Mr. Brian Steckler is President of R3 Networks, LLC, a global ICT risk reduction and resilience consultancy and products/services company. He is also an independent consultant recently retired from the Department of Defense where he spent several years as the founder and Director of the Hastily Formed Networks (HFN) Center at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey California. He was also on the faculty of the Information Sciences Department teaching wired and wireless networking, and the basics of computer network attack/defense and cybersecurity, psychological operations, military deception, operational security, humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR) concepts, disaster communications, and electronic warfare.
Mr. Steckler has 14 years of experience in communications including experience in managing the interoperability of communications at the government inter-agency level, and several years in the private sector as founder of a business-class wired/wireless Internet Service Provider (ISP / W-ISP). He completed a full career in the US Navy in 1995, serving in both officer and enlisted ranks with a focus on cryptology, communications, program management, and information/communication technology. He is a world-class and globally recognized expert in rapid and mobile wireless network deployment and vulnerability assessment technologies, information technology applications for complex humanitarian disasters, computer network vulnerability assessments, web based information and influence operations, mobile network operations centers, static operation center design and operation, and various broadband Internet access device technologies including WiFi, WiMAX, 3G / 4G, satellite, UHF/VHF radio, drone integration with communications, fixed broadband wireless, ultra-wideband, free space optics broadband, broadband over powerlines and various forms of alternate power technologies.
Mr. Steckler’s current and previous areas of teaching/lecturing and research includes basic networking (LAN/WAN), Information Operations, and Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief (HA / DR) operations focusing on communications in austere environments. Mr. Steckler has significant global operational experience with rapidly deployed wireless networks and communications in remote and austere environments focusing on Hastily Formed Networks. In the past several years he has led teams of NPS faculty/students and industry/academic partners deploying wireless communications to the Andaman Coast of Thailand a few days after the December 2004 Southeast Asia tsunami, then led a much larger team of NPS faculty/students and industry partners to wirelessly enable Bay St Louis and Waveland Mississippi for five weeks during the Hurricane Katrina aftermath, and led another large team on a HA/DR HFN mission in support of the US government response to the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. In total during three separate deployments to Haiti, Mr. Steckler spent 2.5 months in the country working as he has in all similar deployments with the UN, US government and military organizations, local Haitian government and Non-Government Organization (NGO) community, several international NGOs’ and various local and international private sector organizations.
In late 2013 and early 2014 he led a team of NPS faculty/students into the Leyte Gulf area of the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), the biggest storm to hit mankind in the modern era, with communications and alternate power systems to support the US Marine Corps and international early responder community at ground zero for this mega-disaster. The NPS HFN team provided communications and conducted ICT assessments for 6 weeks after Typhoon Haiyan. More recently he supported the Vanuatu government’s Chief Information Officer assessing ICT damage in Vanuatu after Cyclone Pam devastated that island country in March 2015.
Mr. Steckler is also a Senior Fellow in The Center of Excellence in Command, Control, Communications, Computing, Intelligence, and Cyber at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
Mr. Steckler has 14 years of experience in communications including experience in managing the interoperability of communications at the government inter-agency level, and several years in the private sector as founder of a business-class wired/wireless Internet Service Provider (ISP / W-ISP). He completed a full career in the US Navy in 1995, serving in both officer and enlisted ranks with a focus on cryptology, communications, program management, and information/communication technology. He is a world-class and globally recognized expert in rapid and mobile wireless network deployment and vulnerability assessment technologies, information technology applications for complex humanitarian disasters, computer network vulnerability assessments, web based information and influence operations, mobile network operations centers, static operation center design and operation, and various broadband Internet access device technologies including WiFi, WiMAX, 3G / 4G, satellite, UHF/VHF radio, drone integration with communications, fixed broadband wireless, ultra-wideband, free space optics broadband, broadband over powerlines and various forms of alternate power technologies.
Mr. Steckler’s current and previous areas of teaching/lecturing and research includes basic networking (LAN/WAN), Information Operations, and Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief (HA / DR) operations focusing on communications in austere environments. Mr. Steckler has significant global operational experience with rapidly deployed wireless networks and communications in remote and austere environments focusing on Hastily Formed Networks. In the past several years he has led teams of NPS faculty/students and industry/academic partners deploying wireless communications to the Andaman Coast of Thailand a few days after the December 2004 Southeast Asia tsunami, then led a much larger team of NPS faculty/students and industry partners to wirelessly enable Bay St Louis and Waveland Mississippi for five weeks during the Hurricane Katrina aftermath, and led another large team on a HA/DR HFN mission in support of the US government response to the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. In total during three separate deployments to Haiti, Mr. Steckler spent 2.5 months in the country working as he has in all similar deployments with the UN, US government and military organizations, local Haitian government and Non-Government Organization (NGO) community, several international NGOs’ and various local and international private sector organizations.
In late 2013 and early 2014 he led a team of NPS faculty/students into the Leyte Gulf area of the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), the biggest storm to hit mankind in the modern era, with communications and alternate power systems to support the US Marine Corps and international early responder community at ground zero for this mega-disaster. The NPS HFN team provided communications and conducted ICT assessments for 6 weeks after Typhoon Haiyan. More recently he supported the Vanuatu government’s Chief Information Officer assessing ICT damage in Vanuatu after Cyclone Pam devastated that island country in March 2015.
Mr. Steckler is also a Senior Fellow in The Center of Excellence in Command, Control, Communications, Computing, Intelligence, and Cyber at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.