Howard Anthony Schmidt

He died at his home in Muskego, the Wisconsin address that closes the story rather than opens it.

Born in Philadelphia on October 5, 1949, he learned munitions in the Air Force, flew three Vietnam tours, and spent his working decades largely in Arizona and Washington. He served on Chandler police SWAT and drug units, did FBI computer-exploitation work, and at the Air Force Office of Special Investigations in 1996 stood up the first dedicated computer-forensic laboratory in the U.S. government—the seed of what became the Defense Computer Forensic Laboratory. Amateur radio (first licensed WB7NUV, later W7HAS) was the origin story he told: Heathkits, a Sinclair ZX80 for moonbounce math, OSCAR satellite passes over Arizona.

Microsoft made him CISO; eBay made him chief security officer. After September 11, George W. Bush appointed him to the President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board. Obama named him White House Cybersecurity Coordinator in December 2009; he left in May 2012 to teach and partner with Tom Ridge. He died of brain cancer at sixty-seven on March 2, 2017, at home in Muskego. The New York Times put that house in the lead; the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called him a Muskego resident.