Bryan Wheeler 

Acting General Counsel
Defense Health Agency
Falls Church, VA

Bryan Wheeler serves as Acting General Counsel, Defense Health Agency (DHA), Falls Church, Virginia. He has also served as Deputy General Counsel, DHA; Deputy General Counsel, DHA (National Capital Region Medical Directorate); as an Associate General Counsel with the Office of General Counsel (OGC), TRICARE Management Activity (TMA), Falls Church, VA and as an Assistant General Counsel with primary duties as counsel to the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury and the TRICARE Regional Office-North.

He completed a B.A. in Political Science through the University of the State of New York while on Active Duty in Washington in October 1983. He was commissioned through the Air National Guard Academy of Military Science at McGhee-Tyson Air National Guard Station, Knoxville, Tennessee in July 1986. After completing the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute 16-week program at Patrick AFB, Florida, he returned to the Kansas Air National Guard to serve as the Military Equal Opportunity Officer and resumed his law studies at Washburn. He was subsequently recalled to active duty as a Judge Advocate in October 1988.

In 1995, the Department of Defense selected him as the first military lawyer to participate in Military Health Services System (MHSS) 2020, a project to plan the future of military medical care over the next 25 years. He was a substantial contributor to the project and subsequently co-wrote a chapter in the DoD book, Envisioning Tomorrow: to Focus Today’s Resources and an article on health care fraud in the AMSUS Journal. He has tried over 200 courts-martial as a prosecutor, defense counsel, and military judge and argued numerous cases before the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces and the United States Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals. After retiring from the Air Force and prior to assuming his current duties, he served as the Deputy Director, Investigative Project on Terrorism, a counter-terrorism “think tank” in Washington, DC. He has appeared on “CBS 60 Minutes” and National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” In 2013, he also co-authored the article, “Fighting health care fraud in bold and innovative ways” in the AMSUS Journal.

He is a member of the State Bar of Kansas and is licensed to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, Supreme Court of Kansas, and various federal district and appellate courts.

Laurie Rafferty, J.D.
Lead Ethics Attorney
Defense Health Agency (DHA)
Falls Church, VA

Laurie Powell Rafferty is the lead ethics attorney for the Defense Health Agency (DHA). She has held this position since 2008. Prior to DHA, Laurie was an ethics attorney for the U.S. Department of Commerce, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

She has given numerous presentations on the Criminal Conflict of Interest Statutes and the Standards of Conduct regulation, and reviewed tens of thousands of financial disclosure reports.

Laurie also practiced in the Employment and Labor Law area for the Defense Contract Audit Agency, the Resolution Trust Corporation, and the Commerce Department.

Prior to her Government service, Laurie worked for a small, private law firm in Washington, DC. Laurie graduated from the College of William and Mary in Virginia with an AB in English, and the George Mason University School of Law with a JD.

She is a member of the Virginia, Maryland and District of Columbia bars.