President Bush Awards National Security Medal to John C. Gannon '66

John C. Gannon '66, Staff Director of the Select Committee on Homeland Security, was recently awarded the National Security Medal – the nation's highest intelligence award – by President George W. Bush, for his "outstanding contribution to the national intelligence effort."

Recognized at a private medal presentation ceremony in the Library of Congress on June 29, Gannon is the first person in the Legislative Branch to receive the National Security Medal in the history of the award.

George Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence, who presented Gannon with the medal, praised him for his many contributions to the intelligence community, saying Gannon "ushered in a new era of collaboration with some of the brightest minds in the private sector – collaboration that can only enrich the intelligence community's thinking on the major issues facing our nation."

"My current work for homeland security and my previous assignments for intelligence are all a part of the same urgent mission to make America safer," Gannon said at the ceremony, calling the times in which we live "an era of unprecedented change in geopolitics and technology."

A 1966 graduate of Holy Cross, Gannon taught social studies and science in Jamaica as a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps before earning his Ph. D. in history from Washington University in Saint Louis. He then began his government career as a political analyst specializing in Latin America.

Gannon worked for 24 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, serving as Deputy Director for Intelligence and as Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production. He later spent four years as chairman of the National Intelligence Council and, from 2001 – 2003 as vice chairman of Intellibridge Corporation.

A 2002 recipient of the Sanctae Crucis Award, the highest non-degree recognition bestowed by Holy Cross on an alumnus/a, Gannon currently serves on the boards of directors at Visage Technology and at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

A native of Worcester, Mass., Gannon lives in Virginia with his wife, Mary Ellen. The couple has three children.