Rear Adm. Jeffrey Scheidt Appointed Deputy Principal Adviser to Defense Secretary

The Department of Defense has named Rear Adm. Jeffrey Scheidt as the deputy principal cyber adviser to the defense secretary, according to a personnel announcement.

As the top uniformed cyber adviser for the Defense Department, Scheidt is responsible for managing a portfolio that includes policy implementation and personnel matters about cyber issues, C4ISRNET reported.

He will serve under the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and will be based at the Pentagon.

Prior to his appointment at the DOD, Scheidt worked as the deputy chief of computer network operations at the National Security Agency.

He reported under the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and was based at Fort Meade in Maryland.

Previously, he led the Naval Information Warfighting Development Center, the Navy Information Operations Command in Bahrain and the Navy Information Operations Command in Maryland, according to his biography posted on the Navy’s website.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in naval architecture and marine engineering. Additionally, he holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School.

Scheidt is replacing Rear Adm. William Chase III, who was the deputy principal cyber adviser at the Pentagon for about a year.

He is now heading to the Joint Force Headquarters-DOD Information Network to serve as deputy commander.

The JFHQ-DoDIN is the operational arm of the U.S. Cyber Command, which is also headquartered at Fort Meade. The unit is tasked with securing, operating and defending the networks used by the Pentagon around the world.