By Steve Neavling
Donald Alway has been named assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles Field Office, where he began his career 26 years ago.
Alway began working for the FBI as a special agent in 1996, when he was assigned to the Los Angeles Field Office to investigate drug trafficking organizations.
Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he helped at the crime scenes in New York City and at the Pentagon.
In 2003, Alway was promoted to supervisory special agent in the Counterterrorism Division at headquarters, and in 2005, he became the deputy on-scene commander in the Iraq Theatre of Operations for the Regimes Crimes Task Force before working as the acting legal attaché in Doha, Qatar.
In 2007, Alway went to the New York Field Office to supervise a joint terrorism task force squad, specialized responses, and special event planning.
In 2011, he became assistant special agent in charge of the National Security Branch in the Cincinnati Field Office.
A year later, Alway returned to headquarters as a section chief in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD).
In 2014, he was appointed special agent in charge of the Jackson Field Office in Mississippi.
Alway became the deputy assistant director of the Training Division in 2016, and as assistant director in 2018.
In 2019, Alway was appointed assistant director of the WMDD.
Before joining the bureau, Alway was a deputy sheriff in Los Angeles County.
He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California and master’s degrees from California State University at Long Beach and from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
