Alan Bersin | |
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| Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection | |
| In office March 27, 2010 – December 31, 2011 | |
| President | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | Jayson Ahern (acting) |
| Succeeded by | David V. Aguilar (acting) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | October 15, 1946 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Spouse | Lisa Foster |
| Children | 3 daughters |
| Education | Harvard University (BA) Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar) Yale Law School (JD) |
| Profession | Attorney |
| Known for |
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Alan Douglas Bersin (born October 15, 1946) is a senior advisor at the international law firm Covington & Burling. He also serves as an Inaugural Senior Fellow in the Homeland Security Project at the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, as a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, and as Inaugural North America Fellow at the Canada Institute and the Mexico Institute (Wilson Center). He is Chairman of the consulting firm BorderWorks Group, and Executive Chairman of Altana Trade.
Bersin was valedictorian of his high school in Brooklyn, New York, graduated from Harvard University where he was an All-American for the Harvard Crimson football team, attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and earned a J.D. degree from Yale Law School. He then spent the better part of two decades practicing at the Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson, rising to become a senior partner.
Bersin then served in turn as the US Attorney for the Southern District of California and the US Border Czar, the Superintendent of the San Diego City Schools, the California Secretary of Education, and the Chairman of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. He was then the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary for International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs, the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection overseeing its 58,000-employee work force and operating budget of $12 billion, the DHS Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Chief Diplomatic Officer, and the Vice President of INTERPOL for the Americas Region and a member of the INTERPOL Executive Committee.