Dr. Gardner is an Irregular Warfare / Comprehensive Defence Subject Matter Expert at the U.S. Irregular Warfare Center (IWC). For the IWC Dr. Gardner has been running events in front line nations helping them develop Comprehensive Defense capabilities, including planning national resistance efforts. He is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel who served at all levels from tactical to strategic. He has deployments to the Balkans, Afghanistan and in a Joint Special Operations Task Force in Iraq. He served at the U.S. European Command and on the staff of U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. After retiring he worked at NATO Allied Command Transformation as a counter terrorism planner and instructor. He also served as a Colonel of Militia commanding a state defence force brigade for incident response, command and control and crisis management (similar to the Home Guard). Dr Gardner has also worked as faculty at the NATO Special Operations University for the last 8 years where he teaches intelligence and advanced courses and writes publications and doctrine for Allied Special Operations Command (SOFCOM). Dr Gardner also served as the Countering Hybrid Threats (CHT) seminar project lead where he led 16 cross sectoral workshops in European Allied and Partner nations to be more prepared and resilient against hybrid threats using a comprehensive approach. Dr Gardner has over 17 years of instructional experience including at the U.S. National Defense University Joint and Combined Warfighting School as an Assistant Professor, Curriculum Lead and won faculty of the year in 2011. He holds three master’s degrees, a PhD in Homeland Security, is an Army Strategist, a U.S. Joint Planner, and an Air War College graduate. Dr Gardner also instructs civilian college courses on Homeland Security/Defence.