Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

Visiting Fellow Matt A. Mayer leads The Heritage Foundation's Homeland Security and the States Project, which seeks to decentralize elements of homeland security from the federal government to state and local entities.

Mayer also is an Adjunct Professor at Ohio State University where he teaches a course comparing responses within the transatlantic alliance to terrorist threats.  Mayer has published several public policy articles in the last year on homeland security issues, and is working on a book, Decentralizing Homeland Security: Protecting America from Outside the Beltway.  Mayer was a 2007 Lincoln Fellow with the Claremont Institute and a 2003 American Marshall Memorial Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Previously, Mayer was a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security, where he performed multiple key roles under the leadership of Secretaries Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff.  In his final position with the department, Mayer served as the Counselor to the Deputy Secretary.  In that role, he advised the Secretary and Deputy Secretary on all policy and operational issues facing the new agency.  In addition, Mayer engaged in the creation and issuance of key policy programs, including the re-tooling efforts at FEMA, immigration and border programs, maritime and port security programs, and transportation security programs. 

Mayer also served as the head of the Office of Grants and Training where he led the department's efforts to transform domestic preparedness to meet the demands of the ever-changing threat environment.  Mayer oversaw and managed the development of the National Preparedness Goal and Target Capabilities List, and also spearheaded the movement to allocate grant funds on a risk and need model.

Mayer came to Homeland Security from Colorado where he served Gov. Bill Owens as the Deputy Director for the Department of Regulatory Agencies. Mayer co-developed Colorado's award-winning regulatory notice system that uses electronic mail to notify stakeholders of all proposed regulations before those regulations become final.

Mayer graduated cum laude from the University of Dayton, with a double major in philosophy and psychology. He received his law degree from the Ohio State University College of Law.