Author Archive

Marko Hakamaa

Marko Hakamaa served in various military police positions with the United States Army worldwide for 22 years before retiring in 2006 as a Master Sergeant. Afterwards, he transitioned into the civilian workforce as a contractor background investigator for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) before entering civil service as a Security Specialist in 2009.

Background Investigations

  Last month I wrote about the lack of information coming out of OPM about the new National Background Investigations Bureau (NBIB) regarding the details of when they will take over conducting background investigations from OPM’s Federal Investigation Services. Lo and behold, in a story posted this week on Federal

Read More
Background Investigations

Back in January of this year OPM announced that it was standing up of a new agency, the National Background Investigations Bureau (NBIB), which would take over conducting background investigations from OPM’s Federal Investigative Services by October 2016 as a part of security clearance processing reforms. On August 23, 2016

Read More
Adjudication

A common mistake security clearance applicants make is in thinking that criminal charges filed against them resulting in the judge withholding adjudication do not have to be reported. This is not true, regardless of what advice a recruiter, friend, or solicitor may tell you. What does adjudication withheld actually mean?

Read More
Obtaining Security Clearance

As we all know, one of the adjudicative guidelines that could disqualify a person from being granted eligibility for a security clearance is Guideline C: Foreign Preference. Most of the time this deals with those who claim dual citizenship, meaning a person is a citizen of two countries at the

Read More