Michael A. Cannon currently serves as Chief Counsel for the First Responder Network (FirstNet) Authority where he oversees an office that supports the FirstNet program in fulfilling its statutory mission of ensuring the deployment, operation, and continued improvement of the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN). The NPSBN was constructed to provide priority wireless communications to public safety responders across all 50 states, 5 territories, and the District of Columbia.
The FirstNet Authority OCC supports the everyday activities of the FirstNet program as well as performs specialized regulatory, compliance, and contract-support functions. As a spectrum license holder, the FirstNet Authority OCC manages the assigned spectrum for the NPSBN, including resolution of radio frequency interference to the network, and represents the FirstNet program before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FirstNet Authority also provides legal support for the NPSBN contract that is foundational to the FirstNet program’s public-private partnership to build, operate, and upgrade the NPSBN, and is also responsible for environmental & historic preservation throughout the network deployment.
Prior to serving in this position, he served as Chief Counsel for Economic affairs overseeing a staff providing legal advice and services to Office of the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the U.S. Census Bureau, in addition to formerly serving as the Chief of the General Litigation Division for the U.S. Department of Commerce overseeing a staff that handled a wide variety of federal litigation matters such as tort litigation, constitutional claims, personal injury and property claims, representation of individual agency employees, administrative law, commercial law and bankruptcies, and evidentiary and testimonial procedures.
He has over 40 years of government service which includes active-duty military service, employment with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and his career at the U.S. Department of Commerce which he began in 1992. He is a retired Navy Captain where he served as a Radar Intercept Officer in the F-14 Tomcat. He is married to the former Mary Ann Schult, and has three children, Joseph, Beth, and Anna, and resides in Ashburn, Virginia.