Frank Cilluffo

rank Cilluffo doesn't name a president or statesman when asked whom he most admires. He mentions Vannevar Bush, who, as Franklin Roosevelt's science adviser, helped build the military-industrial complex and established public-private partnerships in science and technology. Describing his own role in homeland security, Cilluffo sounds as if he is following Vannevar Bush's lead in organizing and building bridges.

As the associate vice president for homeland security at George Washington University, Cilluffo wants to enlarge the network of people involved in the job of defending the nation. He is fostering relationships with nonprofits, other universities, the private sector, government, students, and citizens. In some ways, Cilluffo is continuing the work he started when he went to work in the Bush White House shortly after 9/11. Serving as a principal adviser to Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge and as executive director of the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council, Cilluffo was charged with building partnerships with business, academia, and state and local officials. He still serves as an adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Ridge and he is a counselor at the Center for the Study of the Presidency, where Ridge participates in informal roundtable discussions.

Cilluffo, a GW alum, previously spent eight years with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, dealing with counter-terrorism and transnational crime. Hailing from Long Island, N.Y., he's a first-generation American, the son of a Sicilian father and an Estonian mother who was a World War II refugee as a child.

"In a way, this is my generation's war," Cilluffo says of the war on terrorism. And at 33 years of age, Cilluffo could symbolize a link between Cold War policy makers of the past and terrorism experts of the future. In a war that could last decades, that may be the most important bridge of all.