Mike Beland teaches the University of Maryland School of Law's courses that support semester-long internships on Capitol Hill. His teaching of how the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives work intermingles the practical and academic while providing students with an experiential learning environment. A nationally recognized homeland and national security expert, Mike is also a Managing Director at Deloitte & Touche, LLP, where he advises public and private sector clients on physical and cyber security risks. He also serves on the board of the Maryland Center on Economic Policy, a Baltimore-based non-profit organization committed to promoting policies that build broad-based economic prosperity in Maryland.
Before entering the private sector and non-profit worlds, Mike held senior positions in the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. Government. In May 2010, Mike was appointed by President Barack Obama to be Senior Counselor to the Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In April 2011, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the DHS Office of Infrastructure Protection where he helped to lead the management and policy development of the 1,000-person organization. Prior to his appointment, Mike was Subcommittee Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection of the Committee on Homeland Security in the U.S. House of Representatives and Counsel to the Committee's Chairman. In these positions, he helped to author several pieces of legislation, including the Implementing the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007, the Chemical Facility Security Act of 2009, and the Transportation Security Administration Authorization Act of 2009. He also helped to lead several high-profile investigations, including one on the attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in December 2009 and another on the 2009 attacks in Mumbai.
In addition to his current coursework at the University of Maryland School of Law, Mike's academic work has included serving as a Law Fellow at the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland, where he specialized in the transfer of information among the private sector and all levels of government for national security purposes; designing and teaching a course at the School of Law focused on 21st Century national security legal questions; teaching a course on critical infrastructure security and resilience at the University of New Hampshire (where he also serves on the board of advisers of the school's homeland security studies program); and teaching American government and political theory at the Choate Rosemary Hall summer program.
From New Hampshire, Mike was appointed to serve as a member of the staff of the New Hampshire Governor, John H. Lynch, following his first inauguration in 2005. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 2001; attended the London School of Economics and Political Science; and graduated from the University of Maryland School of Law in 2004. He is licensed to practice law in the State of New Hampshire.
He lives in Montgomery County with his wife, two daughters, and golden retriever.