Michael D. Nordwall Named Special Agent in Charge of the Pittsburgh Field Office

Director Christopher Wray has named Michael D. Nordwall as the special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh Field Office. Mr. Nordwall most recently served as a section chief in the Criminal Investigative Division at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Nordwall began his career with the FBI as a special agent in 2002. He was first assigned to the Phoenix Field Office, where he worked counterterrorism, violent crime, crimes in Indian Country, and organized crime matters. He was also a member of the SWAT team and an EMT.

In 2009, Mr. Nordwall was promoted to supervisory special agent in the Operations Unit of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate at Headquarters, where he managed FBI investigations of and responses to WMD threats in the U.S. and internationally.

Mr. Nordwall transferred to the Tampa Field Office in Florida in 2011 to oversee an organized crime drug enforcement strike force known as Panama Express. The interagency strike force countered transnational criminal organizations trafficking drugs on the high seas.

In 2014, Mr. Nordwall was selected as an associate director in the Department of Justice’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces Executive Office, serving as the primary representative for federal law enforcement. He also oversaw the attorney general’s Consolidated Priority Organization Target program, which focused government efforts on disrupting and dismantling the most significant criminal organizations.

Mr. Nordwall returned to the Tampa Field Office in 2016 to oversee the Joint Terrorism Task Force. In June 2018, he reported to the Denver Field Office as the assistant special agent in charge of the Criminal Branch and all Colorado resident agencies.

He was promoted in 2019 to chief of the Transnational Organized Crime Global Section in the Criminal Investigative Division at Headquarters. The section manages investigations and intelligence collection against transnational criminal organizations based in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.

Mr. Nordwall earned a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from Auburn University in Alabama. Prior to joining the FBI, he worked in the petrochemical industry.