Jeff Sandy was appointed Cabinet Secretary of the West Virginia Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety Secretary by Governor Jim Justice in January 2017. He is a graduate of Marshall University with a BBA specializing in accounting and is also a graduate of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center with a designation of special agent with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Criminal Investigations Division. He is designated as a certified fraud examiner and a certified anti-money laundering specialist.
From 1982 to 1993, he was assigned to the Presidential Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force in the Northern Judicial District of West Virginia. In 1993, he accepted the supervisory special agent position for the Southern Judicial District of West Virginia in Charleston.
After the terrorist attacks of 2001, Agent Sandy received orders to secure a facility in the eastern U.S. as the special agent in charge. He then volunteered to work on counter-terrorism efforts in Washington, D.C. and by an executive order by President George W. Bush, worked in Baghdad, Iraq, and Doha, Qatar. In 2005, Sandy became a member of the U.S. Department of Justice State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training Program. He was elected sheriff of Wood County in 2008.