Joanne Perriens

​Joanne Perriens, of Rockville, MD, passed away quietly at her home surrounded by her family on Friday, December 23, 2016 after a long and courageous battle with breast cancer.

Joanne was born on September 14, 1930 in Boston, MA, to David and Bertha Bloom. Joanne attended Mount Holyoke College where she majored in Political Science. After graduation, she made her way to Washington, DC, to work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Soon thereafter, she began a long and successful 46-year career with the National Security Agency, where she rose to the senior executive level – a trailblazer for women in government.

In 1950, she met and later married Matthew Perriens. They were together for 61 years before Matt’s death in 2014. Joanne is survived by three children, Carol, Laura (Kevin Pardue) and Jeff (Jan Perriens). She is also survived by seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.  

Joanne was an avid bridge player, a voracious reader of all things political, both domestic and international, and a life-long Red Sox fan. Throughout her life, she supported numerous charitable causes. Celebration of Life will be held at Ingleside at King Farm, 701 King Farm Blvd., Rockville, MD 20850 on Friday, December 30 at 10 a.m. Casual dress. In lieu of cards and flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Montgomery Hospice (Montgomeryhospice.org) or the American Cancer Society, P.O. Box 22478, Oklahoma City, OK 73123.

Joanne Perriens was a groundbreaking analyst, leader, and glass-ceiling-shattering pioneer. She began her career at Arlington Hall, then moved with NSA to Fort Meade in the mid-1950s. From her earliest assignments she worked Soviet and Eastern Bloc targets, and did so for decades in myriad positions.

Upon graduation from the National War College in 1979, Perriens became Executive Assistant to NSA Deputy Director Robert Drake. Subsequently, she was promoted into the senior ranks, one of the few women of her time to achieve that status. Perriens then became chief of the NSA Foreign Affairs organization, the first time a woman had led that office. She expertly managed relationships with foreign partners, whose offices were overwhelmingly male.

When NSA took over responsibility for previous CIA SIGINT partnerships, Perriens oversaw dramatic changes. She expanded existing relationships, established new ones, and managed larger amounts of funding. She founded new and innovative collection programs, and set high professional standards for the NSA’s language analysts. At DIRNSA Lincoln Faurer’s direction, she organized unprecedented regular meetings of senior European intelligence and SIGINT chiefs that he called “SIGINT Seniors.”

Perriens later led a production office with a critical target set for almost ten years. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, NSA leadership consolidated many operations, presenting her with another set of challenging changes. The merger occurred in 1992—with Perriens in charge of a major component of the new office. Her direct and thoughtful outreach to her physically separated, 500-person organization enabled a successful transition, and almost immediately elevated her to the position of Deputy Chief, A Group in 1993.

Perriens was a caring and innovating senior leader. She was a strong advocate for personnel and their career development, and aggressively supported the promotion of women into the Agency’s higher ranks. She sent official memos to three successive DIRNSAs, challenging them to increase the number of women in senior positions. Mrs. Perriens’ actions resulted in great strides forward in diversity issues.