Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Ed, I absolutely love, love, love talking to veterans.
I'm ex military and I so appreciate your service. And anybody who serves their country, and not even the country, their specifically community, is absolutely wonderful. I think it's such a beautiful commitment. I want to take you back many, many years and I want to ask you maybe a hard question.
When you were about to make the decision to join the army, what was going through your head?
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Well, that, that's. Well, first off, thanks for your service as well and thank you for that opening. So that, that, that there's a lot more to unpack with that than. And just what was, you know, in my head at the time.
So I'm going to take you a little further back on that to give a little bit more perspective. So I, I was from a very small town in Oklahoma and not a whole lot to do there but sports. And so I play football.
And I think it was before my senior year in high school. My parents divorced. I ended up getting a Division 1 football scholarship at a major university.
Went there, went to college, played football. A couple years into it, things just weren't working out for me. I really got burned out, didn't have any direction, so I walked away from it. And at that time, that was my identity. That's who I was, was known for that. So I was lost.
I had no direction, I had no accountability. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew that I needed discipline, I needed focus, and I thought the service was the way to go to get that. So at that time, you know, I made the decision to go down to the army recruiter and talk to them. And of course they were like, yeah, we knew, you know, come, come see us, come see us.
And then one thing led to another and I joined the Army.
And I got to tell you, it was the best decision I ever made at that time.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: That's such an interesting comment because you said that was my identity. I. And you went through this almost identity crisis. Keep me honest, if that's a fair statement. I went through the exact same thing when I, you know, both left the army and when I was, I did eight years of consulting. Every time I introduced myself was that, oh, I'm a consultant.
I was, I was. My identity was my job. And when that kind of broke down, I was like, well, hold on, no, I am my own person. My identity is not. My job was such an eye opening thing for me. I really appreciate you saying that.
Throughout your military career in the army, you must have had pivotal experiences that Made you see the world differently. I know this is true for me.
Tell us one of those stories where you're like, huh.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: Well I think there were many to your point there. And for me again, being from a very small town and being isolated within that community, joining the army, going onto my first assignment, which was actually in Wiest in Germany, and having people from around the country, the United States that were now within my community as well as the foreign nationals that were there, really opened my eye into learning more about the world and other people's perspective. And I learned so much from others and their thought process and that really allowed me to further develop myself.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: That's such an important point. So a massive double digit amount of Americans never leave more than 50 miles of their, of where they were born. And also double digit, I think it's like close to 40% or something like that. I need to check my numbers, don't have a passport. Right. So they never left the country.
So I want to dig into this point.
What are the things traveling the world as part of the, you know, army, what are the things that changed in your perspective?
[00:04:32] Speaker B: I think I'll start with acceptance.
And you know, I was pigeonholed into a white male dominated community and I was able to make friends and learn from others and their perspective that they brought to the table from their backgrounds. And it really helped me with that development stage of inclusiveness, diversity, being able to make better decisions because I could put others people's perspectives in my own and look at the cause and effect much more effectively, which has benefited me throughout my entire career.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: I love that. You know, I, I met a friend literally in the middle of the Brazilian forest. It's a place called Manaus where they manufacture electronics for, for various historical reasons, tax free zone. Who were, I felt had, I had more in common with than people that were my neighbors, you know, here in the States. But on the other hand I've met people in the Far east where I suddenly understood that the culture is just so different. And for example, there's this clash of values really. So you know, many of us know that in the Far east this value of family and hierarchy and respect, so not a humiliating person can actually be more important than a value that to us Westerners is incredibly important, which is actually true. So you know, those, those values just came clashing at me. It was such an interesting experience. So I appreciate your perspective.
What was the moment? Go ahead.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: No, I was, I was, I think it just, it those different perspectives and values makes you just a better human Being.
And I don't think you can. You can speak enough of the value that it brings to your.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: I talked about this in other podcasts. I'll just mention it very shortly. Look up, if you haven't seen this already, the story of brown eyes, blue eyes, and how the school teacher basically imposed racism. The bottom line is that the research after that is that that experience increased their IQ by, I think it was like 80 points, which was. They were like, this is bullshit. The universities were like, oh, you're just a schoolteacher. You don't know what you're talking about. They came, they checked it out, and they were like, oh, yeah, this had this huge impact. Who would have known? So I'm going to argue that not only it increases your, you know, your acceptance of, you know, people that are different than yourself, I would say it makes you smarter, like research proven.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: I completely agree with that. And I have. I have seen the brown eyes, blue eyes.
And that is a remarkable study that really tells you that racism is developed. Right. You learn that that's not something that you're in a born with. So.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Absolutely. And I would ghost and say something, maybe outrageous, maybe I get canceled for this, but I would say that in many ways the antidote to racism is to put yourself out there and to experience these different cultures and different people and, you know, just understanding the whole fabric of life and people and cultures. I think it's such a wonderful antidote to what I think is, in essence, fear of the other really is what I think it is. But I don't know if this is really true.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Well, I would agree with that analogy.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Going out of the military, you mentioned to me that it was a scary thing. Why was that?
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Well, for me, it was.
I was looking for that discipline, that structure, that purpose, that serving your country had a lot of meaning personal to me. I thought that was something that I think everyone should have to do. I just think he grows so much with that. So having that structure and then making the decision to come out of the military and the unknown, you know, at that time, I was married and we had two young boys. So the structure or lack of structure that I was facing coming out of the service was scary. You know, how was I going to support my family and make sure that they were taken care of? Because I didn't have a job initially when I was coming out of the service, we just made a decision. And it's kind of funny that we did make this decision because, you know, I was at the stage in the service where now all the, all the promotions were time and grade. You were going to be moving quite a bit, you know, and did we want to move that much? So that was one of the reasons why I didn't want to wait, you know, for, you know, two years to get another promotion or whatever it may have been.
And, you know, we didn't want to move a whole lot. Well, that's a whole different story that we'll probably talk about here in a little bit. So the uncertainty was real scary, but it was a leap of faith.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: Absolutely. And there's a saying. I don't know if you have this as well, but we used to say that you can take the apologies for any kind of gender discrimination here, but you can take the man or the woman out of the military or out of the army, but you can't take the army out of the man. And the reason that we say this is because there is this concept of mission, there's this concept of service to community, which I feel strongly to this day.
And I think you would agree with me that that's how you feel today as well, which I think is such an amazing thing. I don't know what the chicken and egg is. If it's the person goes to service because. Or the service. I don't know if you have an opinion on that.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: Well, I do. I do agree with you about, you know, you can't take the military out of the person.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Regardless that sense of mission, you know, the service of community, helping your fellow citizen, you know, your battle buddy is what we used to call it. Right. I'm sure it's still called the same thing. Yes. But. Yeah, you can't, you can't take that out. Once you, Once you get it.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Brother. Brother in arms.
I want to ask you, and this is a little private, so. So, you know, I want to ask your permission to ask you. Did the. Your service impact your, let's say, philosophies or strategies or practices around raising kids?
[00:11:12] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Okay. If you want to get into that, tell us a story about how it kind of changed your perspectives or, or. And I'm going to make a guess here, I'm going to go a little bit on a fishing expedition. For me, it drives some values.
If, if that resonates with you, what were those values and how did it look like when it came through your journey with raising children?
[00:11:34] Speaker B: So I think it's twofold for me. I think, you know, it was, it was. There was a rigidness there.
The values are, you know, respect for yourself, respect for others, treating others as you want to be respected or treated, helping, you know, others, being involved in your community, making sure that you're. That you're. You have character and integrity was extremely important to me and still is extremely important to me.
So that spilled over from my military now, and I mentioned a little bit more rigid than what I probably should have been at the time. And I think I've learned that as I've grown and as my children have grown, you know, I didn't always have to be that stern father figure.
You know, maybe there were times when I should have listened more, been a little bit more compassion. But I. But I think that that is, you know, my learnings that I had to go through and adjust as I came out of the military as well.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: I think that's such an amazing process that all of us as parents go through. And I even told my children at one stage, look, you know, I'm learning how to be a parent as you are learning to become a human being. We're doing this together as a team. And, you know, I have admitted and I've said, look, that was not the best decision on my part. And you know, in the same way, which I say to my kids, like, that was not a great decision on your part. So I just love your humility and honesty and kind of sharing your journey.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that you develop that sense as you grow as an individual. I think if you don't have the ability to be humble, let yourself be vulnerable, then it's very difficult for you to be able to admit that to your children.
And that is critically important, to be able to take a step back, be humble within yourself, and allow yourself to be vulnerable to where you can say, you know, I could have done something better, or I should have listened to you a little bit more. I'm not always right, you know, it's not. It's not my way or the highway.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Right. And that's such an amazing thing. Right. You said humble and vulnerable. I would argue that those are two key ingredients to a superpower, which is self awareness. If you have those two key ingredients, you're on your way to having self awareness, which is the tool or the technique to become a little better of a person, professional, whatever, every single day. So that's. That's such. I just love that humble and vulnerable.
You mentioned character. This is something that, you know, I think is incredibly important. What does character mean to you? You talked a little bit about integrity, but share with us what is character? What are the type of people that you strive to be, that you strive for your children to be.
[00:14:32] Speaker B: Honesty of purpose is a big part of character for me.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: That's a little bit of a military kind of jargon. So explain it to us. What does that mean? Honesty of purpose.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: The individual. If I'm looking at someone that I want to emulate or I want to be friends with, or I feel that is someone that can bring more purpose to me or my family, I look for their honesty of purpose. And when I say that, are they true to themselves? Are they true to others? Do they treat others well?
Do they take the time to spend with those that are less fortunate? Because to me that means a lot in somebody's character.
You have a couple of ways you can go as an individual. You can be all about yourself and focus on your drive, your accomplishments, or you can have character to the area of honestly. A purpose in taking the time to help others, talk to others, work with others, share your experiences with others, learn from others. At the same time, be driven and be, you know, highly successful. That's the type of character that I want to be around instead of somebody that is, that is self centered.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: I love that there's, there's some. If you're not familiar with this and I'll share this with you and our audience. Givers and Takers is a wonderful book by Adam Grant and it talks about really this topic of who in life is successful, right? Is it the givers or the takers? And the conclusion is really interesting. It's what he calls the otherly givers. And I highly, highly recommend it. But to me, this idea of honesty of purpose with also boundaries to keep away these, as you said, to keep away these people who don't have honesty of purpose. That's exactly what Adam Grant is talking about. So I absolutely love your description.
With your permission, I want to kind of jump. After the military you went into ups.
[00:16:44] Speaker B: I did.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: And you went into a security role. I am absolutely certain you have some wonderful stories about that. And let me ask you, was this just digital security or did you deal with also physical security, like shit in packages and stuff like that?
[00:17:00] Speaker B: Well, it was more physical loss prevention actually at the time when I went into it, it was called loss prevention.
And then we, you know, later on we called, we changed our name to security.
We thought that was a better fit. But it was investigations, employee wrongdoing, wrongdoing outside of the company.
So it's interesting. So I didn't start with UPS in the loss prevention security world. I had, you know, we Were stationed in Virginia, getting out of the service. I had a friend of mine that I went to high school with, one of my best friends. He was a driver for UPS at the time.
And we were coming back to our hometown so that I could go back to school.
And I needed a part time job and with benefits and UPS happened to have it, you know, so I started with, I started as an hourly with UPS part time with no intentions of staying at ups. I was going to go back into some form of federal law enforcement.
So, you know, 32 years later I retired from UPS.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: When did they, when did UPS figure out that. Hold on. He has experience with the military police investigating. We should use those skills.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: I was there for about six months.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: And then they had a program where they, you know, they reviewed applications and different backgrounds on employees and look for certain skill sets and then they would, they would come and visit that individual and see if there was any interest.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Wow. What did that transition look like? Was there a training program? What did that beginning look? First of all, that's pretty amazing. I mean, I never knew that UPS did that. I think that's a role model for any company to be like, oh, let's learn more about our employees and see if we can promote them. That's kind of mind boggling in today, corporate, sometimes toxic culture.
Hey, wow, B, what did that look like? How did they do that? What was your kind of program?
[00:19:01] Speaker B: Well, so I had.
UPS for me was a ideal fit at the time. It was a privately held company. It was very similar in my opinion to the military. You had, you had accountability, you had discipline, you had certain policies and procedures, you had a rank and file types system. So my fit was really good for that. And when I went into the loss prevention field, they had this very similar training. I mean, it took you from A to Z. You spent time in other departments, you learned other departments, you learned, you know, all the security processes and procedures that they had developed. And then you really went on a, you know, a six month basically training program to your training program where your manager sat down with you and reviewed policies and procedures. And you know, it was a knowledge check and to demonstrate certain things.
But it was, it was very similar to the military and I loved it.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: Amazing. Can you think from your history of loss prevention and fraud, what is one of the stories that you investigated that kind of stand out that you can share with us?
[00:20:34] Speaker B: Well, there were a lot of, I would say, bad actors outside of UPS and some inside as well. But I was in one particular that stands out is I had responsibility for the U.S. and there was some armed robbery, strong armed robberies with our drivers in California, in Northern California. And it took quite a bit of analysis, analytics, working with law enforcement to come together as a team. Actually, we ended up involving 17 different police jurisdictions, including the FBI, Secret Service. There was a lot, a lot to this. But what these folks were doing was there was a set of them that would basically lie and wait with our drivers and they would steal cell phone packages from the drivers and they would physically take the packages, push the drivers, whatever it may be.
And they were renting cars, so they had fake license plates. We had descriptions of them.
But it took quite a long time to be able to put everything together and the pieces together. We had tracking devices. It was pretty in depth. And there was a chief of inspectors out of the Alameddi County District Attorney's office that really took the lead on it once we brought it to him to review. And the district attorney there agreed, the U.S. attorneys, you know, agreed to be involved. And it was just, it was amazing to see the cooperation among all of the different law enforcement agencies once they understood what was happening and you know, the bad actors knew exactly what they were doing and how they could get away with it. And when it was all, all said and done, there were multiple arrests. There was quite a bit of property that was seized. There was an international component to it.
You know, the cell phones were going to offense there in California, who was a third national that was sending them overseas to Afghanistan and other places. So it was very involved and it was just a really interesting case to be involved in and see come together and the cooperation from everybody. So that's one that stands out.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: You know, that's amazing because, you know, we send a package, we just assume it will, you know, arrive. We, you know, never imagined that, you know, who was behind this organized crime or this was just a rogue group. You never imagined that, you know, these things can get in the way of these basic services.
I don't know if you heard about this, but some crazy situation where a hacker tried to increase the, increase the amount of chlorination in a water. Found a water facility, I think it was in Florida. But don't, don't hold me to, to that. And like, you know, we open the tap, we get water, we send a package. We get the package. We're not thinking that, you know, there's people working against us. So it's, it's, it's a utility. Right. You know, getting shit. Right.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Yeah, there There is a lot more that is happening than people realize. And there's a lot of, you know, Russia, China, there's a lot of hackers that, that are trying to infiltrate not only the carrier systems, but, you know, other company systems as well to take advantage of whatever it may be, refunds or stealing identities or what have you. But it's pretty widespread. But, you know, the defense mechanisms that are put in place and the agility of some of these folks that work for some of these companies is pretty amazing. Really smart. Smarter than me, but it's nice to see that we have those available.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: I want to ask you a question, and our audience knows that there's no prepared questions that I, that I have or that I shared with you. So this is all on the spot.
What do you think the role of government is when it comes to regulation and laws as pertaining to the general topic of fraud and security? Are there opportunities that we are missing out on? Should the government be doing more, for example, around identity or, you know, should the government actually stay out of this and let private actors. Is this something that you've spent some thought around?
[00:25:12] Speaker B: Well, I've spent a lot of thought around it and have been engaged with the various agencies in these matters. I do think that they have a role to play.
I think they have a very big role to play in identifying and preventing bad actors coming in from other countries.
Now we have those individuals within the boundaries of our country and our government is doing a very good job, in my opinion, of identifying those and putting steps in place to either monitor or, you know, prevent bad actions from happening. But it's like anything else, I think when you, when you talk about technology, are, you know, are the bad actors one step ahead and the government is reacting?
I think to an extent that happens. But I also think that, you know, there are some agencies that are doing a very good job of identifying proactively steps to put in place to prevent things from happening. So I do believe long right around this, but I do believe that the government has a vital role to play in that as well as private sector. Private sector has to have robust programs within their companies. Now I think that we can do a better job in communicating and working together.
But I believe that is the private sector's responsibility to an extent to be able to open those doors and share experiences and ask for help.
And you know, a lot of times I think companies feel vulnerable by doing that and don't want to, you know, put their brand out there.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Somebody said this to me. We have physical borders that we don't want, you know, criminals coming through. But we also have digital borders and I would extend that to supply chain borders. Right. Especially when we're talking about package delivery services and thinking about how to secure all of these borders where things are coming between states in and out of the country. It's not a trivial task and it's not something I think people think about on a day to day basis.
Do you have any kind of things that have been a long standing itch where you were like, oh, I wish it could be like this.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: I think if you would have asked me six years ago that question, my immediate response was we have to have, we have to have more expertise. We have to have people in place to develop programs that address these issues because there was a significant lack of that, in my opinion.
Now I think that your major brands, all of them are experiencing these types of criminal activities and they are standing up very robust, you know, data programs and infrastructures to prevent.
And it's going, they're going to get better.
But I can only, you know, from my experience with a brand that I work for, every day they were combating this every day. And they are very good at what they were doing and what they are doing. So, you know, as technology expands, the preventative measures will expand with it. But the bad actors will never stop trying to infiltrate us.
[00:28:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a rat race or an arms race between, you know, the good actors and the bad actors just constantly trying to get better. I'll make a somewhat cynical argument and I'll apologize for this in advance, but if you as a youngster, you know, thinking about your, your career and what you want to go into there, there are a few fundamental industries that you know will always be alive and well for, which is, you know, in itself a terrible thing because we will always get sick and there will always be criminals that are going to try and get us. So these areas of healthcare and security and you know, banking as well, financial, they're just industries that will always be stable. The reasons behind that, of course, are, are somewhat uncomfortable because, you know, we have all these bad things in the world that we will forever fight against.
But that's just, you know, two cents maybe if you're thinking about your career, also think about the ups and downs. With that said on that same thread, I want to ask you, we have a fair amount of young audience listening in.
What would you Recommend, you know, 20 something young adult thinking about their next steps in their career?
[00:29:53] Speaker B: Well, if it's in the security world, the Digital platform will continue to grow. It will continue to be an avenue that more expertise is going to be required of. So if I was that age, if I was starting again, part of my library or my briefcase would definitely be digital security.
And as much as I could learn within that to go hand in hand with your physical security side.
But if you want to be marketable, those two areas put you in a position to pretty much open whatever door you want. You want to open.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: Yeah. What's interesting is that there's no organization on earth really, that this is not an important topic. So even if you're, you know, in adjacent role or doing something else, but you have knowledge of the this and you can contribute to your organization, that's going to be a valuable skill. So I think there's value in understanding and knowing this. Even if you're in sales and marketing or whatever, you're a target in anything you do. So you can help your team and your company be better by having this knowledge. So I think that's such a wonderful comment.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. We had a breadth of perspective, was really big for us. When I was with the company I was working for and for security, we had to know very deep into the security world and policies, procedures, laws, your skill set had to be very deep in that area. But to be effective, we really pushed on having the individual grow their breadth of perspective. So the more they knew about every department, every function within the company, the better, better marketable they are, the more knowledge that they have and the more effectiveness they can bring to the table. Because you know you're going to be very deep in this, in this column, but if you're wide in all the others, then it's just going to make you better. And I would encourage anyone to not let themselves become pigeonholed, but to learn everything they can about any other position within the company that they have access to.
[00:32:08] Speaker A: I mean, this is absolutely golden. I mean that, that was supposed to be my last question, but this is such a valuable comment. I just want to add something onto that.
The beautiful thing about what you said is that by understanding these different divisions and functions in the company, what that really allows you to do is communicate with them in their language.
And there is, there is something so empowering about working with somebody else in the company and understanding what they need and want and the words that they use and what are their objectives. It just makes for a, in my opinion, 10x teamwork. And that's going to differentiate you as an individual. So I mean, really listen, you know, carefully to what Ed is saying here is so important.
[00:32:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that, I think the. What you just said was being able to listen to what they, what they need and what they want. You know, being in the security, a lot of times you're, you're not dictating, but you're, you know, you're enforcing policies and procedures and you're really not providing a lot of opportunity to listen to what others are saying. And I think that when you can bring solutions to others instead of always the ask, right? When you bring them solutions, they're much more willing to help you. They're much more willing to understand you. You become better partners.
And then, you know, I think that leads into your development and your leadership because it allows you to be vulnerable where you can listen to others criticism of you. And if you can't take criticism from others, it's not, you're not going to be able to develop to the, you know, a leader position as you would want to.
[00:33:46] Speaker A: 100%. Ed, what an absolute pleasure. I appreciate you coming on the show so much today. It was just great.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: I enjoyed it. I think that it's very value added and I wish we would have had this platform when I was young to learn from.
This is really. The time has just flown by and I would love to do it again sometime in the future. But thank you for the opportunity, Arian, and.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: Thank you so much, Ed. So much fun.
[00:34:16] Speaker B: Absolutely.
