Originally from Southeast Pennsylvania, Jeff Walton thought playing rock and roll professionally was his calling during the turbulent 60s. After high school, he was drawn to professional drag racing, where his budding career as a dragster mechanic and would-be driver was cut short in 1972 after being drafted into the US armed forces. Following maritime combat duty with the US Navy during the Vietnam War, he transitioned into US Naval aviation and served as a powerplant mechanic and turn-up operator for A-4 attack jets and S-2 Anti-submarine Warfare aircraft. Jeff Walton’s first exposure to law enforcement came during his time in the Navy when NCIS approached him to work undercover in narcotics operations overseas. He had found his new calling.
After completing his military service and graduation from college, he was appointed in 1979 as an Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) special agent and later in 1981 as a US Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) special agent, a career change that would forever alter the trajectory of his life. Initially assigned to conduct major felony criminal investigations for NCIS, he later specialized in counterintelligence and combating terrorism.
Jeff Walton’s experience spans multiple continents leading significant NCIS counterintelligence and combating terrorism operations and espionage cases in the Philippines, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. He helped run a sensitive counterespionage operation at the height of Operation Desert Storm in Iraq that saved the lives of troops in combat. He later helped shape our nation’s counterintelligence discipline during senior management assignments at NCIS Headquarters, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for C3I, the National Counterintelligence Center, and the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive.
National Counterintelligence Executive Staff
