NCU Mentor is Keynote Speaker

Dr. Joe DiRenzo III is keynote speaker at international security conference.

Prescott, Arizona—June 12, 2007 — Northcentral University (www.ncu.edu), an innovator in online higher education, is pleased to announce that NCU Faculty Mentor Dr. Joe DiRenzo III will be the keynote speaker at the 2007 Maritime Security Conference at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia June 13-16. DiRenzo teaches courses in the Homeland Security specialization of NCU’s College of Business & Technology Management.

A retired U.S. Coast Guard officer, Dr. DiRenzo is Deputy for Operational Planning and Anti-Terrorism Coordinator for Coast Guard Atlantic Area. After being commissioned from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1982, DiRenzo served on both submarine and surface ships, and also did a Pentagon tour on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations.

After transferring to the Coast Guard, DiRenzo served as a Search and Rescue Controller—coordinating 300 search and rescue cases and over 100 narcotics interdictions—as Chief of the Frontier Shield Intelligence Detachment in San Juan Puerto Rico, and as the Coast Guard Liaison to the Arabian Gulf Strike Group and Amphibious Ready Groups. In September 2001 he assumed duties as the Anti-Terrorism Coordinator at Coast Guard Atlantic Area. Following his retirement in 2003 Dr. DiRenzo returned to Atlantic Area as a Coast Guard civilian in the same capacity and is currently the Deputy of the Operational Plans Branch.

In addition to his bachelor of science degree from the Naval Academy, DiRenzo earned an MBA at California Coast University and a doctorate at NCU. He is also a graduate of the US Naval War College (1995) and the United States Marine Corps University Command and Staff Graduate Program. DiRenzo is one of the most published authors in Coast Guard history and is routinely published in prestigious national and international publications on terrorism and has contributed to several graduate-level text books.

DiRenzo has lectured at Canadian Forces College in Toronto and is a Visiting Fellow at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk VA, as well as a Mentor at NCU. He resides in Suffolk, VA with his wife, Captain Karen DiRenzo, NC, USN, the Officer in Charge of three Navy Branch Medical Clinics. They have two children Joe (18) a Third Class Cadet at the United States Coast Guard Academy and Lauren (16) a junior at Nansemond Suffolk Academy.