Bill Cowan is a FOX News Channel contributor and internationally acknowledged expert in the areas of terrorism, homeland security, intelligence and military special operations. A retired Marine Corps officer, Cowan spent three-and-a-half years on combat assignments in Vietnam. In the 1980s, he was specially selected to serve as one of the first members and as the only Marine in the Pentagon's most classified counter-terrorist unit, the Intelligence Support Activity (ISA), a unit that to this date remains under the tightest security. While there, Cowan served as a senior military operations officer and field operative on covert missions to the Middle East, Europe and Latin America. Following retirement from the Marine Corps in 1985, he served two years on the staff of U.S. Sen. Warren B. Rudman as a legislative assistant and as the senator's primary staff assistant during the Iran/Contra hearings.

In 1990, on behalf of a major New York law firm and working with former CIA Director Bill Colby, he organized and successfully conducted a series of operations resulting in the repatriation of a number of Western hostages from Iraqi-occupied Kuwait. Cowan was directly involved in every facet of the Beirut hostages drama, including international negotiations leading to their release in 1991.

He is a co-founder of the WVC3 Group, a company providing homeland security services, support and technologies to government and commercial clients.