By Steve Neavling
James A. Dawson has been named the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Little Rock Field Office in Arkansas.
Before the appointment, Dawson had been serving as the special agent in charge of Criminal and Cyber Division of the Washington Field Office.
Dawson’s career as a special agent began in 1999, when he worked on the Organized Crime and Drug Squad in the Milwaukee Field Office.
In 2001, he moved to the Kenosha Resident Agency, a satellite of the Milwaukee office, and in 2003, he transferred to the McAlester Resident Agency of the Oklahoma City Field Office, where his focus was public corruption.
In 2011, Dawson began serving as supervisory senior resident of the Muskogee Resident Agency, overseeing four offices in eastern Oklahoma.
In 2015, Dawson was promoted to assistant section chief of the Surveillance and Aviation Section in the Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG), serving as the national program manager of the FBI’s ground surveillance program. In 2016, he began leading CIRG’s front office, where he was in charge of intelligence, finance, security, facilities, and technical units.
A year later, Dawson was promoted to assistant special agent in charge in the Criminal Division of the Washington Field Office, where supervised 12 squads. In 2018, he returned to CIRG as the section chief for the Counter Improvised Explosive Devices Section.
In 2019, Dawson was promoted to special agent in charge of the Mission Services Division of the Washington Field Office, and in 2020, he transferred to special agent in charge of the Criminal and Cyber Division.
Before joining the FBI, Dawson graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and served as a surface warfare officer.
