Ricardo Colón's term ended on April 23, 2021.
Ricardo Colón, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, has been a Special Agent with the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) of the U.S. Department of State since 1991. Mr. Colón was named Deputy Assistant Secretary and Assistant Director for Domestic Operations on March 1, 2018. In this capacity, Mr. Colón is responsible for managing and directing almost all Diplomatic Security (DS) activities within the continental United States, including all DS field offices, criminal investigations, counterintelligence, and protective operations.
Prior to this position, Mr. Colón served as the Director of the Office of Protection in the Domestic Operations Directorate. In this capacity, he led all protection security functions of the DSS, which including the Secretary of State’s Protective Detail (Division), the Dignitary Protection and Major Events Division, and the Protective Liaison Division.
Mr. Colón served as the Director of the Diplomatic Security Training Center (DSTC), an accredited Federal Law Enforcement Training Academy. His other overseas assignments included Regional Security Officer (RSO) for U.S. Embassy Islamabad, Pakistan, Deputy RSO at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, and Assistant RSO at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, Mexico.
Mr. Colón has held a variety of domestic supervisory positions, including Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge for Operations of the Secretary’s Detail for Secretaries Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, Section Chief in the Washington Field Office, and Resident Agent-in-Charge of the San Juan Resident Office. He also served in the DS Criminal Investigations Division, a previous assignment to the Secretary’s Detail, and his initial assignment in the New York Field Office.
Mr. Colón was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and raised in the Bronx, New York. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University at Albany, New York in 1989 and a Master of Science in National Security Strategy from the National War College in 2011. He is the recipient of multiple Department of State Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards.