FBI Atlanta names new special agent in charge

ATLANTA - There's a new boss in town. The FBI has named Paul W. Brown the special agent in charge of the Atlanta Field Office.

What we know:

Special Agent Brown may be the new guy, but he has decades of experience doing the job. He was in charge of the FBI's Mobile Field Office in Alabama.

With the move, he'll lead more than 500 employees in Georgia, which spans 14 offices across the state.

Keri Farley, the previous SAC, retired last fall. Sean Burke served in the interim.

Paul Brown's decades-long FBI work history

Timeline:

Paul Brown joined the FBI as a special agent in 2006. His first assignment was to the Bedford Resident Agency in New Hampshire, a sub-office of the Boston Field Office.

In 2012, he was promoted to supervisory special agent and shifted to the Counterterrorism Division at FBI Headquarters. He was promoted again in 2013 to unit chief when he served as a program manager over U.S.-based international terrorism investigations.

In 2015, he transferred to the Jacksonville Field Office, where he led the North Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force.

In 2018, Brown was tapped to serve as the assistant special agent in charge of cyber, counterintelligence, and crisis response programs of the Phoenix Field Office. Just a year later, he was promoted to section chief and appointed director of the FBI’s High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group. He was promoted yet again in 2020 to deputy assistant director of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate.

Most recently, he began serving as the Special Agent in Charge in Mobile, Alabama in February 2022.

Dig deeper:

Before joining the FBI, Brown served as an officer in the U.S. Army and worked as a business consultant for a multinational professional services company.

He graduated with his Bachelor's degree from Western Illinois University and an MBA from Tarleton State University in Texas.