What makes you excited to come to work every day? For me, it’s solving hard and near-“impossible” problems for our intelligence community, thereby supporting our nation’s security. Client challenges can be very complex and require multidimensional solutions. Although I have a technical background, our solutions must combine the best of engineering, networking, processes, analysis, focus (targeting the right problem), and people. Thinking through these complex solutions is always exciting, and it’s rewarding when clients choose to deploy your solution in support of their mission.
What are the three greatest challenges facing the intelligence industry? The three greatest challenges are: 1) keeping pace with the rate of change of the world. What worked yesterday and the year before may not work anymore; 2) creating work options that attract the talent pool with the post-pandemic expectations of remote work and other options, we need to encourage people to work in this important and exciting domain; and 3) Staying current and relevant in the latest technologies and constantly changing and adapting. We empower our workforce to stay up to date on the latest technologies, so they continue to learn, change, and adapt.
How do you inspire your teams to do excellent work? How do your teams inspire you? I inspire teams to do excellent work through encouragement and praise and working side-by-side with them on problems. My teams always inspire me through their ideas, creativity, and new perspectives as they flip problems on their head. It is always inspiring to work with others where people spitball ideas, work through solutions, and ultimately make everyone’s work better.
