Joe Arata

Joe Arata was born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA. He enlisted in the Army Reserves in 1983. He was commissioned an active duty Army Infantry Officer in 1985 through ROTC at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He spent most of his time in service with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg. While with the 82nd, he participated in the Combat Parachute Assault during Operation Just Cause in Panama and was in the first unit deployed during Operation Desert Shield known as the “line in the sand”. Joe also commanded the Advanced Airborne School. His last active duty assignment was as the Executive Officer of the Army Physical Fitness School. Joe retired from the Army Reserves in 2008.
Joe started his career at The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as a Federal Air Marshal in 2002, serving as a field agent, Assistant Operations Officer, Assistant Team Leader and Team intelligence officer. In 2006, Joe transferred to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to be the Assistant Director of Recruiting to lead the recruiting operations for the U.S. Border Patrol’s Presidential Mandate to increase from 12,000 to 18,000 agents in 2 years.  Joe also was assigned to stand up CBP’s first veteran’s employment program as well as help stand up the DHS Veterans Employment Council.
Joe presently serves as the Chief of Strategic Recruitment, Alignment and Retention at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  He is responsible for the strategy, direction and operational coordination of all recruiting and retention programs at ICE as well as all of ICE’s Veterans Programs.  He is also the program manager for the HERO program. This program is an internship in which ICE trains wounded, ill and injured service member’s in computer forensics analytics. Strategic Alignment is responsible for properly aligning the Directorates to assist them to meeting the overall lCE mission and its strategic goals. Joe has also been tasked to create the ICE Cyber Investigative program which will look at the future state of employee needs for the agency in the cyber law enforcement field.
Joe served on the executive board of Vetwork for over 20 years. Vetwork is a non-profit veteran’s service organization in New Jersey which provides many services to veterans in need, particularly homelessness and substance addictions. Joe was the president of the organization for 4 years where he refocused fund raising operations as well as preparing the organization for the next 40 years of care for veterans coming home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Joe’s awards since being at DHS consist of the following: 3 Secretary of Homeland Security Awards; 3 ICE Director’s Awards; 2 CBP Commissioner’s Awards for Team Excellence; CBP Commissioner’s Humanitarian Award; CBP Commissioner’s Top Humanitarian Award.
Joe has one son who is a freshman at Tarleton State University in Texas and is currently a second year Army ROTC Cadet and ROTC Scholarship recipient.