Captain Brian Erickson

Deputy Director DHS Presidential Transition Office

US Coast Guard

Captain Brian Erickson currently serves as the Deputy Director of the DHS Presidential Transition Office following assignment as the United States Coast Guard’s first Chief Data & Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO). As the CDAO, he was principally responsible for the coordination of data and Artificial Intelligence activities across the organization. His previous assignments focus primarily in engineering and operations, serving at five operational assignments flying rotary & fixed wing aircraft performing search and rescue, law enforcement and other military mission profiles. He is a licensed Professional Engineer specializing in aerospace and also served in the Office of Budget and Programs working directly for the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) as a program reviewer. In 2020, he was selected as the Coast Guard’s MIT Sloan Fellow following service as Commanding Officer of Coast Guard Air Station Savannah, GA. He is a 1998 graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, he holds a Master of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Purdue University and a Master of Business Administration from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been appointed to the CDO Magazine Global Editorial Board, the 2023 MachineCon AI Leader of the year and has been named as a 2022 and 2024 DataIQ top 100 most influential persons in data.