Director Christopher Wray has named Michael A. Christman as assistant director of the Criminal Justice Information Services Division in West Virginia. He most recently served as the special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh Field Office.
The CJIS Division provides state-of-the-art tools and services to law enforcement, national security and intelligence community partners, and the general public.
Mr. Christman joined the FBI as a special agent in February 1992. He served on the Safe Streets Task Force in Salt Lake City, targeting violent gangs and Mexican drug-trafficking organizations. He also investigated violent crime and other criminal matters. Mr. Christman transferred to the Cleveland Field Office in 1997 and worked drug and terrorism cases.
In 2005, he was promoted to supervisory special agent and assigned to the Criminal Investigative Division at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. He transferred to the Pittsburgh Field Office in 2007, where he supervised violent crime, violent gang, drug, and organized crime programs. He also led the Greater Pittsburgh Safe Streets Task Force.
Mr. Christman was promoted to assistant special agent in charge of Criminal, Intelligence, and Administrative Programs in Pittsburgh in 2014. He was put in charge of Pittsburgh’s Cyber and Intelligence Programs in 2015. Two years later, he was promoted to chief of a Cyber Operations section at Headquarters that managed all of the FBI’s cyber-criminal investigations. He also chaired the International Cyber Crimes Working Group.
In 2018, Mr. Christman was named the deputy assistant director of the CJIS Division’s Operational Programs Branch. He was named special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh Field Office in 2020.
Prior to his appointment with the FBI, Mr. Christman worked for the city prosecutor’s office in Akron, Ohio. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Youngstown State University and a juris doctorate degree from the University of Akron.