Rear Admiral (Ret) Joe “Digger” DiGuardo has 36 years of leadership experience at all levels of the Special Operations and Navy communities. He has been engaged globally with U.S. and foreign partners across the spectrum of military, interagency and industry problem solving. His experiences have ranged from very tactical to the most strategic. His role as the Defense lead for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction encompassed the most complicated and consequential issues and required his direct interaction with the offices of the President and Vice President, agency leads and foreign heads of state.

His most recent experience was commanding a globally dispersed workforce of over 20,000 personnel, actively engaged in 55 countries on any given day, with a resource portfolio of $1.8B. Under his command were the Maritime Expeditionary Security Forces (MESF) that execute high value unit escort and port security as well as the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD)/Diver force, the Naval Construction Battalions (Seabees), and Expeditionary Logistics Support Groups (ELSG- i.e. port operations).

Digger has spent his retirement consulting on National Security matters across industry.