Chad Clifford
Department of Homeland Security
2020 fellow
Chad Clifford is an attorney and leader in the Department of Homeland Security - Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Office of Chief Counsel with over 13 years of career federal experience. He currently leads a team of attorneys that advises and defends FEMA’s disaster response and recovery assistance programs, which provide on average over $7 billion in assistance annually to help states, local governments, and individuals respond to and recover from disasters. Chad joined FEMA’s Office of Chief Counsel shortly after Hurricane Katrina in January 2006 and has led in nearly all of FEMA’s public facing mission areas, including: disaster response and recovery, mitigation and floodplain management, protection and national preparedness, environmental planning and historic preservation, as well as legislative affairs.
As a White House Leadership Development Program Fellow, Chad helps lead the Results-Oriented Accountability for Grants CAP Goal and works in the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Financial Management. Chad has a J.D. from The George Washington University Law School (Washington, D.C.), a B.A. in Political Science from the College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA), as well as an Executive Leadership Certificate from American University’s Key School of Public Affairs (Washington, D.C.). Chad was born and raised in small New England towns, but now lives in Arlington, VA with his wife and two young children.
