Barry M. Blechman

Barry M. Blechman, Ph.D., is the founder, President, and CEO of DFI International.

Biographical Profile
"Dr. Barry M. Blechman founded DFI International in 1984. Today, he drives the corporate strategy and vision for the DFI family of companies, including DFI International’s two operating units, DFI Corporate Services and DFI Government Services, and SwannStreet Ventures LLC, which provides a unique combination of early seed-stage capital and strategic planning for high-tech start-ups in the Washington, DC region.

"Dr. Blechman has over thirty years experience in the defense, foreign policy, and advanced technology sectors. An expert in political-military affairs, defense planning, national security strategy, and high technology markets, Dr. Blechman has been providing expert advice and analyses to government and industry officials since the 1960s.

"Dr. Blechman currently serves as a member of the Defense Policy Board, an organization within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) that provides advice to the Secretary and other senior DoD officials. Recently, he chaired the Homeland Security Working Group of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. Over the past several years, he provided strategic guidance to OSD, the Services, and other Department of Defense offices during the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Reviews. In 1998, Dr. Blechman was a member of the congressionally-appointed Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States (The Rumsfeld Commission). In addition, he chairs The Henry L. Stimson Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute devoted to enhancing international peace and security, which he co-founded in 1989.

"During the 1960s, Dr. Blechman worked as an operations research analyst for both the US Army and the Center for Naval Analyses. In 1971, he became a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he headed the defense analyses staff and co-authored Brookings’ annual analysis of the federal budget, Setting National Priorities.

"In 1977, Dr. Blechman was nominated by President Carter and confirmed by the Senate as Assistant Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Among other assignments, he served as deputy chairman of the US delegation for negotiations on arms transfers and as head of the Agency’s policy planning staff.

"After leaving the government, Dr. Blechman was affiliated at various times with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Roosevelt Center for American Policy Studies, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Johns Hopkins University Foreign Policy Institute.

"Dr. Blechman’s long list of published works includes the widely respected Key West Revisited: Roles and Missions of the United States Armed Forces in the 21st Century, a report that reassesses decisions made in 1947 and recommends new roles for the Services in the protecting of the homeland and US interests abroad. He also authored Force Without War: U.S. Armed Forces as a Political Instrument (with Stephen S. Kaplan), an empirical study of the use of military force short of war.

"Dr. Blechman received his Ph.D. in political science from Georgetown University. He holds a master’s degree in political science from New York University and is a graduate of Queens College. Dr. Blechman has taught at The Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, and the University of Michigan."

Source: DFII Biography, accessed June 16, 2005.