Scott Owens was a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 27 years, with assignments in Newark, New Jersey; Budapest, Hungary; and Miami. His investigative duties focused on transnational criminal enterprises, counterterrorism, international corruption and crisis and hostage negotiation. He served as the supervisory special agent in charge of the FBI-Hungarian National Bureau of Investigation Organized Crime Task Force in Budapest, coordinator of the FBI Crisis Negotiation Team in New Jersey, and a special agent on an international corruption squad in Miami.

As Crisis Negotiation Team coordinator, Owens was the FBI’s primary crisis negotiation trainer in New Jersey and taught four FBI Basic Crisis Negotiation Courses each year at police academies throughout the state. He was selected to teach the active listening skills block at the FBI National Crisis Negotiation Course at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. He completed advanced law enforcement crisis negotiation training, including a two-week course offered by the Metropolitan Police Service, also known as Scotland Yard, in London. Owens and his team responded with local negotiators to numerous crisis barricades and international hostage situations involving New Jersey-based U.S. citizens. He served as the crisis negotiation subject matter expert for several FBI command post deployments, including the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Owens volunteered for more than 10 years at CONTACT of Mercer County, a suicide and crisis hotline that provided telephone and crisis chat services. He served as a volunteer listener, trainer for new volunteers and member of the board of directors. Owens also helped CONTACT establish volunteer organizations at Princeton University and The College of New Jersey to recruit student volunteers for the hotlines.

As an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Owens developed courses on crisis negotiations and law enforcement communications in the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice.

He also taught an overview course on the American criminal justice system. Owens has presented his course on crisis and hostage negotiations to undergraduate students at Florida Atlantic University for the past two years. The course now incorporates an artificial intelligence training platform that allows students to work through scenarios they might encounter in law enforcement. These weekly exercises reinforce specific learning points, while repetition under time pressure builds students’ judgment and confidence for future law enforcement careers.

Owens holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Georgetown University, a master’s degree in communication from Johns Hopkins University and a certificate in Russian from Middlebury College. Before his FBI career, he served as a military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, with postings in Arizona, Hawaii and Maryland. He is married and has one son.

Outside of work and teaching, Owens enjoys traveling the world with his family and coaching his son’s football and soccer teams.