Teufel spent much of his childhood in Wichita, Kansas, but also lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, before moving to Colorado.

From 1999 until 2001, he was a special counsel with Hall & Evans, a law firm that focused on public policy and government contracts in the Rocky Mountain region.

[1] Teufel and his staff also provided legal advice to management on personnel issues involving the former Chief of the Park Police, Teresa Chambers.

The first person to be DHS' Chief Privacy Officer was Nuala O'Connor Kelly, appointed by Secretary Tom Ridge.

[2] Teufel was one of two DHS principals on the joint US/EU High Level Contact Group on information sharing and privacy and personal data protection.

The HLCG negotiated common principals underlying future information sharing between the U.S. and the European Union to fight terrorism and serious transnational crimes.

Teufel issued a privacy impact assessment of Einstein 2,[3] a computer network intrusion detection system designed for deployment within federal executive agencies for the protection of their information technology.

As part of his office's outreach and education mission, Teufel spoke frequently about the department and privacy at conferences at home and abroad, including the 2008 Iberoamerican Data Protection Network meeting in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, and the November 2007 EU Conference on Public Security, Privacy and Technology in Brussels.

[5] In June 2008, Teufel received a Master's degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College.

Teufel's focus at PwC was on "helping organizations with issues involving the privacy and security of data, cyber crime and corruption.

"[7] Matters include privacy compliance, security and identity theft assessment, privacy/security breach investigation and overall risk management strategies.

[10][failed verification] Teufel also serves in the Army National Guard, as an officer in the Judge Advocate General's Corps.