Carson Campaign Press Release - Dr. Ben Carson Announces Foreign Policy Advisors

Alexandria, Va. - December 8, 2015 - Today, Dr. Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, announced the members of his National Security and Foreign Policy Advisory Committee. These experts range from former military leaders to scholars to longtime foreign affairs practitioners. Together, they will help Dr. Carson chart a course for renewed American global leadership in the 21st century.

"I'm honored that these distinguished individuals have agreed to join my campaign," said Dr. Carson. "They bring with them great breadth and depth of experience in international affairs. I look forward to relying on their good counsel to offer solutions to the grave national security challenges this country faces."

The National Security and Foreign Policy Advisory Committee for the Ben Carson for President 2016 consists of the following experts.

Mr. Danny Benjamin

Mr. George Birnbaum

Colonel Chris Bourne, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired

Ms. Lisa Coen

Major General Jerry Curry, U.S. Army, Retired

Major General Bob Dees, U.S. Army, Retired (Chairman of the Advisory Committee)

Dr. Paul Gregory

Brigadier General Jeff Horne, U.S. Army, Retired

Lieutenant Colonel Sue Huggler, U.S. Army, Retired

Ms. Ying Ma

Dr. David McIntyre

Mr. George Papadopoulos

Dr. Stephen Parke

Mr. Tim Ryan

Major General Gregory A. Schumacher, U.S. Army, Retired

Major General Mel Spiese, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired

Short bios for members of the National Security and Foreign Policy Advisory Committee are available below. Each member of the Committee who is not affiliated with the Carson campaign is serving in his or her personal capacity and not as a representative of any of the institutions with which he or she is affiliated.

Mr. Danny Benjamin
As an American with Iraqi Assyrian roots, Mr. Benjamin possesses unique cultural, business and security experience and relationships in Kuwait, Iraq, Kurdistan, United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Following Operation Iraqi Freedom, he worked closely with the George W. Bush White House and select members of Congress regarding Middle Eastern policy. Mr. Benjamin has a law degree and is the Business Development & Marketing Manager for the Eastern Hemisphere at Exterran Energy Solutions, headquartered in Houston, Texas.

Mr. George Birnbaum
Raised in Atlanta, Georgia from the age of four, Mr. Birnbaum is the son of immigrants from France and Germany, as well as the son and grandson of Holocaust survivors. Mr. Birnbaum has vast experience working in over a dozen international political campaigns. Additionally, he served as chief of staff to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and possesses deep knowledge of Israeli political, cultural, economic and security concerns. Having worked with three Israeli Prime Ministers, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon, Mr. Birnbaum has unique insight and perspective into many of the important issues of the day, such as the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and fighting terrorism.

Colonel Chris Bourne, USMC, Retired
Col. Bourne is an experienced defense professional with 25 years of service in the U.S. Marine Corps, including extensive strategic leadership in Washington, DC and diverse operational experience in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Pacific Theatre. He also has broad national security experience, including leadership of Joint Chiefs of Staff planning in the interagency process for a Presidential Initiative on Peace Operations, an initiative on the War on Terror and UN Security Council resolutions on peacekeeping and Iraq. He also has had extensive interactions with regional forces in the Middle East and the Gulf Region. Col. Bourne led the first conventional unit into Afghanistan after 9/11, and is currently President of Bourne Executive Strategies, LLC in Greenville, South Carolina.

Ms. Lisa Coen
Ms. Coen brings extensive global trade, economic and health experience to the campaign as she has served in numerous policy positions in the George W. Bush Administration. In addition to being the Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Congressional Affairs and subsequently the Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific and Global Pharmaceutical Affairs, Ms. Coen served as a Director on the White House National Security Council. In this position, she supported the Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs where she managed the G-8 process on global public health, energy security, education and diverse international economic and foreign policy issues. She has also supported the Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs on regional issues in the Middle East and North Africa and on congressional relations, global trade, sanctions, export controls, investment and energy security matters. Prior to that, she worked at two major law firms. Presently, Ms. Coen is the Deputy Campaign Manager for the Carson campaign.

Major General Jerry Curry, U.S. Army, Retired

Gen. Curry is a decorated combat veteran, Army aviator, paratrooper and Ranger who has served his country both in the military and as a presidential political appointee for nearly forty years. He has many honors and decorations and has a strong background in federal regulatory matters, foreign affairs, national defense concerns, corporate planning and product liability litigation concerning the safety of motor vehicles.

Major General Bob Dees, U.S. Army, Retired (Chairman of the Advisory Committee)
Gen. Dees has served on every continent with the U.S. Army for 31 years, including at the Command of the Second Infantry Division in Korea and Deputy Command of V Corps in Europe, and as Commander of the U.S.-Israeli Combined Task Force for Missile Defense and Acting Director for Joint Interoperability for the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After retiring from the military, he has served as Executive Director of Defense Strategies at Microsoft Corporation. Currently, he is the Director of the Institute for Military Resilience at Liberty University.

Dr. Paul Gregory
Dr. Gregory is a leading expert and author on Russia and the former Soviet Union. Gregory has taught at Moscow University, East Europe Institute and Free University Berlin; and has chaired the advisory board of the Kiev School of Economics. He currently serves as a fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the German Institute for Economic Research, Berlin. He is the author or coauthor of twelve books and more than one hundred articles on economic history, the Soviet economy, transition economies, comparative economics and economic demography.

Brigadier General Jeff Horne, U.S. Army, Retired
Gen. Horne has served at all levels of air defense employment, including protecting Washington, D.C. and critical U.S. assets immediately following 9/11. He has also served within the command structure of space systems for a federal intelligence agency and the Department of Defense, and was appointed to be the system manager for fielding America's first land-based ballistic missile shield. Currently, he is the CEO of the Institute for Veteran's Education and Training — a non-profit organization assisting veteran employment and transition challenges.

Lieutenant Colonel Sue Huggler, U.S. Army, Retired
Col. Huggler has served on active duty, ready reserve and individual augmentee in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps from 1977 to present (38 years), providing expert care across a wide range of specialties on behalf of soldiers and families. She has also served on the teaching faculty at the Army Command and General Staff College, providing subject matter expertise on military medical and veterans health care. She is currently an advocate that helps veterans navigate Veterans Affairs services.

Ms. Ying Ma
Ms. Ma is an author who has written extensively on international affairs, the rising influence of China, political and economic freedoms and conservative principles. She has served as a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a premier conservative think tank; practiced law at Simpson Thacher & Bartlet LLP, a leading global law firm headquartered in New York; managed corporate communications at Sina.com, the first Mainland China-based Internet company to list on the Nasdaq Stock Market; and served on the first professional staff of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressional commission. Her articles have been published in the Wall Street Journal Asia, the Los Angeles Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Weekly Standard, Forbes.com, FoxNews.com and elsewhere. She currently serves as the Deputy Communications Director for the Carson campaign.

Dr. David McIntyre
A nationally recognized analyst, writer, speaker and teacher specializing in national and homeland security, Dr. McIntyre is a 30-year Army veteran who has been designing and teaching security strategy at senior levels of government and academia for the last 28 years. He has served as Dean of Faculty at the National War College and Director of the Integrative Center for Homeland Security at Texas A&M University. He was also a national board member of InfraGard (the FBI public-private partnership), an academic advisor to the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEA) and a Defense Science Board Summer Study on homeland security. Dr. McIntyre currently teaches at a major university and is a fellow specializing in homeland security at another university.

Mr. George Papadopoulos
Mr. Papadopoulos was previously an analyst and research fellow/associate at the Hudson Institute in Washington D.C. His research predominantly focused on the geopolitics and energy security changes of both the Caspian and Eastern Mediterranean and their impact on U.S. strategy. Mr. Papadopoulos designed the first ever project in Washington, D.C. think tank history on U.S., Greece, Cyprus and Israel relations at a symposium entitled "Power Shifts in the Eastern Mediterranean: The Emerging Strategic Relationship of Israel, Greece, and Cyprus." Mr. Papadopoulos is a private consultant, speaker and writer on energy policy and has presented at numerous conferences throughout the Middle East.

Dr. Stephen Parke

Dr. Parke is an Associate Dean at the Helms School of Government and an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Liberty University. Previously he served in the U.S. Army and was the Staff Judge Advocate for Joint Task Force — Guantanamo. As the SJA for JTF-GTMO, Dr. Parke was the principal legal advisor to the Commander on all matters relating to detention and intelligence gathering operations.

Mr. Tim Ryan
A retired career State Department Foreign Service Officer of 26 years, Mr. Ryan brings a wealth of diplomatic knowledge to the Carson campaign. When in the Foreign Service, he served in numerous assignments, including in Kingston, Jamaica, at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and as Chargé d'Affaires and Vice Consul in Quebec City, Canada. In addition to these tours, Mr. Ryan was responsible for providing Department of State input and diplomatic support for Department of Defense and Joint Staff planning and operations. While on detail to the CIA, he was responsible for developing, prioritizing and tasking worldwide human intelligence collection by the U.S. Intelligence Community.

Major General Gregory A. Schumacher, U.S. Army, Retired

Gen. Greg Schumacher retired after 37 years of military service, which included command of all intelligence units in the Army Reserve. He also served as Army Deputy Director for Intelligence, a role in which he built intelligence and operations teams for a number of constituencies. He has significant cyber expertise and served as intelligence lead for the Army Staff team on Army Cyber Command initiatives. He was also the Director for Analysis, and then as the Executive Director, for the National Commission on the Structure of the Air Force.

Major General Mel Spiese, USMC, Retired
Gen. Spiese recently retired as Deputy Commanding General of 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, having spent more than 36 years leaving a visionary and lasting impact on the U.S. Marine Corps. His career spanned numerous tactical commands all the way to Commanding General, USMC Training and Education Command. He also held a range of diverse staff experiences, ranging from serving as a U.S. Special Operations Command policy officer dealing with counter proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to having staff responsibility for strategy with the 92-country European theater of operations. The latter required managing contingency plans, multilateral regional defense organizations, bilateral military relationships and direct support to ambassadors and country teams. Gen. Spiese currently serves as a defense and national security consultant and public advocate for the military and their families.