544 | Garrett Melich | Retired CIA

We sit down with our friend Garrett to talk through a real 24-year CIA career and why it looks nothing like the movie version people expect. We also unpack what happens after retirement and how intelligence tradecraft can translate into business intelligence, networking, and travel security. 

Transcript

Welcome And The Big Myths

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Hey, welcome to the Protectors Podcast. We're trying out something new in-person interview today. In person, I'm trying out these new DGI Mike 2. So if this sounds a little bit different, you will let me know in the comments below or anywhere else on social media. Because I kind of like this idea. Because I'm here in person with my good friend Garrett, and we are here to talk about his 24-year career in the agency, the central intelligence agency. That little brother in the back room that nobody talks about, nobody wants to know about, but they know it's out there. Now, I got to tell you a funny story. When I first met Garrett years ago, I had kind of an inkling what he did for a living. Because hey, look, I've been around a block for a couple years. Uh, and then when we got become best friends, it was interesting to find out what his life was really like. Because what you see in the movies and what you hear from people say they're from the spooky world, or they tell you jobs that they can't talk about because they work in black ops. It is nothing like that. I mean, yes, there are that, there is that side of the agency. Absolutely, there is that side of the agency. And a lot of times you know those people are out there doing the job, but they're not telling people they're working in this spooky agency or this spooky side of the world. So we're here today to kind of dispel some myths and rumors and talk about Garrett's career and kind of what his pivot was into the next chapters of his life after 24 years of service. So, Garrett, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Thanks for having me for my my first podcast and first time on the Protectors.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

First podcast of many more to come. So let's take a backtrack here.

The Letter That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_01 2:06

You spent 24 years in a CIA. Take me back to the start. What pulled you in and what did you think the career was going to be like?

SPEAKER_00 2:15

It it's an interesting path I took because it wasn't one that I had planned for a very long time. I was headed off to law school, about to move to New York, and decided to write a letter with my resume, or what could be considered a resume after someone that was in college, to three different agencies the FBI, the Secret Service, and the CIA. And one of them wrote me back. Um, with that interest, I told myself that if I was to get hired, I would take the job. So I didn't go off to law school, moved in with my mom and started my master's at uh Georgia Tech. And then I got hired. And that was at I got hired at the end of 98 and started at the beginning of 99.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

So 99, this was a different time. I mean, obviously this is pre-9-11, but when you say the Secret Service, when you say the FBI, and then when you say the agency, these are three very distinct agencies. One is primarily law enforcement, one's primarily protection, and the other one is primarily intelligence gathering. That's kind of a big jump. Was this more of like, hey, you know what? I want to serve the nation in one way, or kind of like a service thing, and then you were like, Oh, I'm gonna do this.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

That's exactly what it was. Um, I think part of me had always liked, and and not to take away the title of your podcast, the protective role. Um, I it wasn't clear to me at that time where I would find the best connection or have the most success. And to be honest, with only one of them responding to my my query, uh, it sort of sort of narrowed that choice down for me. Um, while I think I would have enjoyed careers in the other agencies, um, I do think the dynamic aspect of what I was able to do in the CIA um made it the right choice. Uh, but yes, it was it was a desire to to serve people, to protect people in some way.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

No, we have the Clancy version of the CIA, we have all this the you know, the John Clark version of the Tom Clancy, where everybody in the CIA is like spooky, spooky, spooky. So in the 90s and the 80s, we all have this version of the CIA that is just wow, you know, you you don't know what's going on. It's like this high-tech thing where satellites and drones and this and that. But when you get this job in '99 and you get there and you pull that curtain back, what really surprised you?

The Reality Of Imagery Analysis

SPEAKER_00 4:55

So my first job at the agency was as an imagery analyst, of all things. Um, so going into it somewhat blind, um, I didn't know what to expect. Um what I realized, and it's what a lot of people uh now realize about the government, is that it was quite antiquated. It was images that I would pull to look at a light table, to write an analysis for our policymakers, I would go down to the basement of this sort of um sparsely decorated building to pick up a stack of it. I mean, it was it was old school government, nothing frilly, no fancy toys, but the capability was something that I couldn't have expected. So while the environment was old and governmental, um, the capabilities were exquisite. So I think that's what surprised me was sort of that dynamism between you're working in a very not fancy like you see in the movies, not these nice glass doors and screens all over the place and and and and whatnot. Um, but the capabilities were beyond what I could have imagined.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Now, twenty-four years is a long time. It's a very long time. And, you know, I've pivoted a ton in the past 30 years, a ton. From military to law enforcement to this to that to everything else. Now you're in one agency and you're looking at the long haul. Within that 24 years, did you ever think about like, you know what, maybe this isn't quite where I want to spend the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

I think the reason I was able to stay in the agency

Moving To HUMINT Case Officer Work

SPEAKER_00 6:45

so long is because I was able to change my role so frequently. Um, beyond just normal rotations and taking different positions or covering different geographic areas. Um, I completely moved my career from imagery to the directorate of operations, the humant role. So I was a case officer for a while. Um there was a period where I did leave. Um we had our daughter while we were overseas. My wife was also performing the same role. Um, and the requirements to succeed in that role necessitate you work nights, weekends, you're on call. It's like being deployed in the military. There's not really a downtime. And so when we came back after that tour, I did leave. I wasn't yet prepared to leave the intelligence community. So I went over to what was a fairly new entity, the director of national intelligence. I went over there in about 2007. Um, with a plan of, okay, I will try out this new entity for a year or so. And if I don't like that, I will leave altogether. Uh, and without going on too long, I ended up enjoying my time there, and then the situation changed so that I then rotated back and eventually came back to the agency where I retired from.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Now you mentioned case officer. Now you go from like an analyst to a case officer, and that's a completely different world. And obviously, uh disclaimer, I should have said this before, is we're not going to be talking about techniques, tactiques, techniques, procedure, you know what I mean. And we're not going to talk about anything that's classified in this conversation. But there's a ton of open source information out there about case officers. So, but there's a ton of open source when you talk about analysts. That's a different world. That's a different marriage. What was it like to transition from, hey, you know what, I'm behind the scenes to now where I have to go out and recruit and develop agents.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

I think for me it was a it was a needed change because the the life of the analyst that I was in, the analytic position in imagery was very sedentary, and I'm not. And so being able to move into what they refer to as the pointy end of the spear uh in the intelligence collection world was what I needed to keep me mentally connected to the job. So going from a sitting at a desk, reading through documents, writing up papers, briefing leadership on a particular topic, to now engaging with people, uh, identifying the ones that will help us answer the intelligence questions we have was much more my speed.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Now, you know, introverted people getting into the case officer world. And, you know, a lot of times the stereotype is if you're an analyst, you're very introverted, you know, Dungeons and Dragons, and you know, you're doing your thing behind. It's not that you do that, but you're doing your thing behind the scenes and you're very tech oriented to going out and actually actually have to talk to human beings and gather information. Now, walk us through a what is your what is your life like in this this environment?

SPEAKER_00 10:07

In the human world? Yeah. And you're right. I will say there's a misconception that human officers are extroverted and analysts are introverted, uh, because uh much of what an analyst, especially a senior analyst, will do is engaging with leadership to provide them with the analysis that they have put together. So they have to be comfortable speaking in front of senior personnel across the U.S. or even foreign governments, potentially briefing large audiences. The same thing with a case officer. The interesting aspect of being a human officer is the ideal officer is one that can connect with the target that they're going after. And the target that they're going after may not be the person who's on the diplomatic circuit who is also extroverted. It may be the analyst in that other government who would not engage in the same way we would see in a stereotypical extrovert. So there is a misconception. That doesn't mean that case officers aren't usually a little more outgoing. Um, but I don't necessarily consider myself an extreme extrovert after doing what is traditionally human at work. I need to rest, I need to let my mind settle, be away from folks, don't want to be at another dive function. Um, so it's it's a big change, but I think there's a misconception that if you're one personality, you will likely go to this career. If you're another personality, you'll go to another.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Now, when you're you're when you're going out and recruiting, it's almost like the same thing with law enforcement when you're one of when you're developing informants. A lot of people become an informer to provide information for

Recruiting Sources And Spotting Risks

SPEAKER_01 11:45

certain reasons. One of them's revenge, one of them's money, one of them's like, hey, for the greater good. There's a bunch of different factors. Now, and you're when you're moved over into this human role, you're kind of getting more experience, you're you're learning how to read a room. You're learning how to read people's bullshit. Now, when you first start recruiting people, you're first approaching people who could be potential agents, what was the first like you you could read red flags. What's one thing that stood out to you about people? Their motivations?

SPEAKER_00 12:19

So I think for this role, because it can be dangerous for those involved, depending on what country you're in and what they're trying to report on, um it's a slow process. I think this would differ from law enforcement, where the the the time to complete it may be a little shorter. Uh obviously undercover operations are much longer, but uh a human world can be a very extended operation. So to me, you want to ensure, and this is where you talk about doing your homework ahead of time, that you're looking to engage with the people that you know have access. As you engage with them, you assess whether they're suitable for providing intelligence. And that's where if they're um alcoholics or they can't keep a secret themselves or they want to brag to somebody else about it, that is not good for your operation. And therefore they may not be suitable for recruitment, even if they check all the other boxes. So when you talk about reading the room, um, that might not be immediately apparent because you're asking them to do something that is very dangerous, and you need to take the time to assess their motivation, their willingness, and then their ability to be a reporter of intelligence over a long period of time. It's not a one-time data dump for the most part. You want them to be able to report uh based on their position they're in or the position they can get. So that assessment can take a very long time to get. It's not necessarily reading the room because that may change

Marriage While Living The Cover Life

SPEAKER_00 13:55

over time.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Now, there's another thing you you kind of touched on before, and we're gonna we're gonna go down that path. I didn't know if I was gonna bring it up into this conversation, but you have had, now that you're both open, you're very open about your your past, because here's the deal is when you retire, up until that point, and up to a certain point before you retire, you can't really tell anybody exactly what you do. Your LinkedIn profile probably says some crap about being in the State Department, a Department of Transportation, or something along those lines. But you are dual relationship, dual case officers, dual life, not necessarily Mr. and Mrs. Smith, more like Mr. and Mrs. Jones, where you've both had to work in foreign posts. You both, you and your wife had to actually coexist in this intelligence realm. And there are a lot, we know a lot of people who are married to other case officers and other people within that field and to this intelligence community. And there's a lot of questions nobody really asks about what that dynamic is like. Now, you go overseas, you guys are both there. It's different than working domestically. Hey, domestically, you're going to the office, you're going to be on a couple teams meetings, and it's going to be, hey, cool, what's it going on at the end of the night? Hey, I'm taking a TDY somewhere, a temporary duty somewhere. But when you're overseas and you're into this spy world, and you both have to be cognizant of your open source information that's out there in the world, and people are tracking your movement. Even though you don't, you know it's there, it's always there. But how do you live in that world? You mentioned before, like you turn it off, but now there's two of you. How do you both turn it off and live a life?

SPEAKER_00 15:41

So I think that's another aspect that people may not realize, and and rightly so. There's not necessarily turning it on and off. You are trained to live that lifestyle, whether it's a tradecraft or just an understanding of what can be divulged externally or what in open source or whatever that might be. Um let's put it this way: the more lies you have to put out there, the harder it is to keep it straight. And so our lives were a truth. We just didn't divulge exactly what we did. And so living like that as a couple was actually easier in my mind because oftentimes I I've seen marriages where they were not both in the same field. And while you couldn't divulge what you're going to do, it is more difficult for the ones who weren't in the circle to understand that I just have to leave. I can't tell you where I'm going. I may be out of communication for a day, a week, or longer. Um, but I'll touch base when I can. For those who are outside, that may be difficult to deal with. And I think that puts some um makes some marriages very difficult. I think for me, it was easy because we did also work in some of the same offices while in Washington. We got used to being in the same area while not working on the same thing. So being in the field, we're just a couple. We we both knew what we could tell them what we couldn't. We knew enough about what the other was doing to either support it or not worry about it. And we also had communications with the rest of the team that could provide us updates if we needed it, if we were out of communication. I could find a way to learn more about it. So it really wasn't turning off. It was just our life. All we did was not divulge exactly what we were trying to do. The rest of it was just us.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Now, how do you deal with, you know, deployments? Obviously, we're not going to get into where and when and how, but the stress factor of dealing with a deployment of a loved one and you don't exactly know what's going on because you may not be right into it.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

I think there were only a few times where there may have been deployments to areas that might have been a little more dangerous that would elevate our concerns a little bit. But there was it was very rarely a time where I didn't know enough about the situation where I could be comfortable. And because I was a part of that process, I understood what support was around. Um, if something went wrong, who would they most likely talk to, or how they would, I don't want to say ex-fill or evacu, but you know, get out of the situation. So it actually was comforting because I knew we're prepared. I also knew who I could talk to if I needed to. So that there was only a couple times in our career where there might have been dangerous areas that um were a bit more stressful. Um, but I was comfortable and confident with our training and our teams that everything was going to be okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Now we're gonna like pivot into a different area here.

Hollywood Versus Government Reality

SPEAKER_01 19:01

And we know the Hollywood version of the CIA and the reality. We know there's bureaucracy, we know there's Teams meetings, we know there's meetings that go nowhere. What is one thing that Hollywood is very laughable about? Like, there's no way this could possibly ever happen.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

I I think the first thing that comes to my mind, and probably not anybody else's, is I love when movies show a CIA officer in America with a badge and a gun. Um, because as you highlighted earlier regarded my different potential career paths from law enforcement to protection investigation and malintelligence, uh, the CIA does not do law enforcement. It also doesn't operate in the United States, especially not with a badge and a gun. So I I think it's funny when I see that and almost jokingly go, boy, I wish I had that. On the other side of it, uh while I said we were quite antiquated in our office spaces early on, things have gotten better. Um, I think the the reality is it's still government. And as much as we would like to be like a James Bond and they walk into a room and they just point to all the things they need, it's government. You're filling out paperwork. It's getting approved, it has to go through a process, uh, it has to be supported in the budget that was aligned to it. It's not like walking into a room, like you see, with all these guns and cars and cool gadgets and just pick them off the shelf because you think you need them. That's where the team is involved from other directorates that will tell you what is going to be a part of this operation, who's going to go with you, and who's going to have the appropriate training to operate whatever these are. It's not the one person, James Bond, walks in a room and has all of it themselves.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

You know, there's no Aston Martin parked in your driveway. I could contest to that. You know, 24 years. It's a long career, it's a lot of bureaucracy, there's a lot of leadership, there's a lot of change. The spy craft, intelligence world, it's very closed circuit to the outside.

Retirement Shock And The Easy Button

SPEAKER_01 21:07

So you're going through this 24 years, and I was there when this pivot happened. So it's 24 years, and then boom, you're out the door. You're essentially walked out. I mean, granted, it's not like in an adversarial method, but hey, look, you're turning all your badges, all your accesses there, and you're out the door. That next day you wake up, walk us through it.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

All right. So the reality is for those who stay in this area and retire from the agency, they often go into a role in which they can continue supporting the intelligence community or the federal government. In my case, and and I'll say we can touch on this afterwards, considering everything that's happened in a large exodus of personnel. Um, I had my follow on assignment lined up before I left. And I took what is considered the easy button by working with a large systems integrator to support business development back with that same building. So while it was still a stressful transition because it is leaving what you had done for a couple decades, um, I knew that at least half of the requirements of my next job I already knew because it was an understanding of the agency. Um but I also that also highlights the scary part of it is it's comfortable in the building. You know what your job is, you have job security for the most part, you understand what the career progression might be, and you try to work through that. The outside is all new. Um, and so a lot of people struggle with it. I think I was, I want to say, either lucky enough or just took the easy button and had that job lined up that allowed me to work back with the intelligence community. I took one week off. That's all I did. Do you recommend that? One week off. That's it, it's funny. I'm having these realizations now. So I'm about three years out of retirement. I retired at the end of 22, so it's going on three and a half years. Um did not take any time. I would say throughout my career, I never took any time off. I never planned my next assignments. I just dealt with what was available and tried to make the most of it. That included leaving. I took the whole week off, and that was mostly because of the the uh uh time and attendance sheet, had a week in between. Uh, and then even in that job, I was asked to take over a company while I was still in it. Also did not take any abnormal time off. I took the Christmas holidays off, which was normal, and then started that job as well. So, would I recommend folks do it that way? I think the reality is when you're inside that bubble, it is almost impossible to really know what's available on the outside and how you're going to fit in. Short of taking that easy button, I did. So while I would like to tell folks to take their time, um, really assess what their life goals are, I think you have to take a decent amount of time in order to get to that point, and you have to be financially able to do so. And many people aren't if they're the single income. They can't just take a break from work for six months. I will say now is the first time in my career where I have taken some time off. So I told you I uh led a small company for a little over a year after I left that systems integrator. Uh, as of last March, I transitioned from being the president of the company to being a board advisor. So as of mid-March, I'm jobless, but in a good way. I'm finally taking that time to think about what would make me happy outside of that bubble. And it's been great to be able to work through it. Not saying my next decision won't be going right back to a company that supports the intelligence community, but it's allowed me to think through options that, while inside the building, are not options. And so I've it's up to the individual whether or not a break is going to be worthwhile, whether they would give themselves the time and the space to think through it. There may be some who already know exactly what they want and they've been waiting to write that book when they leave. Um, but I think at least on the operational side, you normally don't have that time while in the building to think through those other areas where you might want to make a career out of it. And so I think that's a little more difficult.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Well, that's the other thing is you don't know what you're gonna get into a lot of times when you're about to transition. You know, in a lot of these career fields, the military included, you might have a transition point where you're like, hey, look, I know I'm leaving. I have enough time to prepare for it, but I don't know if it's gonna happen. So you jump right into another career, and now you're now you're quote unquote jobless, but you're not jobless because you have opportunities.

Finally Breathing After Two Decades

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Now, what is this pivot like right now where you actually have time to breathe after 20 plus years?

SPEAKER_00 26:17

I I think it's I'll I'll make one caveat to what you said or one point, because I realize the military is actually much better, and even the FBI and some other agencies are much better at helping people transition than I would say the agency is. Um, not necessarily in a bad way, but it is used to keeping people for their career and having them stay there uh until it's time to retire. And so there's not the same process in place to help somebody. So I'll sort of uh put that out there that I think it's it is very difficult for those coming out of the agency to really think about what that next step might be. Um as far as so I want to make sure I address your question. What was your question as far as my current situation?

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Yeah, your current situation, you're kind of pivoting into a new role. Now, what are you doing to help build that role right now?

SPEAKER_00 27:09

I had a very good discussion. So I've done a lot of outreach, attended seminars to see how I could improve my outward-facing uh experiences. And part of that is I I work with universities to help them with curriculum or advisory services. Um, I'm advising a couple startups. I go, but I've had conversations recently where, despite me having an idea what type of speeches I would like to give or what type of seminars I would like to give, it was a it was a great conversation where they their questions caused me to step back and really voice what makes me happy. And that was something I hadn't done before. Previously, I was happy just being of benefit. I was happy in which in where my activities would be a positive to whatever I was involved in, which is why I jumped around so much and still had joy in all of those new jobs. It was not a sp uh particular area. I could but now, after these recent discussions, it's been almost a stress relief to see that there are areas that I that truly make me happy, and it's giving me the time now to see if that's something that I can turn into this pivot, this sort of second or third career uh for however long that might

Applying Tradecraft To Business Development

SPEAKER_00 28:37

be.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Now we're talking about that, and there's a thing that you're working on, it's kind of more along the lines of business intelligence. There are a lot of aspects of these careers, especially in case officer and human into the business world. And a lot of people have no idea about that because they don't quite understand what intelligence is. So let's get into that.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

So it as I mentioned, I I did I served in several roles within the agency. And since then, I've done business development uh in a large organization and then ran my own company. And what I realized, and you're spot on, that the human world isn't rocket science. But what I've found is many companies sort of have a set process and not even a very good one or defined one for how they do business development. And obviously, for businesses, it's it's they need to make sure they are improving their potential to win new contracts. Um, they want to have an improved return on investment. And what I've realized is some of the skills that I learned as a case officer, this human recruitment cycle, the spot assess, development, recruit, handle, terminate, or turnover, um, is something that's missing in the business world. And so that's that's something I've I've I've put together now and give seminars on how this process, which normally I'm not one to stick to process for process' sake, but in this case, the extra work that goes into that recruitment cycle is very beneficial to the business world where people sort of approach it ad hoc. They could they go to conferences and they hope they run into somebody and maybe the relationship will work out. And what I've found is that putting this, I almost call it like a station phase where you're out in the field and you're doing recruitment activities with your team, there's a process that we used in the field that is very helpful for increasing your ROI, your time spent when doing business development and even business intelligence.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Yeah, I like that. And where do you see it going with this?

SPEAKER_00 30:55

Well, I I my for me, I I want to larger companies have a process, and it's not likely that this is going to be injected into that and change the way they do business. They they have they off they work at a much larger scale. And so I'm not going to really be able to adjust it. My hope is I can bring these, this tradecraft. Obviously, it's tailored tradecraft, so I'm not giving away um any of the methods, um, but giving this tradecraft process to new businesses, small businesses, sorry, and medium businesses. At the same time, I'm putting together uh a curriculum for university students, um, which looks at it even more broadly. So you look at business students who are preparing for life outside, and they and the classes they take are are quite um, I don't want to say linear, but they have specific topics. And I think this structured process, this recruitment cycle, um, if the students are able to understand that better as they're going through it, I think they'll leave the universities in a much better position, much more confident in what they can do, and actually be more profitable to whatever business they work with next.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Education, colleges, universities, I've been around them for a while, and I know you have as well. And these are these are key points in business, especially in business programs. Yes, in law enforcement, international relations, you're gonna learn how to do public speaking, you're gonna do mock UNs, even the legal field, you're gonna learn how to talk to people. But in business, it's usually built on processes. Whether or not how you're gonna make money, whether or not you're gonna build a business, etc. Within that community, within this curriculum, you absolutely need intelligence, intelligence gathering. You need networking for one, you need to know how to read a room, you need to know when you're reading the room who the right people to approach are, who the actual decision makers are, because the decision maker may not necessarily hold a fancy title, but they may have access to the people who hold that fancy title. And those people with the fancy title rely on that person to make the decisions. So when you're talking about business development, when you're talking about business intelligence, that is a key factor and kind of like the avenue you're going through where you have this experience. You have the decades of experience, but it's not just your experience. You're now you have the experience of your wife, your network that you've built over 24 years, your curriculum that you're developing, and all of the other agencies and associations and everything else you're a part of. So let's get into

Teaching OSINT And Rapport To Students

SPEAKER_01 33:41

this. Like, if you could have a just like your dream course that you wanted to teach to young, I shouldn't even say young students, well, obviously they're going to be younger than us because we're in our 50s, but to students, what would your dream course be?

SPEAKER_00 33:58

So I from what I've seen in many of the university offerings, especially if you're looking at either business or even uh foreign affairs, um, there are large gaps that students will often have to take a an elective in order to address it. My hope, if I had the ideal course, I mentioned it being this process that spans across all of these different subject matters. Um, so for example, tar uh doing human operation today is a little bit different than when I first started. Um, we have people called targeters. Um, targeters look at openly available information and classified information in order to put together packages so that the human officer um understands who they're going after as much about them as they as they can and are more prepared to go into the media. Um, a course for me, and this is what I've put together, is one that touches on the technologies that are available today, because we can't uh dismiss AI and its role and the amount of data that's available and how much people post online. That is all, as you said, open source information that will help develop uh a clear understanding of, you said, the ideal target. So when you go to an event, uh, yes, you want to read the room, but if I put in the work ahead of time, I should know who I'm going after to talk to, uh, well, whether they're a decision maker or whether or not they're just going to help me get access to somebody else. I should have planned ahead of time, like in a human operation, what is it I plan to get out of this first engagement? And the one key they always say when you're going into a first meeting is get the second meeting. And I think that's a process that many businesses and students ignore. They will usually take a shorter cut of go onto the website of a company, look at the titles, and as you said, try to read the rule. But I think putting this overall human intelligence cycle in place will prepare our students and in all honesty, teach them that they have to put the work into it. Technologies are going to make it a little faster, but they've got to put the legwork in so they can have those positive results. Uh this goes back to saving time. There's so much data out there. Um, businesses do not want to deploy all of their people to a single conference, uh, or at least it costs a lot of money. You want to be able to go there with specific targets and mind and outcomes. So back to your what would be the ideal course, a course that looks across uh what I would say is the human intelligence tradecraft, but all of the supporting aspects of it as well, and takes into consideration the process we did uh and what we say in stations, in which you feed back the results of your meetings to the team, um, compare it with other data that might have been collected, and then plan for that second meeting that you already had scheduled. Um, there's one other part that I, and maybe it's because my first trip overseas was after I graduated. I would like to have a tail end for the those who may be involved with either international business or international travel, um, where there's a security aspect of it, where they should understand a little bit more about what are the things they should be looking for in the city they're going to, the hotel, where they're staying, where the hospitals are, the dangerous areas. While I'm not giving them a full hand-to-hand combat, um, I think their understanding of what an international business environment would be and how to ensure they protect themselves as much as possible. Uh would be well, you know what?

SPEAKER_01 37:32

We're gonna, we're gonna what's a corporal word they always use? We're gonna put that in a bucket right now. We're gonna know that we're gonna bookmark that. We're gonna come back to that because there's a couple things I want to talk about first. And one is this this area you were talking about with students and with reading the room and developing and open source. You see, this isn't a there is this generation is a little bit different than ours. We didn't have the access to the information. Um, even the generations after ours really didn't have it. This wow, I could look something up and boom, it's right there. There's shortcuts to everything. AI is a great tool. There's great, you know, Claude, that I use Claude, Opus, you could do a deep dive and everything, but there's a lot of information there that's not readily available. There's no real shortcut. So when you're doing these networking events, let's say you you're building a file on someone you know who you need to talk to, you have to be able to talk to them. And that's part of this this curriculum, has to be able to build rapport with people. How to actually have a conversation. Now, I'm sure when you went to the farm or wherever you guys trained at, they had those cheesy training courses where you had like, you know, fancy dinners and you had to go and talk to people and build rapport. These are the types types of real-world instances that work in a business environment. And I think when you're talking about those curriculums about building rapport, about developing a source of information that you could potentially utilize for your own good, a lot of that is just taking a step back and not needing it now, now, now that these may be relationships that need to be built for a long term. There's no courses out there like this. There's I I mean, if there is, please drop a comment or contact me and tell me. I'd love to talk to them. I'd love to learn how they develop these courses. But I really think in the business world, you need to have these types of courses.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

I I agree. And and in fact, so the seminar I put together in the course would actually have segments, and this goes along with the training we had, where you're put in into those environments where you're tested, where you are asked to, you're given a certain amount of information. This is a role play. You have certain individuals who are playing other characters, and the role of the student or those in the seminar is find this person, find this much information about them, get your second meeting scheduled. Um, many people today are not used to having those engagements, being able to elicit information from somebody, and they need to practice. It's not something you can read in a book. You can hear about it, you can watch it on TV, but if it's against your normal personality, as you said, introverted versus extroverted, you're going to have to practice what that is like for your environment. And so the course I've put together, and same thing with the seminar, does just that. We need to have the students, our attendees practice that type of engagement, that type of elicitation so that they can be better at doing it.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

The biggest thing when you're developing these courses is to lose the grift. And that's one thing about you is you're very authentic when it comes to sharing your knowledge. Now, we are going to pivot into the next thing. I'm not going to use pivot on every interview, I promise, but but it is one of my favorite words. But business security

Travel Security When Tech Fails

SPEAKER_01 41:00

intelligence. And there is a it there is a lot of people out there doing security. There's a lot of people, believe me, I've been in that realm for a long time. But when you bring up the fact that you are going to send business associates overseas, there's a lot of information they need to know because granted, not everybody is going you need a certain package for austere environments. But let's just say you're going to a quote unquote friendly nation, there are people there who may have ulterior motives or may have malicious motives. So let's get into that next area.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

Uh I I I think you're exactly right. I think this is I think for many people if they don't have experience going overseas, especially for business, their time overseas is mostly a vacation. They stay in a nice hotel, they go to resort areas, they go to a nice beach, they stay away from the areas uh in which they could get in trouble. I don't think when you're engaging in business or if you're going to a new country, um, you necessarily have that option to be away. And therefore you have to know what it is, what a bad environment might look like. Um understanding um how I would avoid any type of issue that would get me into trouble areas too. So these are just trade craft or experience that you learn over time. You obviously learn this as a law enforcement officer. Um of the guys you may have to arrest. Other people in business may not have those experiences. And I think whether it's part of the course or just some type of work that they put on ahead of time, people need to have that insight. Um, something comes to mind when you talk about that, uh, because we've become so reliant on telephones, is could the people that we're talking about, either younger generation or those who have had cell phones for a long time, if their cell phone died and they are overseas, would they have done anything to understand where to go, phone numbers they may need, uh there's copies of passports or driver's license or cash instead of a credit card, like things that we normally don't think of because everything works properly changes when the technology goes away. So I think that's another for any traveler going overseas, just being aware of what you would do should your sole source of information uh go away.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

And you could bring this down to like the the micro level of like what does a family do? You know, expand it out to like, hey, you know what, you did a great job with my business intelligence. What is my family gonna do more overseas? Because I know my son, when he goes places, his battery is always at like 10%. And it's like, what would he do? Does he have a phone number memorized? Do they even know, like, you know, where to find another place to make a phone call nowadays? Right.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Or if your credit card stops working.

unknown 43:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 43:59

There's there's there's That we had to deal with, and I think that was a benefit of going through the training and operating during a time where we didn't have cell phones, is our baseline operations were sort of paper-based, right? You had extra cash on hand uh should you need to do something where you could pay for it. Credit cards. On a side note, operationally, it's better to use cash because then they don't know where you are. Um, but you you you were used to looking at a paper map to understand where the exits are to get out of the area. Um, phone numbers you may need in case of an emergency. You either had them memorized, you had them on a piece of paper that didn't look like anything that was nefarious. And I think people have lost that, lost track of that, or at least haven't had to experience a time where that went away. And right, everybody has a plan until they get hit in the face. And what you don't want is to be caught unprepared, even if you're just going for a business meeting. Do you have the address you're going to the following day memorized? Do you know how to get to that business meeting? Not everything has to be about crime and danger. It could be as simple as I have a 9 a.m. business meeting tomorrow, and now my phone died. And credit card does or does not work. Could I get there? Or did I just ruin the entirety of that business trip because I wasn't prepared?

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Someone steals your credit card, someone, you know, steals you lose your pets. There are so many different aspects of that that are never really addressed because you're like, hey, I'm just going on a trip. Like every time I go on a trip, I don't really think about that stuff. I should really write down key numbers in my phone, put them my stuff in my wallet, keep it, some numbers here and there, but where's the nearest embassy? Right. No last time I went overseas, I didn't know where the nearest embassy was. And the last time we went overseas, I just followed you. I was like, ah, wherever you go, I'm gonna go. So it's like I had no idea what to do if we got lost. I mean, granted, it lost some of it's common sense, but it's really one of the things you don't think about. And you can move that from business security into like family security. There's a lot of different aspects of that.

Staying Authentic And Optimistic

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Now, how do you stay authentic when everybody out there is trying to grift? No, I shouldn't say everybody. Let's just say there's a certain percentage of people that come from the IC, come from the law enforcement community, come from this realm, that kind of grift. How do you maintain your non-grift?

SPEAKER_00 46:26

I think when you're inside, from my experience, the most successful case officers are the ones who are genuine. The ones who are fake, who are the used car salesman, right? The ones who are a little, a little over the top, outgoing, a little greasy, um, they're not as successful because people can see that. So I think inside the building, the more you are your unique self, the better you're gonna be. Now, again, that may not, your unique self may not be a direct alignment with the target you're going after. And so you will have to adjust for the sake of your job. I go, but that's where you stay true to yourself on the inside. On the outside, I try I try to keep the same mindset, right? On the inside, you're there for the mission. My goal on the inside was not to make money. On the outside, my goal is not to make money. I'm still my unique self. I was never defined by my job. And my goal now is to see where I can have the greatest impact and influence on people's lives to make their lives better based on what I've learned over the time. My true self, based on what I've experienced, good and bad, all those lessons learned to help people out. If I was fake, if I wasn't my true self, I would not only not be successful, I would be unhappy.

SPEAKER_01 47:47

That brings me up to being happy. Now, 20-year-old you is about to embark on a long-ass career, you're in your 50s now. What advice would you give your 20-year-old self? And that's a tough question because I to like if I ask myself that question, I really don't know.

SPEAKER_00 48:09

I think for me, and this is not just for intelligence community, but I do this to when I speak to students in general, uh, and I won't take credit for it because there are some influences out there that say some of the same thing. At 20 years old, you have plenty of time to make mistakes. The likelihood that you have a clear path to what you are going to do at 18 to 20 years old is pretty slim. There may be areas you're interested in trying, but to have that continue down to what your whole rest of your life is going to be in your career is probably pretty slim. So, my advice to people, to myself at 20 years old, work hard, be your authentic self, and have fun. None of the decisions you make at 20 years old, as long as they're legal, uh, um, are going to affect you. They were all positives. You're learning from those. You've got several years, if not a decade, to screw up a little bit and then still sort of find your way.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

Now, was there a point in your career you wish you took a different path than the one that you did?

SPEAKER_00 49:12

No. Not at all. I uh because I didn't take a certain path. I I think because, and this goes back to just my personality and how I absorb things and deal with things, the fact that I was able to change jobs to completely different areas throughout my career allowed me to stay in the agency as a singular bubble. But my jobs were extremely diverse and not necessarily sequential in any way. So I don't regret any of them because whether it's the job I do, the people I meet, uh, or even outside, I learn from every one of those and use it to hopefully make myself a better person or at very minimum a better employee. So I don't even regret a single thing I did.

SPEAKER_01 49:58

Now you came on a podcast, the first podcast, Protectors Podcast, been a big supporter for years.

Elevator Pitch And Closing

SPEAKER_01 50:04

If you wanted the audience to know anything about you, what would you want them to know? What is your elevator pitch to the audience?

SPEAKER_00 50:11

I think this goes back to the conversations I've had recently where I've been able to clarify what it is that makes me happy. So if I was if I wanted people to know one thing about me, um that I am and always will be my authentic self, and my goal is to make your life better, however, I can. Whether it's going to the gym and working out, and this is where it's you've you've helped me getting back into training, um uh or whether if I was a manager uh in the government, or even now in my consulting efforts, um, my goal is to take everything I've learned, be my authentic self, and do what I can to make your life better. This almost goes back to the the what would you tell a 20-year-old self? I'm an optimist. And no matter what, listen, everybody goes through rough times. No one is unique that they are the only ones that had a rough time. It may affect us a little bit differently, but no matter what you've gone through, there are always stories of people coming out the other side. And I'm very optimistic about that ability to meet adversity and come out on the other side a better, stronger person, whether you're religious or not, whether God is testing you or not, whether you're just keeping your feet moving forward uh one after another. Um, I'm optimistic that people will crow and make it through their adversity, and I'm gonna do what I can to help you through that. Perfect. Well, again, I appreciate you coming on the shelf.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

And we will talk again. My pleasure. Thank you very much.