Experience Focused on the Mission

Jim Thrift brings more than three decades of federal, military, security, and operational experience to Mission Assurance Partners. A U.S. Navy veteran and retired U.S. Secret Service Physical Security Specialist, Jim served more than 25 years with the Secret Service in assignments spanning Technical Surveillance Countermeasures, protective operations, technical security, counterterrorism, investigative support, telecommunications and network security, emergency preparedness, and program management. His career included worldwide protective missions, senior leadership of national investigative technical operations, and extensive collaboration with federal, military, intelligence, and law-enforcement partners.

At MAP, Jim leads government strategy, mission assurance, security solutions, strategic partnerships, and business development. He also draws on a long-standing network of former federal law-enforcement, military, technical, and security professionals to assemble the right expertise for complex mission requirements.

Outside his federal career, Jim is the founder of two martial arts academies and a 5th-degree Gracie Jiu-Jitsu black belt, with decades of experience training law-enforcement, military, and first-responder personnel in defensive tactics and related disciplines.

Chris Simpson, a Project Management Professional (PMP), has spent his career managing technical programs and leading software engineering teams through every stage of the systems development life cycle. That work has taken him across private industry and federal health, research, and regulatory agencies — schedules, budgets, vendor relationships, and delivery compliance on programs worth tens of millions a year, and the project management office of a national research initiative many times that size.

He does his best work in the space between business and technology: turning what a program needs into something an engineering team can build, and describing what that team is building in terms a program office or oversight reviewer can act on. Certified as a SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager, he has worked extensively in mature SAFe Agile environments, and prefers to agree on goals and metrics with a client early so progress is visible and contractual obligations are met without surprises.

At MAP, Chris works with leadership on business development, strategic partnerships, operations, and the delivery of government and commercial solutions, helping coordinate opportunities, partner relationships, and project execution as MAP’s capabilities grow.