President Donald Trump last week announced his intent to nominate Jeffrey Nadaner GRD ’02 as assistant secretary of the Department of Commerce for Export Enforcement.
Nadaner currently serves as the director of the Brute Krulak Center for Applied Creativity at the Marine Corps University and holds the Marine Corps University Foundation’s Donald Bren Fellowship of Creative Problem-Solving. According to a description on its website, the center “supports scholarly research and curriculum development cultivating creativity in the profession of arms.”
Nadaner earned a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University in 1986, a JD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989, and a doctorate in history from Yale in 2002.
“[Nadaner] possesses two decades of experience, both in the public and private sectors, in security and technology involving complex enterprises,” the announcement on the White House website states.
Congress has not yet taken up Nadaner’s nomination. He could not be reached for comment as of Monday evening.
Before coming to Yale to study for his Ph.D in 1995, Nadaner served as a trial attorney in the Department of Justice. He also served in the federal government during both presidential terms of President George W. Bush ’68. From 2002 through 2004, he was a member of the State Department Policy Planning Staff, as well as a senior advisor on international organizations and a senior speechwriter to Secretary of State Colin Powell. For his service, he received the State Department’s Meritorious Honor Award.
Between 2004 and 2008, Nadaner served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for partnership strategy and stability operations in the Department of Defense, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates awarded him the Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service in June 2008.
“Put simply, Jeb has been one of this Department’s most consequential leaders and thinkers over the past four years,” Gates said during the award ceremony. “He played a leading role in putting together the basic principles and approaches of what became America’s strategy in the war on terror.”
After leaving his role in government in 2008, Nadaner worked as the vice president of engineering and technology and director of business development and strategy at Lockheed Martin. According to its website, Lockheed Martin is a “global security, innovation and aerospace company,” which conducts the majority of its business with the U.S. Department of Defense and other U.S. federal government agencies. In 2013, during Nadaner’s tenure, Lockheed Martin topped the list of U.S. federal government contractors.
The position of the Assistant Secretary has been vacant since David Mills left the post at the end of the President Barack Obama’s time in office.
Anastasiia Posnova | anastasiia.posnova@yale.edu