Captain Erich Telfer

Captain Erich M. Telfer is the commanding officer of the Coast Guard Maritime Intelligence Fusion Center Atlantic (MIFC LANT) in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Operationally, Captain Telfer has served as a group duty officer at Group Miami, as a deck watch officer on USCGC RELIANCE, as the executive officer of Group Upper Mississippi River, and as the commanding officer of the Pacific Tactical Law Enforcement Team (PACTACLET) in San Diego, California. Under his command, PACTACLET seized and disrupted 199,921 kilograms of cocaine and seized eight self-propelled semi-submersibles all of which led to 214 man-years of prison for convicted smugglers. Additionally, he led the unit’s integration into the Deployable Operations Group and standardized tactics, techniques, and procedures across the TACLET community. Captain Telfer’s intelligence assignments include as a watch officer at Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence East in Miami, Florida; senior watch officer at the Coast Guard Intelligence Coordination Center; and three years as the Assistant Coast Guard Attaché in the U.S. Embassy, Mexico City, Mexico. 

While assigned to the ICC, Captain Telfer also served as the senior Coast Guard White House Social Aide coordinating the protocol of official functions for the President and Mrs. Clinton. More recently, Captain Telfer served as the Deputy Director for Coast Guard Counterintelligence and then as the Executive Assistant to the Assistant Commandant for Intelligence and Criminal Investigations (CG-2) in Washington, DC. A Spanish linguist, Captain Telfer holds a Master of Military Studies from the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College where he earned the CIA’s Excellence in Intelligence Writing Award. He also holds a Master of Intelligence Studies, with Honors, from American Military University. 

For his Senior Service School, Captain Telfer attended the National Intelligence University (NIU) where he was a Fellow at the Center for Strategic Intelligence Research. His book, titled Unlimited Impossibilities: Intelligence Support to Deep Water Horizon, was published in April 2015 and is available via the NIU Press, http://ni-u.edu/wp/national-intelligence-press/integration/ .