Press Release

Congratulations to Three Former CSIS Coast Guard Fellows

August 10, 2017

CSIS is honored to congratulate Douglas Fears, Brian Penoyer, and Matthew Sibley, all former CSIS Military Fellows and officers with the United States Coast Guard, for being selected for promotion to Rear Admiral, Lower Half. They are a distinguished group of military leaders who will continue to advance the Coast Guard’s core missions to ensure the nation’s maritime safety, security, and stewardship. CSIS is proud of their selection for promotion and grateful for their continued service to the nation.

Rear Admiral (Select) Douglas Fears served as the Coast Guard Fellow at CSIS from 2009 to 2010. In his most recent assignment, he served as the Senior Director for Resilience Policy on the National Security Council staff at the White House. He has more than three decades of policy, budget, legislative, foreign affairs, interagency, and operations experience. He also served on eight ships around the world and served as Commanding Officer in three of those ships. More recently, he served as the Chief of Staff for the Coast Guard’s Atlantic Area command. Between seagoing assignments, he served as the Chief of Law Enforcement for the Coast Guard; the Director for Central America and the Caribbean on the National Security Council staff; as a Program Reviewer in Coast Guard Headquarters; liaison to the U.S. House of Representatives; and as the Aide and Executive Assistant to the Admiral overseeing operations in the Pacific Northwest. Rear Admiral (Select) Fears enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1982 and is an alumnus of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, the U.S. Naval War College, and Harvard University. In addition to his fellowship at CSIS, he was also a Fellow in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Seminar XXI on Foreign Politics, International Relations, and the National Interest.

Rear Admiral (Select) Brian Penoyer served as the Coast Guard Fellow at CSIS from 2012 to 2013. In his most recent assignment, he served as the Chief of Staff for the Fourteenth Coast Guard District in which he was the principal advisor to the District Commander on all Coast Guard missions conducted in the Central and South Pacific. He also served as the Commander of Coast Guard Sector Houston-Galveston; as Deputy Chief of Coast Guard Congressional Affairs; as Admiral Thad Allen’s liaison in the office of the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security during the Deepwater Horizon incident, and in support of Admiral Allen during the response to Hurricane Katrina. A specialist in coastal operations, Rear Admiral (Select) Penoyer also served as the Deputy Sector Commander in Baltimore, as the Chief of Prevention at Sector Baltimore, and as the Chief of Port Operations and Planning in Jacksonville. In his first assignment for the Coast Guard, he deployed throughout Europe and the Middle East during the 1991 Gulf War. His staff assignments include serving as the Department of Homeland Security’s Chief of Contingency Planning and the Coast Guard’s liaison to the Department of the Interior and the Coast Guard representative on the National Response Team. Rear Admiral (Select) Penoyer is a graduate of the University of Chicago and holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the University of Maryland. He also holds a Master of Arts in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College and is a graduate of the College of Naval Command and Staff at the Naval War College where he received the Director’s Award for Academic Excellence.

Rear Admiral (Select) Matthew Sibley served as the Coast Guard Fellow at CSIS from 2008 to 2009. In his most recent assignment, he served as the Deputy Commander of the Coast Guard Personnel Service Center in Washington, DC. In his most recent operational assignment, he served as the Commander of Coast Guard Sector Lake Michigan. Rear Admiral (Select) Sibley is designated a Permanent Cutterman with nearly ten years of service afloat, including serving as the Commanding Officer of three ships. His assignments ashore included duty as a Command Center Controller at the Eighth Coast Guard District in New Orleans; Senior Duty Officer in the White House Situation Room; as an Assignment Officer at the Coast Guard Personnel Command; as the Military Assistant to the Secretary of Homeland Security; and as the Deputy Director, Reserve and Military Personnel at Coast Guard Headquarters. He graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 1989 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mathematics and Computer Science and earned a Master of Public Administration degree from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia in 2001.