LAUER TOP CANDIDATE FOR FLORIDA SECURITY JOB

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - He's well-acquainted with Osama bin Laden.

He's been on special assignment in Beirut and Kuwait, and he's heading up
the charge to rid Florida seaports of drugs and thugs.

He's even a "Jedi knight."

Now Steve Lauer also emerges as the top candidate to become Florida's first
security czar.

"If you wanted someone to secure the state of Florida against a terrorist
threat, you couldn't find a better person," said Lauer's former boss and
mentor, state drug czar Jim McDonough.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement Director Tim Moore is expected to
name the state's new chief of domestic security after Thanksgiving. Several
sources said they expect the pick to be Lauer.

Lauer, 49, spent nearly two years under McDonough fighting Florida's war on
drugs before being tapped in July by Moore to direct seaport security
operations.

Less than three months later, the September attacks catapulted him into one
of the state's most important crime prevention posts - expanding the
defense of Florida seaports against drug traffickers and mobsters to
include the new terrorist threat.

He is on familiar ground.

Lauer has broad knowledge of Middle Eastern terrorist groups, from the
Hezbollah group to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

The retired Marine lieutenant colonel was sent to Kuwait in 1998 on a
special assignment to defend military forces against a specific threat that
had been made by the al-Qaida leader. The attack never happened.

He also was a United Nations military observer in 1983 in Lebanon when a
suicide bomber attack against the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut killed 241
soldiers.

"Perhaps unusual to the candidates for this job, I had to protect someone
against a threat that was made by terrorists and also was able to witness
both the acts of terror and the retaliation for that in Lebanon," Lauer said.

Lauer is a graduate of the School of Advanced Military Studies in Kansas,
the nation's hard-core intellectual war-fighting school responsible for the
"Jedi knights" of the U.S. armed forces.

Lauer was handpicked for the elite training by McDonough, a globally
recognized expert on terrorism and combat strategy who directed the school
from 1991-94.

"I chose him amongst the best of the Marine Corps to enter into the school,
and just watched him grow," McDonough said. "He's done an incredible job in
tough places overseas and at home."

Lauer's success at the school led McDonough to appoint him as second-
in-command of the Office of Drug Control. There, he dreamed up and put in
motion an effort to clean up the drug-infested Miami River area and
completed the state's first review of designer drug-related deaths.

His work coordinating the statewide drug control strategy at the state's
ports - where more than 40 percent of the cocaine enters the country - made
him a natural pick for the seaport security chief.

Moore has said he is looking for someone with a military background,
diplomatic skills and the ability to coordinate numerous agencies.