Douglas M. Fears
Rear Admiral, USCG, Retd.
Doug is both a Board member and investor in Black Mountain Investment Company. He also
serves as Chief Operating Officer at Artis International, which specializes in cognitive and
culturally-imbued generative artificial intelligence. Previously, Doug served as the Eighth
Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor to the President, and also as Acting Deputy
National Security Advisor for a concurrent four-month period, where he developed and
implemented dozens of strategies, policies and implementation plans, and he led dozens of key
decision-making fora to address complex homeland and national security challenges. Through
his 40-year Coast Guard career, Doug has served as an operator, program manager,
policymaker, budget and program reviewer, strategist and national security decision-maker
leading efforts to manage risk to the nation at the tactical, operational and strategic levels.
Doug was a ship driver in the U.S. Coast Guard having served in eight Coast Guard and Navy
ships, including as Commanding Officer in the cutters Hamilton, Diligence and Sitkinak. Other
assignments included Assistant Commandant for Response Policy, Atlantic Area Chief of Staff,
Chief of Law Enforcement, Program Reviewer in the Office of Budget and Programs, Liaison to
the U.S. House of Representatives and the Thirteenth District Aide to the Commander and
Command Center Controller. He retired from the Coast Guard in 2022 as a Rear Admiral.
Additionally, he serves as a Senior Advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies,
The Chertoff Group, and Disaster Tech, is a member of The Vandenberg Coalition’s Advisory
Board, is a Senior Mentor in FEMA’s Vanguard program for executive development and is a Life
Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the U.S. Naval Institute. He has an MPA from
Harvard, MA from the U.S. Naval War College, and a BS from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.