Fireside Chat w/Robert Gummer, Deputy Chief, Systems Security @ LA Metro

Hello and welcome to our fireside chat. This is the replay and you got here right on time. So thanks for joining and thanks for being a member of our community. We hope you enjoy the rest of the show. All right, so if it's the first time you've joined us, we do this every single month. We usually have a guest for about 90 minutes or so and we run through a series of questions really focused in on learning about them and their origin story and what really drives and motivates them and their respective journey in their career, in their life, and where they are in and around the world because we've had folks on this show that have been from different countries. So I'm excited this evening because we are joined by Rob Gummer. I had the privilege and honor to work with Rob Gummer for several years at the NFL and now Rob is a Deputy Chief System and Security Officer at LA Metro. So we'll get into Rob Gummer's sort of career in a bit after we get past his origin story and whatnot. But just some very quick ground rules. Again, if it's the first time you join us, we do this every single month. It's really an opportunity for us to let our hair loose, if you will. For those of us who have hair, some of us are thinning, like myself. But to let our hair loose, really get to know our guests and have a conversation about them. If you're a vendor in the audience, we're really happy to have you be part of this community and be part of this conversation. But today is not the day to sell us on your latest and greatest product. So we do appreciate that you will leave that to the side and really hone in and focus in on our guest's journey and their origin story. So without further ado, I will preface this and say the comments that I make and that we make for the most part are representative of our own thoughts and opinions and not that of our current, prior, or even future employer for that matter. If you do want to quote us on anything online, just ping us before you do quote us because I'm sure we would like to review it and give you the thumbs up. All right. That said, I'm just going to quickly go around the room and then we will get started. So I'm Tomas Maldonado. I'm the CISO for the NFL. Hussein, over to you. Good evening, Tomas, for having me as a moderator. Hussein Saeed, CISO for Robert Wood Johnson, part of his health in New Jersey. Thank you. Stephen? Saving us some time by just doing it at the top so we don't have to keep doing it each time. But I am Stephen Garcia. I have been doing information security for my entire career. Do what I love and try to help out as best I can and try to move the craft forward with all these folks on stage here. And I'll pass it back to you, Tomas. Thank you, Stephen. Anil, I see you down there. I'm not sure why you're not. Raise your hand and I'll bring you up so you can join us as a moderator. There it is. Let's get Anil on here. I must have missed Anil on the invite. Anil, why don't you take a moment, introduce yourself, and then we will get started. Thanks, Tomas. Anil Varghese, Senior Operating Advisor with Francisco Partners. Looking forward to a great conversation with Rob. So, as I mentioned, we're joined by Robert Gummer, who's the Deputy Chief System Security at LA Metro. And as I also mentioned, I've had the privilege and honor to know Rob for several years. Actually, Rob was one of the first people that I remember when I joined the NFL. Actually, before I even joined the NFL, that I went down to a planning meeting down in Miami. I sat down in this big room and I was overwhelmed with not only the size and the magnitude of what we were trying to accomplish with the event, but I was just overwhelmed with all of the information that was thrown at me. And Rob was one of those individuals that I sat next to. And he was very kind to me in that first interaction and meeting him. And while I wasn't even an employee yet, I was still in the midst of transitioning and I was invited down to experience that firsthand. And as I mentioned, so Rob was very kind to me in my first sort of couple of days down there learning and getting my bearings, if you will. And not only that, you know, once I joined, once I officially joined, Rob was one of those key people that I worked with. So I'm honored and happy to have this conversation with Rob Gummer. I hope you all who are listening will enjoy this as well. So without further ado, Rob, why don't you take a moment and introduce yourself? And while you're going through your introduction, and you can take as long as you want, while you're going through that introduction of yours, why don't you tell us a little bit more about you and your origin story? Well, thanks, Tomas. And thanks to everyone that's listening. First, I just want to tell you, Tomas, it's been a bucket list item that can on this fireside chat with you. I've followed it ever since the beginning. So I'll get an opportunity to present myself, my story, and my journey. Just completely honored and humbled to do so. So I guess if we're going to do origin stories, might as well go all the way down to the beginning. So I was originally born in a small town called Valero, Ohio. For those who don't know where that's at, it's a very, very small town in the Ohio River, literally across from Willing, West Virginia. It's an old school place. There's not much going on now. Hell, there wasn't much going on then. But my dad worked in a steel mill, a lot of cousins and stuff that worked in coal mines. That kind of tells you what that environment was like. I was a super smart kid. So by the time I was in third grade, I was in fifth grade, everything. And essentially, I had worked my way out of the school system there. So that was a very small area. It's not an area meant for programs for gifted kids. So my mom took a leap of faith, moved us, ironically, given where I ended up, to Canton, Ohio, where there was a lot of opportunities, a lot of different courses for gifted kids. I was able to do things such as I won the Ohio math competition for mental computation, both in the sixth and seventh grade. And for those who don't know what those kind of nerdy events are, that one in particular meant that you had to essentially work out math problems without writing anything down. You had to do it all in your head. I won multiple spelling bees. I was just the epitome of an avid learner. And that's kind of what drove me throughout my life, was always wanting a bigger challenge and learning something more. When I was in high school, I was fortunate enough to get into an experimental program where they wanted to build future community leaders. So it was called Youth Collaborative. I think they tacked on 2000. So this was around, I think, the 90s. So anything with 2000 sounded extra cool. But the whole idea was to teach, I guess, future potential leaders, everything about leadership for about two years. And then you had to do a community service project that you led and implemented on your third year. And then your last year, you had to do a mentorship, apprenticeship kind of thing. I always wanted to be an FBI. That was a dream I had since I was a young kid. So I was fortunate enough to pair up with an FBI agent. It was actually the head of that office who volunteered to go out once a month and pick me up from school, took me down to the office and showed me the ropes of what a day in the life of the FBI was like. It was a super cool experience. And what shaped my life, truly. One day we were going to the office and I had done all the research on what it took to go to the FBI. At the time I had a full ride academic scholarship to Michigan. But, you know, I looked at other opportunities. And, you know, he essentially told me to go to the military and learn how to shoot, get some actual experience, do a bunch of other things. And then go and pursue the dream. So I dropped all plans and went straight for the military, joined into military intelligence, where I did most of, actually all of my military time. Initially, I was sent over to Germany. I was there for about two and a half years. I did a deployment to Kosovo. We were actually the first military units to go into country as the Serbian army was leaving. And it was my first real exposure to what intelligence work was like. At that point in time, we were still doing Cold War kind of stuff. You know, and that was, you know, training against, you know, the old Russian and North Korea kind of threats. And this was a peacekeeping mission. So I got to learn a lot about policing and military environments. You know, how different groups kind of work, what the political side of things look like. And, you know, this was a very, very early on in life. So I was like 19 at this time. Around that same time, I actually learned that I was a good briefer. I got in the military. You get thrust into a bunch of different positions that you normally don't have any chance to prepare for. And it was Toshibata and you either sink or swim. Ended up being so good. I was the command briefer throughout every deployment from that on. I thought, you know, fast forward, I ended up going into Fort Hood. At this point, I was 21. I was a sergeant. And then 9-11 happened. You know, and for any security professional that was around during that time period, that was a monumental shift in the game. And for those who are not aware, in the military, intelligence wasn't necessarily taken as seriously until 9-11 came. And they recognized that only intel folks would be the ones who'd be nimble enough to understand the new normal, which was terrorist groups. But what also resulted in was anyone that was in the intelligence field getting stop-lossed. And, you know, for anyone who doesn't know what stop-loss is, that's essentially when the military says that you can't leave until they tell you you can, even though when you sign up, you sign up for four years active and four years reserve. So I was essentially stuck. I asked to go back to Germany just because I didn't like Texas at the time. As soon as I got there, in three months, I was back to Kosovo again for another nine-month deployment. And this was, there really wasn't much going on at that point. But it was around 2002, 2003. 2003, the Iraq war kicks off. So we're literally watching it play out. All my buddies who were at Fort Hood actually were the first units to go in. So I'm kind of following along and hearing from them as well as they're moving into Iraq. But then we find out at the end of our deployment that we're next up. So we had three months of training, went straight down to Iraq. When I look at what evolved me in the intelligence game, it was certainly that deployment. For me, I was in charge of our intelligence cell. And I guess for awareness, during my time in the military is really where I started to understand command centers, how they worked, how they operated. I started to become a guru at it because you get tossed in these different crazy environments. You have to figure a lot of things out in rapid fashion. And for this deployment in particular, it was the beginning of what we know today as ISIS by the time of Al Qaeda in Iraq. So we were dealing with the first IEDs, the first car bombs, and all of the insurgent tactics that became kind of a staple later on during that time period. So a lot of the work that I was doing was identifying bomb makers, trying to understand who they were based on their signature, understanding different tactics that terrorist groups were kind of undergoing in real time. Also having to brief everything that was happening across the country of Iraq. And during that year, it was the year that led up to Iraq's first democratic elections. So there was just a lot going on. But as a professional, it evolved me in a lot of different ways. In 2006, I finally managed to separate from the military. Had some opportunities to teach at the Army Intelligence School with a lot of friends with me in the military. So I went out to Fort Huachuca, taught at the schoolhouse for about a year. Then I got recruited to build a new team that taught surveillance systems and kind of what we know today as video analytics. It was part of the Army's Future Combat Systems program at the time. And our goal was to not only build the training from scratch, go out and market the training because no one knew what these systems were because they weren't part of the Army's official record. Get them, convince people to give us a classroom, to allow us to ship our equipment to them, allow us to have them hold our equipment for us, and then give us a training site for two weeks. So I became like a phone hustler, essentially. Cold calling people all the time, you know, marketing a bunch of different things that they had no clue about. But we built a very successful program, and we were charged with training every military and Army unit that was going to go to Afghanistan and Iraq. So I was always on the road. Two weeks out of every month, we were gone. You know, whether it was Alaska, Hawaii, Fort Bragg, Fort Polk, you name it, we were doing it. And I was building curriculum on the fly. I eventually got it to a point where I was actually advising generals in Iraq and Afghanistan of how they should be deploying the systems in theater, while also thinking about how to build a communications architecture for their training sites. I was able to do both and get one of the systems as part of the official military's, I guess, equipment list. And it's still there to this day. And that's one of the things I'm super proud about. But around that time, an old friend and a former soldier of mine, Brian Cohen, who might be listening out there before I hear this later, he gives me a call. And at that point in time, he had made it to the FBI. I had become a supervisor in the Las Vegas office. And he gives me a call. And he's like, hey, Rob, you know, I have an open position here. I could direct hire you. What do you think about getting the band back together? And I was like, of course. You know, it was my dream. And it was a great opportunity. So I came in as an intel professional. And Las Vegas was a perfect place to learn the FBI, to learn intelligence, to learn threats. Because I got to work everything. I got to dabble in cyber. I got to dabble in counterintelligence, counterterrorism, gangs, domestic terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, counterproliferation. Anything that was out there, you had the opportunity to kind of work. And I was an insane person at the time. I liked to learn, like I said earlier. So I volunteered for at least six different jobs at the same time. I think I was managing a couple of different squads at one point, working things like white collar. I was the EEO coordinator. I was all over the map. But the goal behind that was just to understand the business, understand how the FBI worked, and really, I guess, arm myself for the necessary things to become a supervisor in the future. Well, for three years, I ended up becoming a supervisor in the FBI in San Diego, which in timeline-wise is pretty unheard of. But just the way how things played out, I got there. I managed a squad of 17 people, and they worked gangs and cross-border kidnapping and cross-border drug smuggling. But around that time, the director of the Fusion Center that's in San Diego, the Law Force Coordination Center, Leslie Gardner, she recognized my experience on the intel side. She was looking to have some opportunities to reboot what their team was, their intel team was doing, but also fix some of the relationships that the Fusion Center had inside the region, and more particularly fix the relationship with the FBI. I was happy to do that. So I was running two full-time jobs at the same time when I was in San Diego. I was able to leave there with minding that relationship between the Fusion Center and the FBI, growing that regional connectivity between that whole group, to the point that the FBI and the Fusion Center were doing joint presentations on a quarterly basis, and really just forged that to another level. I went up to D.C. to be an inspection team, and what that is for the FBI is essentially an audit. You're going out. You're looking at the effectiveness of an office or a program. You're giving some recommendations of how to improve it, and really understanding everything about policy and procedure for the organization. I did that for about 14 months. Now it's just like a temporary duty. And then I got to the things that I thought were really fun, which was the tech space. So in FBI, the technology space at the time wasn't the most popular. It was not as popular as working in normal cases, but it was something I was very interested in. I had the opportunity to run the analytic technology portfolio for the organization, and that was 40 different projects. We had the staff of our staff over 100, and the whole goal was to better connect all those efforts with the agency, and then also with the people who worked in the field who were actually leveraging this technology. So that was a bear of a thing, but I loved it, and I managed to take it on, retool how we were doing business, was able to fast-track a lot of programs that the agency actually needed, and was able to elevate that program to a point that the FBI decided to dust off an old position that they had kind of given up on, which was the Senior National Intelligence Officer of Science and Technology. Years prior, and so this is around 2018 in the timeline, they had someone else in that role. They didn't really do much with it, and the FBI at the time wasn't really interested in emerging technology. This was a key point where AI, Bitcoin, quantum computing, smart cities, all of that stuff started to get into the general conversation, and the FBI was kind of not in those conversations. So I jumped at that chance. I even had people advise me not to take that job because they didn't think it was good for my career. Unfortunately, they were incorrect because they ended up being a very vital part of my career. So I took that job, and my whole purpose at the time was to nerd out with some of the smartest people in the industry, understand what they were doing with new and emerging technology, understand the application, and then come back and translate it to our top executives to include the FBI director, but also be able to brief, say, the U.S. Attorney General on things as far as what needs to be protected, what policies and procedures are out there, what are some technologies that other countries are going after. It was such a fascinating space, and it was fun. It was legitimately fun. I went from moderating panels on car telematics to actually creating my own unclassified presentation on the vulnerabilities of 5G that actually led me to the National Football League. So the reason that happened is I created this presentation, just, you know, notifying everyone, hey, there's, you know, this new architecture. Here's some of the vulnerabilities. Here's some of the, I guess, the race to kind of own that space by the various countries that are out there, and really just put it down in plain speak. That presentation made us rounds around D.C. Got super popular. I got asked to present that in numerous locations, and a buddy had actually reached out to me and said, hey, you know, we are trying to do a presentation at the Global Security Exchange in Las Vegas. Do you mind going out there and giving your presentation? I was like, okay, cool. And actually, what was funny about that week, my boss didn't want me to go because I was supposed to brief the Attorney General on 5G that week. And so I made a deal that I'll fly out to Vegas, do the presentation one day, fly out the next morning, and be back in time for the presentation. Well, unbeknownst to me, Kathleen Ear, Tomas, was in the audience. And I heard about her. I had never met Kathleen Ear at all. Actually, at the time, the person was across the hall from me, Janelle Miller, at the FBI. She had retired and joined the NFL. But at that point in time, I was FBI for life. So I had no interest in anything else that was going on. And I was actually working my way up through the organization. And this was another reason I took the paths I took, because I wanted to run the FBI's intelligence program. And that was, like, my main goal. So I wanted to know all the things, technology, policy, you know, the trade, all of that to get to the top. So I'm in the room on the last presentation of the day. It's a full house. And I think Kathy was actually sitting in front of me. But, again, I never saw her before. So I had no idea she was there. I guess that same day, the job of the director of intelligence or the Global Security Operations Center, sort of a dual role, was finally approved by the league. She actually had the job description with her. And she had the job description. My bio was right there, because I was up there flapping my gums. And, you know, I guess she walked away from that conversation, saying that that's the person I want. I don't think we even interacted when she was there, because I remember just going, leaving the event, going and grabbing dinner, and then the next morning flying back to D.C. and about a week later, Janelle had reached out to me. And it was like, hey, did you give a presentation in Las Vegas on 5G or something? I was like, yeah, yeah, that was me. And I was figuring that, you know, maybe the NFL wanted to be talking about 5G being a stadium. So I was like, okay, you know, yeah, give Kathy my information. Kathy calls me that evening, you know, says that she's going to be in D.C. the following week. Meet her in D.C. There's a little tiny office downtown. And we just get to talking. Again, you know, I'm thinking we're talking about 5G, but we're not talking about 5G at all. You know, Kathy's sharing about her career. You know, I'm sharing about, you know, mine. She's asking about how I think about threats and the global environment. And I'm talking about how you can be dynamic and really think, you know, outside the box to get ahead of the adversaries that are out there. And, you know, about an hour goes by and she, you know, says like, hey, you know, I think you're doing pretty well, you know, inside the FBI. You know, but I want you to be my director of intelligence and build my global security operations center. And my jaw hit the ground. And I was like, huh? I guess I was not anticipating that conversation at all. And it was one of those things where, you know, Kathy literally offered up what my other goal was, was to have my own intelligence program, to build something of my own from scratch. But I was at a crossroads because at that point, I was 10 years in the FBI. I was on a great trajectory towards the top. I was well-respected in the agency. And there really wasn't a lot to entice me to leave. But this was it. And I couldn't make a decision at that point in time. I told her, I was like, hey, you know, I need to take some time to think about this. She gave me three days, which was the Friday. And then like the weekend, and we had an all-employees conference. I talked to my boss that morning. I was like, hey, this is what's going on. And they were like, hey, you just need to write up the pros and cons. You know, I think by the end of that day, I already knew what that decision was going to be. You know, and I took that leap of faith. And went off to the NFL. You know, and, you know, a good chunk of this story, Tomas. But, you know, year one, you know, was really, you know, spending time in New York, understanding how the NFL worked, understanding from scratch, you know, what technologies and tools we needed, trying to recognize. And I'll be honest, I struggled with that first year and trying to recognize and understand this new environment, which was a lot more free than, you know, anything that I dealt with inside the government. And, you know, getting a sizable budget to build the Global Security Operations Center from scratch. And I just remember being just like, getting all these things at once and trying to understand how to build this and thinking about my experience in command centers and my experience using technology, my experience managing the technology portfolio and making sure I have future-proof stuff and how do I keep things nimble. And, you know, even have to decide things I didn't think were things I could decide, like the color of tables and what kind of chairs we're going to get and how important those things were. And then building the team from scratch and then building the processes for how we supported investigations, how we did all the things, monitoring threats. everything was really, you know, based off of, you know, my years of experience. And then as we brought team members on, you know, leveraging their experiences to build different aspects of the program. And I'll never forget, you know, the first year ended the Miami Super Bowl. And obviously, Tomas, that was a wild one for us both because we hopped in and instantly went into, you know, a very wild scenario. You know, and that's when I got a chance to see you perform and see you operate on the God tier that you operated on. And, you know, I just remember the feedback from the GSOC. It's like, oh, yeah, you guys do a lot of cool stuff, but, you know, not sure we really, you know, need all y'all. And it was interesting because we had done a lot of unique things in the GSOC. You know, so we had physical security, we had intelligence, and we had cybersecurity underneath one roof, which to me is the model for how you do business these days. You know, because it's a holistic look at the threats that are out there. But the thing that pushed us to the next level was the pandemic. You know, and I'll never forget a week before everything shut down. We're in Las Vegas thinking that the draft is still going to happen, and everyone's all pumped up about that, and then as the world goes away, then, you know, I work with, you know, YouTube boss on the first ever, and hopefully the last ever, cyber draft. And a host of other things that happened during the pandemic, a lot of first-time evers, but it really fast-forwarded the understanding of why that operation was important, and I'm proud to see where that's at today. And then about four years in, you know, I got Wanderlust and missed the West Coast, and there's a variety of different reasons for that, but when I was in the FBI, I had a wonderful time in San Diego. I realized after the pandemic and the world started opening up, and I started making trips out to California that I legitimately missed being out this way, and a lot of weird, rando things kind of lined up, and I got the job out here at LA Metro. Originally, my job was just to build the analytics capability and help them build what we're opening later this year, our ESOC, which is, you know, so for you, DeMoss, and I guess for anyone who's standing, like the G-SOC, you know, we have, it's like 2,600 square feet. This thing's like 26,000 square feet, and this monstrosity, this first-ever transit security fusion center, and, you know, that was kind of my focus, but a lot of stuff happened, and we had a lot of turnover with leadership and whatnot, and any time that we lost our staff, I was kind of tossed into the fire that they handled it, and it turns out I was good at it, and I got tossed into the political side of things, and it turned out I was actually really good at that, and just through this, I've been here less than two years, and I've been promoted every six months as to where I'm at now, where, you know, I guess for my current role as the interim deputy chief, though I am under good knowledge that that interim will likely be dropping off very soon, but I run all of security and for the agency, you know, so for us, that's physical security, emergency management, we have an analytics program that initially started off with, but now we're growing it into something that I think is really cool. We have contract security, we have actual transit security, we have contracts with three different law enforcement agencies, and, you know, we support 11,000 employees, we have over 1,400 square miles of rail, and over 2,100 buses, and it's been a bear. We have, you know, truly all the things that you can think about, you know, I deal with on a regular basis, and that role has continued to grow and dusted off what we, I guess, Metro used to have which was the Regional Transit Security Working Group, which is trying to unite all of the regional transit agencies underneath an umbrella so we can all share information, but also unite a lot of the law enforcement partners as well with the goal of getting us ready for the World Cup, Super Bowl, and the Olympics, you know, of which, and this is where I think I find at this very interesting point in time, even for myself, the run of events that are about to come to L.A. has never happened before to any city in the world, much less, you know, here in the United States post-9-11. So I think the run of events is the NBA All-Star Game, you have the World Cup, you have the Super Bowl return in 27, then you have the Olympics and Paralympics, back to back to back to back to back. For me, that is the white whale. It's something for me as a security professional, I get a no that I'm able to do, but it also presents a lot of opportunities for us to really do some innovative stuff. You know, I think in the past year or so, I've been able to turn, you know, a lot of interest into emerging technology, current technology, things that allow us to be able to innovate better when it comes to security because our system is so massive, you can never cover it with enough bodies. I've been able to do it and try to be aware of what's coming, but also just the need to be agile and nimble. So just taking some of the things I've learned from the NFL, like for instance, you know, I'm headed out tomorrow to Paris, to go and observe the Olympics, and I'm really thankful for my experience with the NFL because it's allowed me to go with the actual event experience I've seen and haven't gone on those international scouting trips when you're going out there and you're planning and you're looking at those sites and whatnot and be able to look at it through a different lens and inside the agency, I'm actually one of, actually I think a one of one who's done anything, you know, with the background that I have. So it puts me in a unique position to really do some cool things with Metro but also do some cool things for our partners as well. But I'll be honest, it's intimidating, but it's been a wild ride and I am super thankful to be here and super thankful for what's to come. So I think I've given kind of a round-the-world intro so I will toss it back to you, Mr. Tomas. Wow, that is, so take some water, drink some water, take a quick reaver, but that is an incredible, incredible introduction and origin story and I'm sure there's a lot there to unpack and I will just quickly reset the room if you just joined us. We're joined by Rob Gummer who is the Deputy Chief, Deputy Chief System Security and Law Enforcement, I guess officer, I would end that with officer at LA Metro. Rob has had a very, very interesting journey so far and, you know, I'm really looking forward to the mods sort of leaning in and digging in more on that. But Rob, how's your spelling bee competition lately? If I hit you with a word, are you going to be able to spell it? Oh, come on, Tomas. I was a kid at the time. I use Grammarly now. I got to put you on the spot here. I got to put you on the spot. Let me throw a word at you. Let me throw a word at you and you tell me how it's spelled. I'm going to try to pronounce it first and foremost, but it's anti-disestablishment... Oh, man, hang on. Let me get it right. Anti-disestablishment... commentarianism. Oh, my. I can't even, like, say the word. All right. Let me see if I can break this down. So there's a couple words in here, so I'll go off the dome here. So anti-anti-S-B-D-I and then E-S-T-A-B-L-I-S-H-M-E-N-T-A-R-I-A-N-I-S-M. Wow. Man. Wow. Kudos to you for getting that. So I googled the longest word to ask someone in a spelling bee. I'm sweating over here, you know. I was like, oh, man, I'm about to get cooked on it. Hey, you said you were gifted. Let's see those gifts in action there, buddy. No, that's great. So he did get the word right for those who were keeping score. Hussein, I'll pass it over to you. Wow, Robert. That is some illustrious career you've had there. And I would have made Tomas use that word in a sentence just to make sure that he repeats it a few more times. But my question would be, that's a stressful job. You know, you are on the go 24-7. So can you give us some insight into how you de-stress, how you cope with all this? What are some of the things you do outside of work that help you balance life? Oh, wow. That's a very good question because you're right. It is a lot. And I will tell you, you know, this job definitely is not without its troubles, mainly because anything can happen at any time and not to be responsive to all the things. I think the good thing is that the NFL GSOC time actually trained me how to mostly be able to balance that out just because you know, there you're also required to be on 24-7 and, you know, anything can happen at any time. I think what I try to do in my free time is to get away from all things computer-related. Try to, I mean, Southern California, there's no shortage of good views and good sites and things to see. And I just have to make the most of whatever time I do have. it is tough though. And I would say over the past couple months, just because of some of the dynamics that we've had, some of the things that we've been trying to get across, you know, like our own police force, which was just approved, and, you know, some of the other things we're doing on the technology, it's been a grind. And, you know, still working on that balance. I guess, ironically enough, probably the closest thing we get to vacation this summer is the trip over the Paris and I will try to make the most of that when nothing's going on. But it's a continual work and there's never really a good way that they get around it because at the end of the day when you're responsible for all the things, you have to be responsive to all the things. And I'm just trying to figure out what that right rhythm is for me. Thank you. Maybe Tomas will invite you to the Super Bowl. That would be a nice break. Over to you, Stephen. No pressure. Man, we're really taking it back to school here. I'll take the longest spelling for the church's first divorce settlement, 1,000, Tomas. That was crazy, bro. Rob, thank you for taking the time to share your experience with us. I know not all of us can operate on that God's here, like you said, Tomas does, but there are, of course, things that we can always learn and as a civvy, I'd like to get a better understanding of how people translate their experience and service of the country to the private sector. You talked about how you had to start cold calling folks when it was time to market and build the program for, I think it was future analytics you mentioned. It's my opinion that the hardest part for the CISO type roles is that of cultural change. I'm wondering, what's the comparing contrast for you and how you had to market cold call and do things like that in the service versus how you have to do that in the private sector. That cultural change is really what's tough for a lot of folks and part of the role is to affect that change. I'm curious what lessons you learned, any pitfalls or things you think might be valuable to share with the group here. That's a very good question. When I was joined for the mobile training team and essentially hawking my wares with cold calls and trying to get training set up, I think what was beneficial inside the service is that I knew the service inside and out. The folks I was calling were positions I was familiar with so I could speak the language and understand if they were talking back to me and giving me something that I would say, okay, you're talking about this, this, this, and then be able to find a way to bridge the gap where they understood where I was coming from. I was able to demonstrate how I understood them and I knew exactly the dynamics of their own jobs and positions. I think that really taught me a lot about emotional intelligence, listening, and really recognizing that there's not one approach that matches because you never know who's going to be on the other side of that phone. And that's definitely ported over to how I look at, you know, I guess, selling your wear, selling your capabilities, you know, inside, you know, private sector or public sector now. I think when I, when I first started the G-SOT, we were starting to market a lot of what we were able to do, the most effective thing was kind of like the lunch and learns because without any type of lunch and learn, we were seen as kind of like this spooky thing that no one really understood a bunch of like cool screens and scary things. And I think I saw a couple of references to, you know, us essentially tracking Jason Bourne, you know, from our center. And, you know, it obviously was not, that wasn't what was going on. We're actually building something that's going to help everyone. But we had to bridge that gap. So it was really kind of this, you know, giving some, kind of putting ourselves, ourselves out there. Hey, this is what we're trying to do. This is what we are doing. Understanding who that other person is understanding what they're doing and then trying to find that middle ground where you can work together. You can find a value in each other. And that's super difficult. But persistence is key, as is demonstrating the value in a very tangible way. And oftentimes it's by having street talk. I think in very technical fields, the challenge is being able to bridge that gap because you want to speak technically, because you understand things at a nuanced level, but the regular human has no idea what you're talking about. So trying to take a step back and find some real ways to engage them and really actually at times find ways to adapt what you're doing to their work. And I find even in my current position, that's been the most effective. Now I kind of have to dip my toes in multiple ponds throughout the week. I mean, I could be either on TV, given some kind of media spiel, I could be out in some kind of community event, and they're asking me about what are we doing on security and what are some of the challenges, and I have to speak kind of differently then. There's times I'm meeting with the LA mayor or other political appointees, and there's different angles to things that they're looking at, there's different things that they're trying to achieve, so your message has to be curtailed to whatever that audience is, and I guess maybe that's the formula, it's really understanding that audience, what they're trying to achieve, and where you can meet them in the middle, and I feel once you've figured out that rhythm, you can do that anywhere, and I find that a lot of the, like I feel that this job in particular has been kind of the final exam of everything that I've done leading up to this point, where all of these different skills and sometimes technical capabilities, sometimes just random jobs that I've had to do, have all kind of benefited me now to find different ways to bridge those gaps with people. Thank you, Rob, so if I understood you right here, just to summarize, you're really just getting out in front of the message, right, not thinking that people, or not letting people just kind of think that the security type folks are sitting in the basement somewhere working on something nefarious, but really getting out in front and advertising and saying, hey, look, you know, like there is no curtain you need to look behind. We're a wide open shop for you guys to understand what we're doing and let us know how we can partner with you. Is that kind of what we're doing? Steven, I think that's spot on. I think one of the biggest challenges for security is that it's nebulous and everyone has insane expectations for what security can or cannot do. And in the absence of seeing it a tangible benefit right in front of them on a regular basis, it becomes just things like, oh, I don't think security is doing anything or security is doing stuff that doesn't involve me or maybe security is not there. I don't know what they do or it's so high in the sky that there's no benefit. You know, for us, for instance, this year, one of our greatest successes was having an open house where we laid out everything that we're doing, whether it's current efforts, future technology we're exploring and it's having people have a look at it, be fully transparent. And it changed the narrative because without it, in the absence of information, everyone else is filling the gap. And, you know, for security, that's the worst thing to be because that gap normally gets filled with negative information. So for me, I'm now trying to flip that and be super aggressive in our messaging, letting people know precisely what we're doing and be clear why we are doing it. Yeah, and that makes sense, man. Of course, obviously, there's important work going on at all levels of government, but, you know, some of it has been self-inflicted by the security industry. You know, like, if you've been in government, you know it's a matter of just sprinkling that national security dust over and then you don't have to explain anything, right? And that kind of has translated out at least back, you know, when this all first started where security has been like kind of a mystery to people because it has been kept cryptic, you know, partly through security through obscurity. So a lot of us have had to fight back from that image and then show the transparency side of it like what you're mentioning here. So it definitely makes sense. So thank you again for that, Rob. And Neil, I will pass it to you now. Thanks, Steven. Rob, appreciate the background, taking us on that journey per your roles, experiences. one of the things that caught my attention, you touched upon early on in your life, you know, the importance of mentorship. You talked about an FBI agent that helped connect with you on a monthly basis. Can you speak to the importance of mentorship and how you go about developing the next generation of leaders? Absolutely. So mentorship is something I am extremely passionate about. to this day, I think I've mentored 50 to 60 different people. I've been fortunate, particularly during the pandemic, to connect to a lot of people who are looking to kind of level up in different ways. It could be interviewing, it could be resume writing, it could be just having the path for their career and really trying to think through what they want to achieve. I think there's no better thing than to be able to take your experience and pay it forward. For me, I've been very, very fortunate throughout my career, not just when I was a kid, that there was multiple people who stepped into my life, gave me an opportunity, took the time to actually teach me the things that they knew and gave me the opportunity to kind of learn and even operate in that same space. And I've been able to grow exponentially as a professional as a result. So I take all types and people hit me up regularly on LinkedIn, either it's for some type of career advice or whatever. And if I have the time, I will give it because I hope that you kind of create a culture where others will do the same or they'll remember that time and do the same and find ways to be successful. Whether or not it's in my field or not, for me, it's agnostic. I think the idea of this giving people time is so valuable and it's something that really matters a lot. And I think that does help inspire future generations. On the security space, it's the same. I find that there's a lot of people that at times are either intimidated to reach out or they feel embarrassed to reach out or just don't really know how. But if there's ways I can help out, I'll be the first person to try to make it work one way or the other. Oh, that's great. I appreciate you sharing that, Rob. You know, it's one of the themes that we push on the Fireside chat and different mediums. We tell folks to reach out and engage. I think collectively, the team that's participating on the call, the moderators, they want to engage. They want to convey shared knowledge, shared experiences and also pitfalls, but also be able to talk to people about the path they've taken. There is no one direct path, so I appreciate you sharing that front. Wow, what a great session so far. Look, if anybody in the audience wants to pop up on stage and ask Rob a question, feel free to raise your hand and I'll bring you up and you can ask him live or you can send me a message and I will read it off if you can't talk for whatever reason. Rob, let's hang on, let me bring Jeffrey up. Oh, wow, hey Rob, you're in for it now. I don't know, you've got a few people lining up, so let's bring them up. Let's see, Jeffrey, you with us? Yep, I'm here. Thank you, Tomas and Robert, thank you for sharing your journey tonight. I mean, one hell of a story and one hell of a career that you've had to date. And you spoke a lot about, you know, kind of building the organizations, the global organization, building your own intelligence organization. The question I have for you is, could you maybe take a step back a little bit and maybe talk a little bit about some of the cultures, security-minded cultures that you've built along those journeys and maybe how that's prepared for the current culture that you're trying to build and with probably hopes of making it a competitive advantage, you know, where you're at? Wow, that's a very good question. So I will go backwards in time to my time in the military where, you know, I had, unfortunately, at points in time, bad supervisions, bad supervisors who created terrible cultures. And, you know, when I was a young soldier, I kind of took note of that. And even when I was younger, I didn't really see myself as a leader of any type. That wasn't really my thing. I saw myself more in the background, helping out, just being a smart person, helping on the side. But I was always tossed in the position of leadership. And I took into consideration all of the bad that I'd seen. and wanted to build kind of cultures of teamwork, where everyone was, you know, valued for what they brought to the team, you know, kind of pushing the team to kind of strive for excellence, but at the same time, serving as an example for excellence. You know, so that became my kind of my border plate for every group I ever managed. So when I was in Vegas, when I first got to Vegas, I didn't really manage anyone. it was a very, at the time, contentious culture, but it was able to turn it into a more positive environment by the end. When I had my team, my squad in San Diego, they were kind of the, you know, I guess, underrated group who no one kind of paid attention to, was able to kind of give them that swag, that feeling of teamwork and the feeling that they had conquered a world. And that's really been the investment in the human capital, understanding each member of my team, understanding what motivates them, what their goals are, what they're trying to achieve, you know, and just finding that way to connect with them, make sure their work is seen. To me, it's always been the path to success for every group I've ever managed. And I'm able to take any group, any team, and mold them from wherever they were at into a team that can literally feel like they can do anything. And that's been my standard. So even when I came to Metro, the team was kind of scattered. A lot was still recovered from the pandemic. Some had not seen each other for years. There was old feuds and all these other crazy things that were going on. And I essentially came in with a positive attitude, the wellness to learn, the wellness to lead for the front, and just kept pushing as far as the vision of everyone working together, being effective, having a plan, having a strategy, really how to see each other as teammates. And I can honestly say now the team that exists today is miles apart from the team that I first came in on. And I'm proud of that. And people believe in each other. They see each other as partners. And that's been kind of the standard I set. And I set that example at the top, how I interact with other departments, even if the departments in the past used to feud. I don't care about that. I try to work to be as collaborative as possible on all levels. And try to lead by example, by being the most positive as possible, even if the interactions are negative. Still being positive, shrugging it off, and still coming to that table as that willing partner to help. I think in some ways is actually cascading across the organization now. even when there's times where maybe the interaction of life was more negative, are now actually positive. And I think you can manifest a lot, but you also have to be able to lead in that same manner. And people continue to be consistent in that example and consistent in that message. You'll be surprised what you're able to change. Yeah, and thank you for that. I can see how, you know, if a member of your team or your organization, how, you know, in simplest form could feel as if they were being seen, can feel as if they were being heard, and at the end of the day being valued. So I appreciate your perspective. That really resonates with me. So thank you very much. Thanks, Jeffrey. Thanks for jumping up and contributing to the conversation. Francis, I'll pass it over to you. Anything you want to ask Robert? I mean, in the work and sharing your experience. So I'm also a gentleman who used to work on the FCS program. So I was wondering if you spent any time in Fort Marmott, New Jersey, and you also spoke about a system that you fielded on the Army's product list. I'm just curious of what system that was at the time. Thanks. Yeah, so Fort Marmott was actually one of the few bases I never made my way to. Yeah, so I think there was a missed opportunity there. And this particular project was underneath the ground sensors program. So there was three sensors at the time. It was Silent Watch, Omni Sensor Scorpion. I believe Scorpion was the one that actually got into the Army's system of record. Awesome. Thanks for sharing. And I'm going to connect after this program as well. So thanks a lot. No, definitely. Look forward to it. Thanks, Francis. Thanks for jumping up and asking your question and contributing to the community this evening. If anybody else has a question for Robert and you want to raise your hand, I'll bring you up. You can ask the question live. Robert, I'll ask you a question while we bring our next sort of guests up in the audience. What are you reading? What's in your reading list while you're riding that long LA Metro to and from the office? Oh, wow. Honestly, not much. I think the problem is that I spend the majority of my day reading something. So my job has so many different layers to it that if I'm going to and from the office on the train, I have like 10 or more different things to read. So that could be technical, manuals on something, a white paper of a project that someone wants to be able to push over. We have a, you know, since Metro has so many actual construction projects and things that kind of require you to get some thinking in. I've had to spend a lot of time just getting spun up on a different projects, you know, so I can seem semi intelligent, you know, when I get randomly invited to meetings and get asked on the fly, like, well, what are we doing about this from a security standpoint? So unfortunately, sadly, I don't get a lot of time to do like casual reading anymore. That makes me sad because I actually do enjoy that. If there's things that I kind of hop off that are adjacent, so for instance, right now, we're openly looking for, you know, different weapons detection systems to kind of better secure some of our rail because a lot of people are running off knives and all kinds of stuff in that way. So I get a chance to kind of dip back my toes back into my old job back when I was in the Bureau and kind of dip and look through, you know, some of the technologies and some of the articles that are out there about these different technologies, kind of nerd out again. Any other time though, I'm saying, I can't even, I can't even put it into words how many different things come my way now and it kind of almost blocks out the sun at times. Awesome. Alan, over to you. Anything you want to ask Robert? First of all, I want to say thank you, Thomas, and everyone on the panel for holding these firesides. I haven't been able to dip in as much as I'd like to, you know, schedule and everything, but it's really good information. My question to you, Robert, is when you think about, you know, you throw the number around 455 all the way up to 650,000 unfilled cybersecurity positions that are out there, in your experience when you're trying to bring on, you know, talent into whatever role it is, and especially when we're speaking about talent, you know, people of color bringing them in, what are some of your strategies that you use to be, you know, not just get anybody to fill a role because you've got an immediate need, but also to be intentional and thoughtful about how you build a slate of candidates? What are some of your strategies and thought processes? Because I struggle with that a lot. Alan, that's such a wonderful question, and it's something that we've struggled with even inside our own organization. So I think there's multiple levels to this, right? You know, so I think first is, you know, being intentional with these job descriptions and stuff. You know, I recall when I first got to Metro, there were some discrepancies in how jobs are titled, how the descriptions were, you know, how thorough they were as far as like what the actual intent of that position was to be. You know, and that's a barrier to entry at times for some candidates that are out there who might be looking because, yeah, they might just not even recognize the position you're opening, that you're offering is in line with what they're trying to do. Two is just knowing where to get the word out. I think what's fascinating to me, you know, is that, you know, we obviously are here on LinkedIn. LinkedIn, there's still a lot of like the younger professionals who don't know anything about LinkedIn, you know, and they are in other avenues and other places, you know, looking for information, you know, so how do you find ways to kind of connect with that? You know, so for us, it's trying to get out and do some better outreach to schools, you know, trying to find opportunities when you get in front of the public to let them know, like, hey, we're looking for these kind of positions and whatnot. Using the network and that you have to kind of, you know, do as much outreach as possible and see if there's people that are out there. I think a lot of the great talent we've been able to find, unfortunately, has been through luck. Sometimes through a network, a friend of a friend of a friend knows a very talented person who's looking for a position, you know, but again, they're not looking in the same places that we are putting information out there. And, you know, I think we have to really start thinking outside of the box. And I think things like this and getting the word out there, you know, through venues like this and trying to get this information out to as many other places as possible is the way to do it. But it's hard. It's very hard. And you highlighted how many open positions that are out there. You know, and I think oftentimes it's just a lack of awareness. You know, everyone kind of looks for the roles or for the agencies with the big ones that they know. you know, the ones that are obvious, you know, the Moss NFL, you know, I would imagine, you know, if Tomas put something out today, you know, you've got hundreds, you know, if not thousands of candidates, you know, you know, diving for that position just because they know the NFL. But there's so many other opportunities that are out there that are just as cool. And I think one of the other gaps we have in a security space, unfortunately, I'm saying this as someone who's been in this business for a while, is we don't make it cool enough. We really don't make it cool enough at times, you know, or enticing enough to really gather that interest. And I think some of that is just building that barrier to entry as far as how cool and important those roles are to agencies and what that impact is for those positions. Well, thank you for that. That's really good advice. Some actionable things I can go back and, you know, work into our strategy. Thanks, Alan. Thanks for asking your question. And just for the record, there's no other cooler roles in Cyber other than the ones at the NFL and my team. So good luck trying to find one. There aren't any. They're all cool in my role. So look up our career site and see if there's something that interests you and feel free to apply, please. I'm joking. There are absolutely a significant amount of other cooler roles, other less stressful roles, and equally important in our communities that are out there. You just need to find them, as Rob said. So use the power of the network. And Rob, I'm going to ask you a question about the network. You know, from my vantage point, we had a Super Bowl in SoFi, and then shortly after that, Rob Gumm is leaving to go to L.A. Was the power of the network used there, Robert? Help us understand how are you leveraging the network? How has that been important or impactful for you in your career? Oh, happy to share that one. So I guess it's a tale of two cities because when I was in the FBI at the time, and I think slowly the agency is starting to turn the table on that, it was frowned upon to be out there on things like LinkedIn. So no one had networks. And the only time I started to have a network was when I was in my last position, just because I had to be a real person in order to even meet with folks inside the tech industry. And so I had a really nascent understanding of the network and why it is important and what value comes from that. When I joined the NFL, I had people, you know, from all over the world wanting to connect with me. And, you know, I couldn't, like, stop people from wanting to connect. And I thought, oh, wow, this is really cool. And once I got more mature in the space, you know, I saw a lot of power in that because there's so many great professionals that are out there, particularly during the pandemic, who I was able to connect with and understand and learn what they are doing and like roles, seeing how we can help each other. And, you know, I don't know if you recall, DeMoss, you know, there was a point in time, you know, at the GSOC when we had a congo line of people who were all coming to visit the GSOC for multiple reasons and they really wanted to understand, you know, all the different things we were doing and those relations with partners continue to pay off because the security space is big but also small. So you, like, I get to connect with folks now in a different lens. And I will, full transparency, in some ways, the network did assist in getting me the job here in LA, but not as direct as you might think. The network just so happened to connect me to other people inside the old FBI network who, you know, were actively looking for people and was able to connect that way. But even to this day, the network is very valuable to me, whether we're posting for jobs, getting the word out there for positions. Within Metro, I probably had more of a robust network on the security side than anyone else in the agency. So if I want to get attention on the roles and get some really good professionals out there, you know, if I could put my name behind it and to kind of elevate it, we get a lot of feedback, a lot of applicants, which is great. The other thing, like, we recently, you know, had the authorization to look for weapons detection systems and whatnot. I was usually able to push out to LinkedIn and I got connected from a bunch of different folks in the space. And it's super valuable for us because right now we are in this, like, innovation phase. But I wouldn't be able to do that normally. It's just the power of that network and that network with context because now that network kind of sees you through your professional journey and you get to know people over time. So then when you're starting to put stuff out or you're looking for assistance or looking for help, there's nothing better. I mean, granted, you know, the Rob Gummer network is nothing compared to the Tomas Maldonado network, which is probably like a million plus strong. But, you know, in my little bubble, it does serve you well. Man, I'm nowhere near that, but you are way more popular than I am, Rob. Absolutely. Hey, look, we've got a few more minutes to chat with Rob. Again, if there's anyone in the audience that has a question for Rob Gummer, please raise your hand and we will bring you up on stage. Hussein, I'll pass it back over to you. Thank you. I'm trying to come up with a question here. So the question, I will go back to your transition from a traditional law enforcement officer into a tech savvy executive on the cybersecurity side as well. Where do you draw parallels and comparisons of where you were able to use best practices from both areas to navigate that, you know, future of security? Oh, that's a great question. Honestly, it's been a regular basis, you know, so when I first got here, there's a lot of things that Metro needed to do. And, you know, what the big events are on the horizon, some of the data technology, data infrastructure that we had, some of the data processes that we had, you know, I was able to take, you know, so with the FBI, FBI is very organized when it comes to, you know, understanding what's around you, you know, and how the methodology part of that. So I've used the methodology of how, for instance, FBI did investigations to really build a model for the GSOC, how the GSOC did investigations and like to authorize purpose and scope and having a method to how we did business and that structure. but then also learning from the NFL how to be very nimble and how to move fast because you had a bunch of stuff you needed to get done, some of those large-scale things and understanding how to pace yourself, understanding how to get different technologies on, how to think about problems and solve them quickly and then trying to build, you know, things on the fly. I've taken both of those kind of worlds, even my time back in the FCS program and merged it into my current environment and how and why. One, you know, it's my development of strategy, the recognition of the structure we have to have to be successful. I've taken, you know, a lot that I learned from the NFL of how to make a winning and effective team and not just on the field but actually inside of our GSOC and the different challenges that we had and getting the word out or getting programs off the ground and then recognizing how I could take those lessons learned and apply them here to get actual momentum. Heck, even taking things that fall outside of that security sphere. You know, so one of the things I learned from the NFL and it's a great environment to learn was marketing. You know, how do you, you know, whip up the crowd and how did you start influencing, you know, just by getting people excited by the things that you're trying to do or trying to achieve. How do you get your own team excited about things that, you know, they might have pushed off, you know, for years. You know, so I literally pluck from every possible aspect of my career. I think about the worst possible scenarios that I was placed in and how I worked myself out of there. And I use that not just to move ahead as myself, but I actually use that to educate the team. You know, so I'll sit down and say, hey, have you tried this strategy? Maybe try this, maybe try that. You know, our open house that I talked about was literally based off of the lunch and learns that I did when I was at the GSOC with the NFL that tried to educate the other departments on what we were doing and what the success was. You know, that spawned that. And the lessons learned I had building the GSOC now is informing how we look at the ESOC, you know, and the different things that we want to make sure are ready and available from day one to when we open our doors. And then the marketing behind that and getting the word across the region and demonstrating the value. And even in heck, the regional transit security working group that I manage right now, I'm modeling that off of the connectivity I had with different GSOCs when I was in the NFL. So building those partnerships, building those relationships, building those information sharing outlets. So it's a constant, you know, I think you're doing it wrong if you're not looking at all of the great things that you're able to do in the hardest of times and applying it to your current environment because there's so many gems that you, I think, sometimes, you know, leave on a cutting room floor just because you might have moved past that position, don't think it applies. Trust me, all of those foundational items apply in very, very unique and meaningful ways in the future or even now. Great answer. Thank you. Yeah. The one thing you mentioned about leading from the front as opposed to behind, you know, many times security professionals fall in that trap of taking a step back and letting somebody else take the lead because they feel they need to kind of obfuscate some of the things they do. But I think in reality, they need to be in the forefront of it. Thank you so much. Over to you, Stephen. Rob, so you mentioned before that you felt like this role that you're in now is like kind of like your final exam for all the skills that you have learned. So I'm not sure if you're saying this is your swan song or something like that when this part is done. But I think the question then would be, and a lot of CISO-type folk get this, what comes next, right? Like, because, you know, more and more when we talk to the CISO types, they don't necessarily see themselves retiring as a CISO, but maybe doing something different. Again, understanding what the sensitivity of this question might be like. Have you thought about that? And if so, and if it's something you're willing to share, what do you think comes next for you? I think about that every day, actually. So I guess to your first question, yes, this current run is the final run of being in the business as a, I guess, foot soldier in the trenches, whatever you want to call it. You know, and I'm glad to be in this position because, you know, one, you know, it has a lot of impact to the community here in the L.A. region. And so in order to be good, it really has a real impact, something tangible that I can see. Two, it offers up some of the largest security challenges that I could possibly go after. You know, prior to this, obviously the Super Bowl, you know, and the NFL drafts were kind of like the big thing. Now I get, you know, a whole slew of them, you know, in different lenses over the next couple of years. And if you want to go out as a security professional, because after the Olympics are gone, I've been in this business for 30 years. You know, you kind of look at, you know, what is it that you want to do, you know, and how come you want to like finish the story, you know? So for me, the Olympics is that white whale, that final boss that I have to go after. After that is really, I think, is when I want to transition to giving back. You know, I've always had this big dream of helping others build programs. I think for the diversity of things I've gotten opportunity to do throughout my career, you know, from the technology side to the operations center side to just security at large. I feel like I will come away with a lot of things that can help a lot of organizations. And I want to help people build intelligence programs, GSOCs, security operations, fix things that are not effective, help people innovate, you know, and think about bigger things and really go after those harder problems. Not necessarily working for someone, but working with someone. And really, I guess for me, why I like that allows me to go into probably what was my favorite point in time, which was teaching. And the ability to take everything that I've learned and kind of give it up to the future and give it up to other agencies and organizations trying to build and do something special, I think it's a good swan song kind of bow out from the business, you know, as a head to retirement. Hopefully make some decent money too, of course. But that's where I see my path going. I appreciate that, man. Thank you. I believe I need to pass to Neil, but I think we do not have him anymore. So I will pass it back to you, Tomas. Yeah, no, absolutely. I don't know what happened to Neil. Maybe he... Oh, there he is. Hang on. I see him. He's coming back up. He probably had to reset. Hey, Neil, over to you, man. I appreciate it. Yeah, and thanks for your response feedback there, Rob. You know, part of the question Stephen posed. One of the things that I wanted to get a feel for, you know, coming from the Intel side of the house, being able to leverage those experiences from military, FBI. How has that shaped your perspective on the world as you see it at this moment in time? Whether it's threats, whether it's, you know, those tier one national special security events that are coming down the pipeline from Super Bowl to World Cup. How has that shaped your view of the world we live in from Intel perspective? Wow, that's an amazing question. Because it's not often I get to dip into that pond. Because, you know, I've been an Intel professional most, if not all my life. You've never really given up. So I think what's fascinating now, as opposed to, I would say, even before the pandemic. Before the pandemic, I think we were always playing against, you know, the traditional threats of terrorism, maybe domestic terrorism, you know, and potentially, you know, some kind of ransomware event, some kind of catastrophic cyber event. You know, I think the pandemic showed us how dynamic the world can really be and coming out of the pandemic, the volatility that exists now requires you to really think outside the box. Like they used to say with 9-11, you know, the reason that it was not picked up was going to fail your or lack of imagination. You know, I think you have the opportunity now to imagine all the things because all the things are happening all of the time. And anything that's impacting the globe can impact you locally and sometimes inadvertently. You know, one of the things that I found fascinating with the National Football League was the fact that I think prior to the pandemic, you know, I was able to kind of freely go in and out of places and not really be concerned about, you know, any of the local politics and global politics, any of those other issues. But post-pandemic, you know, that's not necessarily the case anymore. You actually have to be aware of, you know, the partnerships that you have, any blowback, you know, how to do due diligence on all the things, you know, because anything could be a vulnerability to your agency, your agency's reputation, you know, and their ability to have a successful anything. And you essentially have to, from an Intel perspective, it's phenomenal because a dynamic world is good business when you're an Intel person because there's a lot for you to work on and figure out. From a planning perspective, it's terrible because you really have to think about the worst case scenarios for all the things and plan your way backwards out of that. I think for me, I think there is an advantage coming with the Intel background because how I look at the world, period. And I'm always keeping a finger on the pulse on what's going on in the world around us. And right now for LA, we have no choice. One, we're a global economy or we attract a lot of folks around the globe, but we're about to have some serious global events in our backyard. And if we're not aware of what that means and those implications and all the disruptors that comes with that, then we could end up like what happened, unfortunately, in Paris, where you had, I think, some local sentiment that led to some potential sabotage on some key tracks that has significant impact. And I guarantee you that wasn't part of some of the briefs that they got before the event occurred. You're part of looking at bigger things like the terrorist attacks. And there's so many things that you have to plan for and think about. Which means for security, it's great. You need to have these global security operations centers now. You have to have that more nimble and dynamic thinking. So it really puts us in a position to shape our agencies in ways that maybe we didn't think of before. That's what I actually find in my role now is that with the understanding of the threats that are out there, if you're savvy, if you're aggressive, you can actually really shape the agency's understanding of what they need to do to get ahead of a lot of that stuff. You can't stop everything. But with how volatile as things are, you have to be able to stop most things. That's a great vantage point. Thanks for sharing that, Rob. You know, part of that, you know, it looks like your career, your journey has led you to the right place, the right moment in time, you know, especially as events are right around the horizon. So I appreciate that. Back to you, Tomas. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks, O'Neal. Rob, you've got a series of big events coming up. Which one are you most excited for? Oh, that's a tough one, Tomas. You know, but OK, so I'll cut this in two ways. You know, one, the Olympics, I think, is an obvious one for me. You know, like, though I get to see some of it next week, you know, it's really a once in a lifetime event to go to work it as a security professional. And the fact I could do it in this lifetime is a great opportunity. Two, though, is actually the Super Bowl coming back because I will have the opportunity to have the parts of the GSOC and the ESOP all in one place, potentially, and to be able to do experience the Super Bowl from the other side in L.A. will actually be a very fascinating thing for me. So I'm really excited for both of those. The Olympics more than anything, just because it's going to be the first summer Olympics in a big city post-9-11. So we have a lot that's going to be going on. But it's one of those things that if you're really in this business for what this business offers, pardon the slang term, you want that smoke. You know, and I want that smoke. I got to know, you know, so I want all of those crazy challenges because I need to test everything that I know to see if I can do it. Yeah, I think a lot of that is going to be super interesting, super challenging. And like you said, you want that smoke, right? That adrenaline and the fact that, you know, testing all of the skills and everything you've been working so hard for to get to, if you will. You want to see if you can do it. Trust me, I completely know exactly what you're saying, man. Because I am the same way when it comes to those big events. I can tell you one thing, Super Bowl 2027, man, that's a little ways away. I can't wait to look at a Super Bowl again as a fan. To be very transparent, because looking at it as a seesaw for the NFL, it's one thing. But looking at it again as a fan, I can't wait for that time to happen. Because that would mean I'll probably retire. And I'm on to different things in life. But anyways, enough about me and all about you, Rob. Look, we are getting close to the end of our segment this evening. I do want to be respectful of time. There was a comment earlier regarding missing some of the prior Fireside Chats. Well, have no fear. You can find Fireside Chat on any of your current podcasts or go to the firesidechat.live web link and you can play back all of the prior guests. And you'll be able to play back this one soon in case you missed something earlier. If you missed the beginning, you'll be able to play it back in, let's say, a couple of weeks or so. With that said, Rob, we are going to get to the last question. And before I get to the last question, I do want to... Actually, I will ask you the last question and then we'll conclude. So, Rob, we talked a lot about your origin story. We talked about where you've gone in your journey and where you are currently in your journey and where you will eventually end up. But if you have one piece of advice for that young Robert Gummer from Ohio who was doing the spelling bees and the math challenges and still wet behind the ears, if you have one piece of advice from everything that you've learned in your life currently, what would it be to the younger Rob Gummer and why? Things that I would get to a young Rob Gummer. You know, one would be to always dream big. I think I've been in a unique position that anything that I've ever said that I wanted to do, I've had the opportunity to do it. You know, not just do it but do it in a really big way and I think part of that is manifesting kind of the things that you want to have happen for you and being intentional about that. Two, just because that young nerdy Rob Gummer was not cool at the time and at that point in time I actually regretted being smart and I remember specifically wanting just to do normal things and just to fit in with everyone else because back in the day it wasn't necessarily the coolest thing but if I could tell them and go back in time I would say like, hey, keep that path because you might not be racking up all the cool points right now but those brains are going to serve you well and I think there's a couple points of time where I was tired and I wanted to tap out because I was doing too many things as a kid too many like AP courses and whatnot where I would have been more aggressive and I think that would have benefited me more so I guess it's going back and saying like, hey, it's okay to be the way you are because it's going to pay off in the future. Man, nobody, still nobody says invest in Apple or Google. I don't know. I don't know. But that is great advice, Rob. and look, that being smart has paid off for you and it's paid dividends for you significantly throughout your career so kudos to you and kudos to your upbringing and your entire journey. So look, thank you everybody for taking the time, the opportunity and for joining us and joining the conversation. I do want to obviously thank our moderators so our moderators any final words for Rob Gummer before we leave the last words for Rob. Thank you, Robert, for coming on. Go ahead, Stephen. No, same as you, just thank you, Rob, for his time. That's what I was going to do, man. Thank him for coming on. Amazing career and lots of hard work and lots of intelligence there, my friend. Thank you. Yep, appreciate you carving out the time. Safe travels to Paris. I can't wait to hear your Paris trip, Rob. Thanks for making the time. I know you're heading off to Paris tomorrow and I know that's a long trip from out west, but I'll leave the final word for you, sir. Well, one, I just want to thank you again, Tomas, for this opportunity getting on the fireside chat. You know, it feels like I've really leveled up to another place in my career. You know, and I just value the opportunity to get a chance to speak with you, Tomas, you know, and all the other moderators this morning. You know for sure, Tomas, you have my utmost respect. You're one of the greatest professionals I've ever, you know, had a chance to work alongside and hope to get a chance to do so again at some point in the future. But, you know, again, you know, honored to be here, happy to share the story and, you know, very excited for what's to come and I'm sure, you know, this has, the security space is big and small at the same time. We'll all be seeing each other as we march towards whatever is on the horizon for all of us. But, yeah, thank you again for this time and, yeah, good luck to everyone. Thanks, Rob. Thanks, everybody, for joining. We'll catch you guys next month. See you all. Good night. See you. Bye. Bye. Thank you.