Dr. Linton Wells II is an American public servant and educator with over 50 years in government service. He served 26 years in the United States Navy as an officer, and then was appointed by the White House as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, serving through two administrations of both parties, both the Democrat Bill Clinton and the Republican George W. Bush.
He wrote many books, articles, and white papers on matters of national security, including important texts related to the use of American military capabilities in global humanitarian operations. His expertise focused on the strategic impacts of technological change and on building resilience to natural and man-made disasters as issues of US national security. He shaped, over five decades of public service, current US Department of Defense directives that link policy and technology with public-private cooperation.
After retiring from public service, he continued to contribute to the international STAR-TIDES network that he had founded in 2007, a consortium of several thousand global nodes comprising agencies, organizations, institutions and individuals in 40+ countries that promote the free exchange of research results on global issues of human security. As of 2019 he is Executive Advisor to the Center for Resilient and Sustainable Communities (C-RASC) at George Mason University and chairs the Advisory Group of the C4I and Cyber Center there. C-RASC has been working with the People-Centered Internet (PCI) on ways to “put humanity at the center of the Internet” and support a variety of revitalization initiatives. He is also the President and CEO of Global Resilience Strategies and Senior Advisor to Resilience Japan. He was listed by Fortune magazine in 2009 as one of the top 16 “Players of Tech”.