W. Ralph Basham

career agent is now at the helm of the 137-year-old Secret Service, the nation's oldest investigative law enforcement agency. W. Ralph Basham, who spent 2001 as chief of staff at the new Transportation Security Administration, was appointed Secret Service director when his predecessor, Brian Stafford, retired in January.

Formerly a Treasury Department agency, the Secret Service moved to the new Homeland Security Department on March 1, largely intact. Basham reports to Secretary Tom Ridge.

A Kentucky native, Basham joined the Secret Service in 1970 as a special agent in the Washington field office. He worked in several Washington-based divisions, as well as in the Cleveland and Louisville, Ky., field offices. He was special agent in charge of the Cleveland and Washington field offices, and he headed the Vice Presidential Protective Division when Al Gore was vice president. Later, he became assistant director for administration.

At the beginning of 1998, Basham took charge of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, which is headquartered at a 1,500-acre former naval air station in Georgia, with satellite campuses in New Mexico and South Carolina. The center, then part of Treasury and now attached to Homeland Security, provides training for nearly all federal law enforcement officers, including Secret Service recruits. It trains employees from more than 73 federal agencies, plus state and local law enforcement personnel and foreign police officers. About 25,000 people take classes at the center each year.

During his year as chief of staff for the brand new Transportation Security Administration in 2002, Basham's responsibilities included hiring federal security directors for the nation's 429 airports.

During his 33-year federal career, Basham has been recognized with two Presidential Rank Awards for Meritorious Service.