Chief, National Security Division

Chief, National Security Division

Department: Department of Agriculture

Location(s): Washington, District of Columbia

Salary Range: $169279 - $197200 Per Year

Job Summary: The incumbent serves as the Chief, National Security Division and liaison with the White House National Security Council, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Treasury, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Defense (DOD), and Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) on matters related to agroterrorism, biodefense, and the security of critical infrastructure related to food and agriculture.

Major Duties:

• Establishes guidelines and performance expectations for staff members, which are clearly communicated through the formal employee performance management system.
• With program managers, develops program scope, goals, measures, and resource requirements. Provides guidance and oversight to program managers.
• Leads coordination of USDA implementation of homeland and national security policies and initiatives, ensuring consistent approach across USDA mission areas, agencies and staff offices.
• Coordinates with Federal departments on national and homeland security, emergency preparedness and resilience policy.
• Liaison with agencies on matters related to intelligence, counterintelligence, agroterrorism, biodefense, and managing and mitigating risk related to the security of critical infrastructure related to food and agriculture.
• Leads coordination with USDA mission areas and agencies, and federal, state, local, tribal, territorial and private sector partners on issues related to division programs.
• Coordinates Interagency requests for USDA resources and technical experts with agency and mission area leadership, and represents USDA at Senior Executive level meetings in the absence of OHS Leadership.
• Develops appropriate policy language to convey USDA roles, responsibilities and capabilities. Coordinates drafting and development of policies with USDA mission areas, agencies and staff offices.
• Represents USDA policies, positions and capabilities on White House National Security Council Interagency Policy Committees (IPCs) and sub-IPCs, as appropriate.
• Interact with high-ranking USDA Officials to facilitate situational awareness, respond to incidents, coordinate development and implementation of policies, and participate on interagency working groups.
• Coordinates the development, distribution, and analysis of a wide range of data calls, requests for information and reports related to policy development and implementation.

Qualifications: Applicants must meet all qualifications and eligibility requirements by the closing date of the announcement including time-in-grade restrictions and specialized experience, as defined below. Time in Grade: Current federal employees applying for a promotion opportunity must meet the time in grade requirement of 52 weeks of service at the next lower grade level in the normal line of progression for the position being filled. At the GS-15 Level - Specialized Experience: Applicants must have one year of specialized experience (equivalent to the GS-14 level) which is directly related to the work of this position and which has equipped the applicant with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the duties of the position. For this position, specialized experience is experience providing leadership and strategic direction in the development and execution of a broad range of homeland and national security policy initiatives and strategic program plans to include agroterrorism and biodefense, intelligence, defensive counterintelligence, foreign investment in land, and the impact of foreign investments to economic and national security; and experience managing and mitigating risk to critical infrastructure in food and agriculture. Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

How to Apply: Please read the entire announcement and all instructions before you begin. You must complete this application process and submit all required documents electronically by 11:59p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on the closing date of this announcement. Applying online is highly encouraged. We are available to assist you during business hours (normally 8:00a.m. - 4:00p.m., Monday - Friday). If applying online poses a hardship, contact the Agency Contact listed below well before the closing date for an alternate method. All hardship application packages must be complete and submitted no later than noon ET on the closing date of the announcement to be entered into the system prior to its closing. Resumes must not exceed two pages. This agency provides reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities on a case-by-case basis; contact the Agency Contact to request this. To begin, click "Apply" and follow the instructions to complete the Assessment Questionnaire and attach your resume and all required documents. Please verify that documents you are uploading from USAJOBs transfer into the Agency's staffing system as there is a limitation to the number of documents that can be transferred. However, once in the Agency's staffing system, you will have the opportunity to upload additional documents. Uploaded documents must be less than 5MB and in one of the following document formats: GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, PDF, TXT or Word (DOC or DOCX). Do not upload Adobe Portfolio documents because they are not viewable. Encrypted documents will not be accepted. Failure to submit required, legible documents may result in loss of consideration. Please ensure your resume does not exceed two pages. Applicants who submit a resume that exceeds two pages will be removed from consideration. Our office cannot be responsible for incompatible software, your system failure, etc.

Application Deadline: 2026-04-28