Rear Admiral Doug Fears assumed the duties of Director for Joint Interagency Task Force South in June 2020.
He most recently served as the Assistant Commandant for Response Policy of the U.S. Coast Guard, where he was responsible for policy in seven operational mission areas, including emergency management and disaster response, defense operations, law enforcement, search and rescue, maritime security, counterterrorism, and marine environmental response.
Previous shore assignments included: three positions on the National Security Council staff for two U.S. Presidents; Deputy Assistant to the President and Eighth Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor to the President; Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Resilience Policy; and Director for Central America and the Caribbean. He also served as Chief of Staff for the Coast Guard’s Atlantic Area command; Coast Guard’s Chief of Law Enforcement Policy; Program Reviewer for the counterterrorism, law enforcement and command and control architecture programs in the Coast Guard Headquarters Office of Budget and Programs; Assistant Liaison to the U.S. House of Representatives; and Aide and Executive Assistant to the Admiral overseeing operations in the Pacific Northwest.
Shipboard assignments included: Commanding Officer in USCGCs HAMILTON, DILIGENCE and SITKINAK; Executive Officer in USCGC THETIS; Aegis Fire Control Officer in USS VINCENNES; Combat Information Center Officer in USS LEAHY; Operations Officer and Navigator in USCGC BASSWOOD; and Deck Seaman in USCGC TANEY.
Fears has been awarded numerous personal, unit, campaign and service awards. He was the Coast Guard Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies from 2009 to 2010; and a Fellow in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Seminar XXI on Foreign Politics, International Relations, and the National Interest from 2011 to 2012. He also served as member of the Editorial Board for the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings magazine from 2010 to 2013, and was Chairman from 2011 to 2013.
Fears is a native of Maryland’s Eastern Shore and enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1982. He graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 1989 with a B.S. in Government; the U.S. Naval War College in 2001 with a M.A. in National Security and Strategic Studies; and Harvard University in 2004 with a Master in Public Administration.