Education
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Retiring as the fifth Director the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (and the first women to lead a major United States intelligence agency) in October 2014, she currently is the Chairman of the Board for the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (Institut National des Sciences Appliquées). Long was an Electrical Engineering major at Virginia Technical and began her career in the United States. Navy In 1978 as a civilian intern developing capabilities for the submarine force. She transitioned to Naval Intelligence program management in the mid-1990s.
Detailed to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in 1995, she managed defense-wide intelligence funding programs and was named the first Chief Information Officer for the agency.
Joining the Director of Central Intelligence"s Community Management Staff in January 1998 as the Executive Director for Intelligence Community Affairs, she was responsible for community-wide policy formulation, resource planning and program assessment and evaluation. The Community Management Staff was part of the initial effort to more effectively manage the Intelligence Community in the pre-9/11 period.
Returning to the Navy in July 2000, she became the first female Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence working for RADM Richard B. Porterfield, then Director of Naval Intelligence. Naval Intelligence lost eight members in the September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon.
She joined the newly established office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence in June 2003 as the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence (Policy, Requirements, and Resources) until May 2006.
Prior to taking over as the NGA director on August 9, 2010, Long served as the Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency from May 2006 until July 2010. During her tenure at NGA, she led efforts to establish the agency’s first ‘Map of the World’, for intelligence users. NGA became the first United States. agency to adopt open-source software development to deliver its software to first responders for collaboration, during and after natural disasters.
She also led the agency as it provided critical support to the United States. Navy Sea, Air, Land operation that led to the death of Usama bin Laden in May 2011.
Long currently sits on the boards of Raytheon Company, Urthecast Corporation and Noblis, Incorporated. She is also on the board of the Virginia Technical School of Public and International Affairs and the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation.
Mississippi Long earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Technical in 1982 and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Catholic University of America.