David Bolka

avid Bolka has come a long way from the iron-ore mines in northern Minnesota, where he worked as a teenager during the summer months, and far from his high school graduating class of 33 students.

Now the first director of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency at DHS, Bolka is a lead official in developing counter-terrorism technologies. HSARPA was created in April as the external funding arm of the department's Science and Technology Directorate. It is modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which did groundbreaking work on development of the Internet and stealth aviation technology.

With a $918.2 million budget for fiscal 2004, Bolka's office contracts with the private sector for homeland-security technology. The agency seeks to seed promising new technologies and improvements in existing approaches to homeland security. For example, in November 2003, HSARPA launched a program offering six-month, $100,000 grants to small businesses to develop innovations and inventions in chemical and biological defense, information technology, and marine security. Winners must prove the technical and commercial viability of their concepts. When they do, they're eligible to apply for $750,000 grants to develop prototypes.

Bolka served for 26 years in the U.S. Navy, retiring in 1986 as a captain. He was the major project manager (the equivalent of a chief executive officer) of the Submarine Combat Systems of the Naval Sea Systems Command. He spent his last three years in the Navy in England.

He then moved to the private sector, first to AT&T's Bell Laboratories, where he led advanced technical and scientific work in noise and vibration control technology to make large vehicles quieter. Before joining DHS, he was a vice president with Lucent Technologies Wireless Networks. "I've seen management of research, development, and acquisitions from both sides-the government and private sector," Bolka says.

Bolka also assisted in two private-sector start-ups. The first was Utility Solutions, which provided technology and equipment to monitor and control electric power distribution systems and the devices attached to them. The second, Utility Billing, was a spin-off from Lucent's telephone billing capability. This experience, he says, is invaluable in managing his new agency, which he calls "a start-up within a start-up within a merger."

Bolka, 63, completed his undergraduate and postgraduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning degrees in marine geophysics. He received a doctorate in engineering acoustics from Pennsylvania State University.