PERSON: Will Hurd

Politician

William Ballard “Will” Hurd (born August 19, 1977) is an American politician who is the U.S. Representative for Texas’s 23rd congressional district, a district which stretches 800 miles, from San Antonio to El Paso, along the U.S.-Mexican border. He took office on January 3, 2015. Hurd is the first black Republican elected to Congress from Texas. Hurd is the son of Robert and Mary Alice Hurd of San Antonio. He is a graduate of John Marshall High School in the San Antonio suburb of Leon Valley, Texas. After high school Hurd attended Texas A&M and served as the Student Body President in 1999 at the time of Aggie Bonfire collapse. He graduated from A&M in 2000 with a degree in computer science, a minor in international relations.

Hurd worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for nine years, stationed in Washington, D.C., including a tour of duty as an operations officer in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. He speaks Urdu, the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, where Hurd worked undercover.

One of his roles at the CIA was briefing members of Congress, many of whom could not distinguish the Sunni and Shia divide at the center of Islamic civil wars for centuries. This lack of understanding by members of Congress made Hurd want to pursue politics.

He returned to Texas after his CIA service and worked for Crumpton Group, strategic advisory firm, as a partner and a senior adviser with the cybersecurity firm FusionX. He currently lives in Helotes, a suburb of San Antonio.

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