In early April, on his first full day on the job as the undersecretary for science and technology at the new Department of Homeland Security, Charles McQueary was on Capitol Hill testifying before both House and Senate committees on how he would spend $803 million in R&D money. A couple of weeks later he was back on the hill, detailing the programs being developed for a DHS cybersecurity center. In between, he hired staff and dealt with a host of headaches as he worked to create his portion of the massive new government agency.
“I’m a problem solver,” said the former president of General Dynamics Advanced Technology Systems. “You never know what the future holds in terms of what terrorists could do to us, but I think this [developing technology to protect against terrorism] is a series of engineering problems.”
McQueary, a PhD engineer from the University of Texas at...
