Bear Afkhami

Bear Afkhami has a broad range of education, training and experience in four sectors including 1) critical infrastructure & emergency management, 2) entrepreneurship & management 3) foreign policy & intelligence, as well as 4) the national airspace system and advanced air mobility (AAM). He has over 18 years of experience with leading people and 12 years of experience as a first responder/emergency manager. In 2021, Mr. Afkhami was appointed by Governor Larry Hogan to serve a four-year term on the Maryland Department of Health’s State Board of Dietetic Practice and in 2022 appointed by Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks for a two-year term to the Commission on Fathers, Men and Boys.

Critical Infrastructure & Emergency Management: Bear has 12 years of experience in prevention, protection, mitigation, response and recovery. He has completed numerous credentials and certifications, including the Master Level Military Emergency Management Specialist (MEMS), FEMA Professional Continuity Practitioner (PCP), FEMA APS, FEMA Infrastructure Protection, graduate of the FEMA National Emergency Management Academy, graduate of the Maryland Climate Change Academy, ACCO certified Climate Change Professional (CC-P) and holds an active Emergency Medical Technician license. Bear is a regular speaker at state-wide and national emergency management conferences such as Virginia, Texas, Maryland and the Resilience Exchange and the National Hurricane Conference. He has written many white papers on emergency management programs and has been published in FireRescue1, Fire Chief, Police1, EMS1 and other publications.

Entrepreneurship & Management: Bear has over 11 years of experience working with entrepreneurs and helping small to mid-sized businesses (up to 250 employees) with human resources, finance, analytics, marketing and growth functions. He has led teams to $1.14B in wins and has held positions such as Directors of Service, Operations, Sales, BD, Capture and Marketing. The culmination of this experience led him to write “The Startup King,” a book on business planning, marketing, entity formation, bookkeeping, administrative support, payroll, human resources and purchasing best practices. He also lectures for economic development councils.

Foreign Policy & Intelligence: Bear combines his degree in Intelligence Studies and interest in international relations to write and lecture on the impact of foreign policy, foreign/domestic extremist organizations and the use of intelligence. Among others, his lectures covered “the impact of COVID-19 on global foreign policy,” “the impact of COVID-19 on domestic extremist groups,” “the global consequences of Putin's invasion of Ukraine,” as well leading panels profiling domestic extremist groups in Maryland. His upcoming lectures will cover “Cold War II,” “China and World Order,” “The Middle East and World Order” and “the Impact of Climate Change on Foreign Policy” to be delivered for the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System in Maryland.

Uncrewed & Autonomous Systems: Bear is an FAA certified Remote Pilot Airman and a Professor of Unmanned & Autonomous Systems at Capitol Technology University, an NSA and DHS Center of Excellence, in Maryland. He has published articles on the use of UAS by the emergency services sector. He participates in numerous advanced air mobility, UAS, UAV and autonomous standard setting bodies, helping to contribute to the safe integration of uncrewed vehicles into critical infrastructure sectors. These include the NIST Cybersecurity and AI Risk Management for UAS working group, NASA AAM Ecosystem Working Groups, ANSI UASSC, Drone Responders, IEDO, ULTRA and others. His research, titled “The Impact of UAS and UAM on the Emergency Services Sector” was published in the Journal of Air Traffic Control. He has presented his research at conferences such as the Virginia, Texas and Maryland.