Mark Schouten
Director
Governor Terry E. Branstad appointed Mark Schouten (SCOUT-en) in November 2011 to serve as administrator of the then Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division. When the Division became a stand-alone department on July 1, 2013, he became the director of the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
Schouten previously served as the director of the Governor’s Office of Drug Control Policy. He was appointed to that position by Gov. Branstad in January 2011.
Schouten served in the Iowa Attorney General’s Office for five years, where he worked as the head of its transportation division and as a member of the area prosecution division where he prosecuted Medicaid fraud. Prior to joining the Attorney General’s Office, Schouten served as an assistant ethics counsel for the Iowa Supreme Court’s Iowa Board of Professional Ethics and as the Sioux County attorney and as a private practice attorney for 20 years.
As a county attorney Schouten served as a member of the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council and as chairman of the County Attorneys Association’s technology committee. He taught trial advocacy at the National Advocacy Center in Columbia, S.C., and was a governor’s appointee to the Iowa Telecommunications and Technology Commission from 1996-2004.
Schouten received a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Iowa State University and graduated with distinction from the University of Iowa College of Law.
Mark and his wife Carrie live in Norwalk.
