Howard A. Schmidt
Biography
Howard A. Schmidt is Chairman of the Board of Directors of TrustELI, a broadband security product and services company based in Mount Laurel, New Jersey.
Schmidt has had a long and distinguished career in defense, law enforcement and corporate security spanning almost 40 years. Before joining TrustELI, he served as Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer and Chief Security Strategist for online auction giant eBay. In the fall of 2004 he assumed the position of Chief Security Strategist for the US CERT Partners Program for the National Cyber Security Division.
He retired from the White House after 31 years of public service. He was appointed by President Bush as the Vice Chair of the President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board and as the Special Adviser for Cyberspace Security for the White House in December 2001. He assumed the role as the Chair in January 2003 until his retirement in May 2003.
Prior to the White House, Howard was the first Chief Security Officer for Microsoft Corp., where his duties included CISO, CSO and forming and directing the Trustworthy Computing Security Strategies Group.
Before Microsoft, Schmidt was a supervisory special agent and director of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) Computer Forensic Lab and Computer Crime and Information Warfare Division. While there, he established the first dedicated computer forensic lab in the government.
Before AFOSI, Schmidt was with the FBI at the National Drug Intelligence Center, where he headed the Computer Exploitation Team. He is recognized as one of the pioneers in the field of computer forensics and computer evidence collection.