WASHINGTON – Director Robert S. Mueller, III named Rafael J. Garcia, Jr. the special agent in charge of the Intelligence Division at FBI Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Garcia most recently served as director of the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC) in Quantico, Virginia. TEDAC provides direct support to broader U.S. government efforts to prevent and mitigate improvised-explosive device attacks by performing advanced exploitation of IEDs through physical examination resulting in scientific and technical information and intelligence of value.

Garcia joined the FBI in 1995. As a special agent assigned to the Phoenix Field Office, he investigated drug, organized crime, and terrorism cases and served as a Weapons of Mass Destruction program coordinator. While assigned to FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., in 1999, Garcia held several positions related to intelligence and counterterrorism, including chief of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Countermeasures Unit.

In 2004, Garcia served as the FBI’s deputy on-scene commander in Iraq. In this role, he was responsible for the day-to-day operational activity of FBI personnel, among others. In 2007, he was promoted to assistant special agent in charge of the Philadelphia Field Office. In this role, he supervised the Field Intelligence Group and Intelligence program as well as the White-Collar, Public Corruption, and Civil Rights programs.

An émigré from Cuba, Garcia was raised in Baltimore and received a Bachelor of Science degree from the U.S. Military Academy. During his 12 years in the military, he served in infantry, ranger, and aviation units, to include a combat tour as an Apache attack helicopter company commander with the 101st Airborne Division during the 1991 Gulf War and as a battalion operations officer after the war. Garcia left the U.S. Army in 1995 to join the FBI.

He has a Master of Counseling degree from the University of Phoenix and a Master of Science degree in strategic intelligence from the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Joint Military Intelligence College.