Linda Solheim is a lawyer and former Senior Executive Service career employee of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). She recently served as Associate Director of the Soft Targets and Crowded Places Task Force which is now known as Security Programs in the Infrastructure Security Division of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Ms. Solheim led and oversaw the Active Shooter Preparedness Program, Emerging Threats Mitigation Program, UAS, Insider Threat, Interagency Security Committee, and other Soft Targets and Crowded Places programs and activities to include faith based security issues.
Prior to the Soft Targets and Crowded Places Task Force, Ms. Solheim served as the Director of the Sector Outreach and Programs Division. There Ms. Solheim oversaw key Department initiatives such as the Sector Specific Agency (SSA) responsibilities for the Chemical, Commercial Facilities, Critical Manufacturing, Dams, Emergency Services, and Nuclear Reactors, and Materials.
Prior to joining SOPD, Ms. Solheim was appointed the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Office of Infrastructure Protection (IP) on January 1, 2015. As Deputy, she assisted the Assistant Secretary in leading coordinated national efforts to reduce the risk to the nation’s critical infrastructures posed by acts of terrorism, and to strengthen national preparedness, timely response, and rapid recovery in the event of an attack, natural disaster, or other emergency. In this role she managed four divisions, the National Infrastructure Coordinating Center and Strategy and Policy with a $259M budget.
During her DHS career, Ms. Solheim also served as the Director of the Office of Infrastructure Protection, Protective Security Coordination Division. In this capacity, she led the activities of field-deployed Protective Security Advisors, which included private sector activities with facility owners and operators and faith based organizations. Specific activities included vulnerability assessments and the development of risk mitigation plans for critical infrastructure. These efforts included the Regional Resiliency Assessment Program, which combines individual critical infrastructure analyses with a larger regional analysis of surrounding infrastructure, interdependencies, and cascading effects. She also oversaw the Office for Bombing Prevention, the DHS lead for Presidential Policy Directive 17 – Countering Improvised Explosive Devices and initiatives such as Multi-Jurisdictional Improvised Explosive Device Security Plans and the TRIPwire information-sharing network.
Before joining DHS, Ms. Solheim served three and a half years with the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security as Senior Counsel to the Committee Chairman and the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic Security, Critical Infrastructure Protection, and Cybersecurity. Her record of Federal government service includes: Legal Counsel to the U.S. Senate Government Affairs and Judiciary Committees; Chief, Office of Legislative Affairs at the Federal Communications Commission; Counsel to the Chairman of the U.S. International Trade Commission; Deputy General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Commerce; and Acting Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor. Ms. Solheim also has twelve years of private sector experience, having established and operated her own legal and lobbying firm. Ms. Solheim received Juris Doctorate and Bachelor of Arts degrees from the University of South Carolina. She is a member of the United States Supreme Court Bar and the Virginia State Bar.
