Jeffrey Engle

Whether he is protecting his platoon from ambush on a dusty road outside Baghdad as a young army sergeant, taking out high-value terrorist targets as a member of the elite special operations community, crushing a jiujitsu opponent to win a Pan-American Championship title, or strategizing about how to block hackers from attacking critical American infrastructure systems, Jeffrey J. Engle’s fighting style is best characterized as unconventional. Cool. Calculated. Gritty. And totally disconcerting to his adversaries.

During his military career, Engle earned two Bronze Star Medals, the Purple Heart, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal for Valor, the Combat Action Badge, and the Military Freefall Parachutists Badge in addition to being selected as one of the youngest members of the world’s most elite fighting unit. Following his medical retirement from special operations, Engle continued his fight to protect the country. Through his work with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, he oversaw emergency management and mass warning/notification systems following terrorist attacks, school shootings, and the like. He devised and coordinated training exercises at the national level to prepare for attacks with weapons of mass destruction and responded to the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, writing a book on disease emergence from the Asia-Pacific region.

Engle was then tapped to create and lead Conquest Cyber to help protect critical American assets from ongoing cyberattacks using the philosophies and tactics he learned in special ops. A graduate of Virginia Tech, where he earned a master’s degree in political science, Engle has also earned a cybersecurity certificate from Harvard University. His hobbies include flying, diving, and deep-sea fishing.