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SGI Global Announces Retirement of Founding Partner Doug Wankel in December 2015SGI Global, LLC, a government contractor based in Alexandria, Virginia, has announced today that after more than five decades of serving the law enforcement profession, founding partner Harold D. "Doug" Wankel retired from the company in December 2015. Mr. Wankel helped found SGI Global in 2008 as a government contractor including service offerings of international counter-narcotics and law enforcement training, logistics and operations, financial investigations, and program management. Using his decades of experience working in Afghanistan, Mr. Wankel built and managed many of SGI's contracts there, quickly establishing the company as a leader in safely and securely working with local nationals in the most security-challenged parts of the country. Since its early days, the company has built a reputation for successfully fulfilling challenging and diverse contracts, including training more than four thousand foreign law enforcement criminal investigators and intelligence analysts in 27 countries. In addition to extensive work in Afghanistan over the past 7 years, SGI is currently working on 4 continents and has expanded into government and private client work in financial investigations, counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism training and mentoring, intelligence and intelligence support, management consulting, studies and analyses, and air and ground transportation logistics management. Prior to helping found SGI, Mr. Wankel served 12 years in senior positions in various private sector business areas including home and airline security, due diligence, consulting, and international diplomacy. "I've known Doug for more than 25 years and during that time I've had the distinct pleasure and honor to work for him and with him," said Mr. Wankel's fellow SGI Global founder and Managing Partner, Michael Braun. "His internationa experience and insight have shaped how SGI conducts our overseas operations, and many of our successful methodologies are a lasting example of how Doug helped build our practices over the years. Doug will be sorely missed, but he leaves us corporately strong, healthy and well poised to experience our next level of growth." Prior to his private sector experience, Mr. Wankel served 26 years in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), where he retired in 1996 as Assistant Administrator and Chief of Operations (SES (News - Alert)-6). During his tenure with the DEA, Mr. Wankel served as the Deputy Assistant Director for Organized Crime and Drugs while assigned to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the early 1990s. He also served as the senior counter-narcotics and security advisor to three successive U.S. Ambassadors to Afghanistan. Mr. Wankel was primarily based in Afghanistan, with more than 14 years of in-country experience, encompassing periods during both pre-Soviet invasion and post-U.S. occupation. While in the DEA, Mr. Wankel spent six years in senior management and diplomatic positions in Afghanistan and Pakistan. During a senior executive exchange program with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), he served as the FBI's Deputy Assistant Director for Organized Crime and Drugs. In fall 2003, the DEA asked Mr. Wankel to return to active duty as the Chief of Intelligence, where he was successful in leading the interagency effort to bring a part of the DEA back into the Intelligence Community. In summer 2004, he was selected by U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad as the Director of the Kabul Counter-Narcotics Task Force at the American Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he reported directly to the U.S. Ambassador and was responsible for the oversight, integration, and coordination of all U.S. government counter-narcotics programs in Afghanistan. Mr. Wankel's extensive leadership experience and lengthy in-country perspective on drugs and insurgency in Afghanistan have made him an in-demand expert for numerous media programs and publications, including CNN International, BBC, Voice of America, WTOP Radio, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker. He has been a panel expert at a number of major government and private sector discussion groups focusing on narcotics trafficking and terrorism in Afghanistan. Recently, he became a member of the EastWest Institute's Joint U.S.-Russia Working Group on Afghan Narcotrafficking. SGI Global wishes Mr. Wankel all the best in his retirement. About SGI Global, LLC Based in Alexandria, Virginia, SGI Global develops, implements and manages specialized law enforcement, intelligence, military and security programs, as well as ground and air based logistics support, for government and private sector clients that encounter myriad threats posed by transnational criminal organizations, terrorists, and insurgent groups around the world. For more information, please visit www.sgiglobal-llc.com.
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