Robert J. Garrity Jr., a counterintelligence and information security expert with 30 years of experience, has been named the new special agent in charge of the Denver FBI office.

The Baltimore native takes over for Richard C. Powers, who left in June to become assistant director of the FBI’s Office of Congressional Affairs. Beginning next month, Garrity will oversee the operations of about 150 agents in 11 field offices throughout Colorado and Wyoming.

"Even after 30 years of serving as a special agent, I still jump out of bed each morning and look forward to going to work," Garrity told his University of Baltimore alumni association recently. "Like many FBI agents, I don’t consider this a job. To me, it’s a calling."

Garrity, 54, who has a law degree and a master’s of public administration, was most recently the FBI’s deputy chief information officerresponsible for the FBI's data technology efforts.

His FBI career began in Savannah, Ga., in 1976, and took Garrity and wife Shirley to New York, Washington, Dallas and Jackson, Miss., where he was special agent in charge. Early years were spent in a series of assignments overseeing counterintelligence activities against the Soviet KGB.

Garrity became an inspector in the FBI’s Senior Executive Service in 2000 responsible for analyzing weaknesses in the agency’s information security policies that allowed the espionage activities of convicted spy and former special agent Robert Hanssen.

In July 2001, Garrity was put in charge of evaluating the FBI’s records management systems after problems emerged with documents in the Oklahoma City bombing investigation. Timothy McVeigh’s execution was delayed a month when FBI officials found about 4,000 pages of relevant documents that were never given to investigators or McVeigh’s attorneys.

"Nearly everything we do has a significant impact on the citizens of this great country," Garrity has said. "The FBI has an incredibly important and diverse mission, so there is never a dull moment."