Biography

David Richardson (born March 4, 1965, in Waterford, Michigan) is an American painter, author, and former government official. He served as the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from May 8, 2025, to November 30, 2025. Before that appointment he served as Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) Office beginning in January 2025.

A retired United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel and artillery officer, Richardson commanded units in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Africa. In October 2007 he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with “V” device for heroic achievement as a Marine advisor to an Iraqi battalion in Anbar Province from January to August 2006. He taught history as a Naval ROTC instructor at George Washington University, strategy at the United States Army Field Artillery School, and served as an instructor in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program.

Richardson is the author of War Story (2019), a novel partially written from the perspective of an Iraqi colonel, and Texas Flood 4 July 2025 (2026), a first-person account of his tenure at FEMA during the July 2025 Central Texas floods. He is also a professional painter. Taught to draw and paint by his mother, an artist and art teacher, he has exhibited in New York and Washington, D.C., including at Dickinson Gallery, The Ralls Collection, and earlier solo and group shows in the region.

He holds a B.S. in biology from Harding University and lives in Northern Virginia with his two sons.

Recent Exhibitions

  • Art Expo NYC, Dickinson Gallery, Booth S101, New York, NY, 2026

  • Utopia, Dickinson Gallery, New York, NY, 2025–26

  • Art on Paper, Dickinson Gallery booth, New York, NY, 2024

  • Cerebral, Dickinson Gallery, New York, NY, 2024

  • Myth and Enigma: Something along the line, AMRM Gallery, New York, NY, 2023

  • Stand for the Troops benefit, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Club, New York, NY, 2019

  • U.S. Marine and Painter, Army and Navy Club, Washington, DC, 2017 (solo)

  • High Art | Low Art, Book Hill pop-up, Georgetown, Washington, DC, 2016

  • 20 Years, 20 Artists, The Ralls Collection, Georgetown, Washington, DC, 2011

  • The Trojan War Years: 2000–2010, The Ralls Collection, Georgetown, Washington, DC, 2010–11 (solo)

  • The Soul of Seoul, Zenith Gallery at Chevy Chase Pavilion, Washington, DC, 2009–10 (solo)