of IT security solutions that eventually became commercial products. A key component to the success of these relationships is his ability to actively work with leaders in the community who are principals of change. He has and continues to brief executives of Fortune 500 companies to engage in public-private partnerships. As an advisor to DHS and SRI International’s Cyber Security R&D programs Robert is bringing together representatives from disparate groups (academia, science, industry, government and venture capital) to work on IT security needs. He is the catalyst behind private industries’ influence toward the design of an IT security academic curriculum for Stanford, Berkeley, Cornell, Vanderbilt and Carnegie Mellon universities, which are part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant-funded IT security program. In addition to the NSF curriculum project, Robert has been asked to coordinate a university speaker series featuring IT security leaders from across the country and assist in the development of an internship program with the industry partners. Robert has chaired a DHS- and Secret Service-sponsored national IT security symposium at Stanford University and was appointed chair of this year’s Kauffman Foundation and DHS IT Security Entrepreneur’s Forum.

Mutually beneficial relationships, two-way sharing of information, a top-down approach and trust are key components to his success. Robert also serves on the board of directors for the San Francisco Emerald Bowl, Goodwill Industries, Crimestoppers, and Boys and Girls Club. He is on the advisory board for the First Responder Foundation, Boma Systems, Vontu, and Cenzic Inc. Secure Elements and is a certified graduate of the federal government’s Senior Executive Service Program.