Daniel O’Shea is the President of Daniel Risk Mitigation and is the S2 Institute’s primary instructor for crisis management courses related to kidnappings and hostage situations. Dan O’Shea is a qualified Navy SEAL officer and presently a Lieutenant Commander in the US Naval Reserves. He voluntarily returned to active duty following 9/11 and served at Special Operations Command CENTRAL as a staff planning and SOF Liaison officer to US CENTRAL Command headquarters during the wartime planning and execution of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).

In addition to Mr. O’Shea’s career as a Navy Seal Officer, Mr. O’Shea was the Coordinator for the Hostage Working Group (HWG) in Baghdad between July 2004 and April 2006. During his term as Coordinator, Mr. O’Shea directly managed the inter-agency response to more than 300 kidnapping incidents that included the release of an American journalist held captive for nine days and an Irish journalist held hostage for 36 hours. Mr. O’Shea was directly involved in every major international kidnapping case including murdered victims CARE International Director Margaret Hassan and Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) member American Tom Fox; released journalists Italian Guiliana Sgrena (Il Manifesto), Americans Micah Garen (New York Times) and Jill Carroll (Christian Science Monitor), and rescued hostages American Roy Hallums, Australian Doug Woods, and the surviving CPT members, Canadians James Loney, Harmeet Sooden, and British citizen Norman Kember.

Mr. O’Shea is a frequent consultant to the news media on Jihadist hostage takings and is currently writing a book about Kidnapping and the War on Terrorism.