Sgt. Shawn Coolman/U.S. Marines(WASHINGTON) — President Trump is searching for a new national security adviser after retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn resigned from the post late Monday night. Among those under consideration to replace Flynn is Vice Adm. Robert Harward, a retired Navy SEAL, according to a senior White House official.

Harward served as deputy commander of U.S. Central Command (Centcom) to retired Gen. James Mattis, now U.S. Secretary of Defense, when Mattis led the command. Harward is an ABC News contributor.

Here’s everything you need to know about the man who could serve as Trump’s chief White House adviser on national security issues.

Name:
Robert S. Harward

Birthplace:
Newport, Rhode Island

What he used to do:

Harward was appointed in 2011 as the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, serving under then-commander Mattis, until his retirement from the military in 2013.

Prior to that assignment, he was the deputy commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command and commander of Combined Joint Interagency Task Force 435 in Afghanistan. Since Sept. 11, 2001, he had led troops in Afghanistan and Iraq over six years.

Harward, 60, is now chief executive officer for Lockheed Martin United Arab Emirates.

Career track:

Harward enlisted in the Navy and was later awarded a fleet appointment to the U.S Naval Academy, from where he graduated in 1979. He qualified as a surface warfare officer aboard the destroyer USS Scott before joining the Naval Special Warfare community. Harward was the “Honor Man” of his Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL class 128, an award given to the most outstanding member of the training course.

Throughout his distinguished career, Harward has been stationed around the world, but also worked for the executive branch in the nation’s capital. He has served on the National Security Council as the director of Strategy and Policy for the office of Combating Terrorism and was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff representative to the National Counterterrorism Center as a member of the Senior Interagency Strategy Team, according to his Navy biography.

He holds a master’s degree in international relations and strategic security affairs, served as a federal executive fellow at RAND, and is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for International Studies, Foreign Policy Program Seminar XXI, according to the biography.

Harward was awarded the Distinguished Graduate Leadership Award in 2013 by the U.S. Naval War College for his prominence in the field of national security. In 2012, he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor Award for individuals “whose accomplishments in their field and inspired service to our nation are cause for celebration,” according to the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations, which sponsors the award.

Things you might not know about him:

Harward grew up the son of a naval officer and spent much of his teenage years in Iran. He graduated from Tehran American High School in 1974 and speaks Farsi.

For his retirement ceremony in Coronado, California, in 2013, Harward jumped out of a plane and parachuted in, landing on the beach where the ceremony would take place. Adm. William McRaven, then-commander of U.S. Special Operations Command (Socom), and Mattis, then-commander of Centcom, spoke at his retirement.

Harward’s parachute had the SEAL Trident flag along with his three-star flag above it, according to The Coronado Times.

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