The Security Circle
An IFPOD production for IFPO the very first security podcast called Security Circle. IFPO is the International Foundation for Protection Officers, and is an international security membership body that supports front line security professionals with learning and development, mental Health and wellbeing initiatives.
The Security Circle
EP 120 Presidents, Protection & Purpose: Inside the U.S. Secret Service with Michael R. Centrella
Exciting Topics Covered in the Michael Centrella Podcast
- 🛡️ What it really means to serve in the U.S. Secret Service
- 🇺🇸 Protecting Presidents, foreign dignitaries, and global events
- 💣 Being on the ground in Washington, D.C. on 9/11 — and the intense hours that followed
- 🚨 The split-second decision-making required in high-stress security environments
- 🧠 Mental resilience, emotional intelligence, and how to lead through crisis
- 💼 The Secret Service beyond the movies — the realities vs. Hollywood myth
- 🔍 Cybersecurity and financial crime investigations under the Secret Service’s umbrella
- 👨👩👧👦 Balancing a demanding service career with family life
- 📈 Lessons in leadership, humility, and building up the next generation
- 🏛️ The evolution of threats over two decades in national security
- 💬 Career reflections: pivotal moments that shaped a life of service
- ✨ Why purpose and passion still drive him after 25+ years
- 🔐 The transition from field operations to executive leadership
BIO:
Michael R. Centrella is a federal law enforcement special agent with 25 years of experience with the U.S. Secret Service. As the Assistant Director of the Secret Service’s Office of Field Operations, he leads efforts to combat transnational cybercrime, safeguard America’s financial payment systems, and provide physical protection to world leaders. Centrella’s expertise spans intelligence gathering, risk assessment, major event security, and cybersecurity. He is also a certified chief information security officer (CISO) and a passionate advocate for leveraging AI responsibly in cybersecurity.
Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers
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Yoyo:Hi, this is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Cycle Podcast. Ifpo is the International Foundation for Protection Officers, and we are dedicated to providing meaningful education, information and certification for all levels of security personnel and make a positive difference where we can to our members. Mental health and wellbeing and bring you great guests as well. Our listeners are global. They are the decision makers of tomorrow and today, and I wanna thank you personally, wherever you are for being a part of our security circle journey. If you love the podcast, we are on all podcast platforms. And don't forget when you see that LinkedIn post, just share it, spread the word even better, just comment and, uh. Thank you for your company today. Well, I have with me Amanda. I've been chasing down for a little while, which sounds a bit funny when you find out who he is and what he does. Uh, but he's recently been promoted and we delayed the recording just to give him some time to settle into his new role as Assistant Director Field Operations of the United States Secret Service. Welcome Michael LER to the Security Circle Podcast. How you doing,
Michael:Yolanda? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me today.
Yoyo:Well, thank you for having me, I think is what I should be saying. How's the new job going?
Michael:We're adjusting. We're, we're, we're getting there. Uh, as an agency, we are, we're making some great changes and, and moving forward on some, uh, initiatives, not only of the administration, but our new director, uh, and we're, we have some exciting things that we're looking to move out on, on our, both our investigative and protective mission. So, uh, lots to look forward to.
Yoyo:I know that our listeners will certainly respect, we have boundaries in place today in terms of what you can and can't talk about. I can hear the listeners now going, oh, but listen, we are in the security industry. We don't talk about stuff that could jeopardize any type of, security resiliency that we have in place. But let's find out about what you wanted to be when you were a little boy. Was it a secret service agent?
Michael:That's a great question. no, uh, you know, I don't think this came on until later on in my life. I did want to be in law enforcement. I think I knew that from a very young age. I had many mentors. I probably didn't know there were mentors back then, but people I looked up to, uh, you know, starting off with my best friend since first grade. his dad was a cop in the local neighborhood and I can remember him showing up at sporting events or gatherings and it being in his police uniform and. Seeing the respect and the way people looked at him, as being something that I admired and knowing he was a person of authority and somebody we can go to in crisis, made it impactful for me. And then that left an impression in my young ages. and, uh, as I moved older, I had a neighborhood, ended up becoming, a local police officer in the neighborhood. And he was a Marine and he was physically fit and he fit the part of everything you would, you would want your, local law enforcement to be. And, again, was mesmerized by him, but then became my time to, uh, to go through high school and in college, and I wanted to go to the Marine Corps path. And then there were some things in my life that changed that. and I decided to, uh, to look into federal law enforcement, as I was going through my college years. And as I, I examined the FBI, of course, everybody wanted to go to the FBI,'cause everybody knew the FBI, right? So when it came time for me to do an internship with, for college I started researching and, believe it or not, the Secret Service happened to be an agency that called me back to do an internship in college. And from day one, I fell in love with the mission. I, you know, the protection element, the investigative element, the dual mission as we call it, was gravitating towards me and, and I've been here pretty much ever since.
Yoyo:What a cool story. It's so difficult, isn't it, when you have your heart set I tried to join the police in the UK from, I think I was like 19, and they were like, you know, bugger off, go and get some experience and come back in a few years and it's difficult. You've kind of found your second love, so to speak, in terms of your career. What I want to do is, is I imagine that like a lot of us in England. Or other areas of Europe or other areas around the world outside United States may not fully know what the responsibilities of the Secret Service are, but they might guess it's something to do with protecting the president. Is it just limited to protecting the president or are there other factors that are, are part of your overall scope as well?
Michael:I think a lot of people focus on movies and what TV shows about what the Secret Service does, and that's only half of our mission. the protection role in protecting the president, the vice president, their families, foreign leaders when they come to the United States. That's only half our mission. That's not even our founding mission. We are actually founded, to, to combat. counterfeit money and to protect the, ecosystem, the financial ecosystem of the United States. and it wasn't until the assassination of Abraham Lincoln that the Secret Service was formed to dual the dual mission of protection. So when you hear people say that the Secret Service founding mission was protection or actually wrong, our founding mission was, to combat crime, financial crimes, and to investigate counterfeit money and protect, like I said, the infrastructure of the United States. It wasn't until later that protection grew and we continued today to do both. We once fell under the Department of Treasury, for the Department of Treasury. We handled financial crimes. And, and, after the nine 11 attacks and Homeland Security was created, we slid over to Homeland Security, where today we, we focus on, again, the president, the protection, the president and foreign leaders, but also critical infrastructure, protection of our payment systems. Cryptocurrency now is now the new, no counterfeit money has slid it aside a little bit, and now we're investigating cryptocurrency. So our mission still remains the same of protecting the, the financial institutions of the country.
Yoyo:I should imagine there are a lot of people that wouldn't have known the origin story around Abraham Lincoln and his assassination. We talked about in the line of fire with Clint Easter, didn't we, in the pre-chat? That you, I just love Clint Eastwood's kind of self-deprecating role. Obviously Rene Ruto iss pretty fit. She's the hot tottie in the whole, you know, scenario. And I love that scene. where they go into the hotel bedroom and it looks like they're gonna get naked and you can steal this. Heavy stuff, clunking and hitting the floor. And then they're kind of like, you know, canoodling as we would say in bed on camera. And then she gets a call, she's gotta go back, into, operational duty again. And then he's like, shit, I gotta put all that stuff back on.
Michael:It
Yoyo:looks like the funniest line ever. And it's just, it's almost like it's just written for Clint Eastwood. That particular story does go into quite a lot of depth around investigations that go into, attempted assassinations of presidents, for example. And I think even from a dramatic movie perspective, they do a pretty good job in probably letting people know just how. The gravity of how serious those threats can be and, it's cool. What is your favorite movie depicting the actions of the Secret Service, Michael?
Michael:I'm probably not a good person to talk about that because I, you know, my wife and my family would tell you that when I watch police movies, especially surrounding us, I get quite annoyed. they don't usually depict our roles, and what we have and what we don't have. Very clearly, and I'm sure a lot of my, my, my counterparts and other agencies probably feel the exact same way. But a line of fire, it's funny you pointed that one out. That's probably the best movie, when it comes to highlighting, secret Service and what we do on our protective mission. So yes, I, I'm very familiar with it. some of those, those scenes, and some of those scenarios are very realistic.
Yoyo:Yeah, especially, when you look at profiling offenders, the, everything was there in terms of how the offender was, serious. We knew it wasn't a joke or a prank and how, I. You can almost build up a relationship with the offender in a sense. You start to profile them quite well. you tend to read them in and out, what they're gonna do in their predictive, elements. But he came across, I can't remember the actor who played the protagonist. He's John Kovich. Yeah. I've always thought him personally a bit old. So I never really warm to him and he was a really good, bad guy in this, especially when you. Right, the impersonations, all the different appearances he had, and yeah, I, but usually when you, see Secret service, agent style movies, there's always a lot of running. So you guys, you still have to be quite fit, right? You seem to be running all the time, running after people running down roads, running.
Michael:Yeah, as, the media likes to portray a certain, uh, certain picture, a certain image, but that's a very small portion o of what we do. Um, there's so much more that goes in and I think line of fire, not to keep on talking about the movie, but pick, you know, talks a little bit about some of the investigations that go in. But there's a lot of that goes into making sure we have secure location, secure sites. Uh, it's the pre-planning, the pre advanced work that gets done. It's the allocation of resources, it's partnering with our local. Our local law enforcement and making sure that we provide a safe domain for everyone. Uh, not just our protectees, but for our employees obviously, and the crowds that are going to be there. So, yeah, uh, there's a lot that goes into it. I know that, I know the media likes to focus on and the movies like to focus on the, the guy standing next to the president and that is a key part. Um, but there's so much more that there's so much more layers that go into it and making sure that we have a secure environment.
Yoyo:Yeah. Paradise is quite good in terms of, you know, how close you get to protecting your subject as well. Have you seen Paradise yet?
Michael:I don't think so. No. Oh, I've heard about it, yes. Is I think it's on the Hulu or something. Yeah, I've heard about this one.
Yoyo:Plus the lead ACT's pretty hot, I'll be honest with you. so it is worth watching Michael for that. Well tell your wife, tell your wife to watch it. Paradise is quite good. It does involve, the secret service, uh, protecting a president. But no spoilers here. It's, it is a very difficult, series to talk about without giving spoilers, uh, worth watching. So, okay. Your first day as a Secret Service agent, how did that feel? Take us through like what you were feeling as a human being.
Michael:Oh wow. That's, it feels like it was yesterday. But unfortunately it was 25, almost 25 years ago. quite amazing. Uh, you know, I was a, I was a small, I was a young kid from Philadelphia. I was like 22, 23 years old and, just moved to New York City or moved up to New York City to start this new career. I was in a new city, a new career away from my family, uh, trying to figure out what it was going to be like and, I was excited, you know, I was, I consider myself a patriot. you know, I, this is a calling and, and, and, and moving forward on, on a career that, you know, I don't think I've ever had any thought of ever leaving, and I don't, I think from day one, once you, once you get ingratiated into the mission, the mission becomes, you know, to good. Both probably good and bad part of your life.
Yoyo:Yeah. Yeah, it's really lovely to hear you say that. To be honest with you, I think I'm probably reassuring as well. Everybody wants to know that the people that are protecting our very nations are as passionate about protecting them more passionate than anybody else. I think that's a really important trait to have and I think, you know, most police officers have the same ideology. You know, they're to do. The best they can and in a tough environment and a tough place, and a tough ever changing environment as well. But it's not just a career, is it? It's a lifestyle. I wanna go back into that 22-year-old Michael, because did you find it difficult, like just being normal? I. I say that because like when I was in the police, I didn't date, I didn't go, I didn't go out and meet, strange men, and seek to have relationships. The trust wasn't there and I didn't really wanna tell people what I did. I didn't wanna start a relationship with a lie, so I kind of didn't, you know, have time for a lot of that really. But when you were a 22-year-old in New York, did you find it difficult to make friends and have a relatively normal life because you don't particularly wanna go telling everyone what you do? How is it for you?
Michael:I'm extremely lucky. Uh, my wife and I met very young. Uh, we had, we had our, we had our first child, very young, uh, and then we got married very young. Um, and she's been with me on this journey, uh, ever since. So I can, you know, she grounds me. She's the one who makes me realize I'm not that important. Um, uh, and, and, and, and she's lived this whole lifestyle with me. Um, so that's been important to me. I probably wouldn't be where I am if I didn't have. That infrastructure at home, uh, to support me to go on this journey. This, again, this affects, uh, I think you, you use the, uh, the, um, mentioned earlier about how this is a lifestyle. Um, this affects everything I do. Uh, I'm a secret service agent 24 hours a day, you know, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Everywhere I go, whether, people really care or not, they want to talk about. You're protected. They wanna talk about the administrations not realizing that, you know, we can care less about politics. We focus on protecting the Oval Office every day. but people, people know you're a Secret Service agent and they look at you that way. I'm lucky enough to have a young, a strong family who, uh, supports me in making sure that I have what I need to be successful in what I'm doing.
Yoyo:Most people kind of, and this could be such a cliche of a question, but say, oh, would you take a bullet for your protectee, you know, for your, for the president, for example. And I think most people would say yes without thinking. and then you, you see this in movies a lot as well, don't you? Where you, the question is on, would you take a bullet from me like this?
Michael:Well, I'm not, I I think I can elaborate a little more. I think, I think you're asking is a thought process every day of taking a bullet for Yeah. For the president. I, I think every day we honor the mission. Yeah. The mission that we swore into was to safeguard our leaders and safeguard our financial institutions and safeguard the, the critical infrastructure of America. If, if, if, God forbid, we had an assassination of a protectee that can. Alter history forever. So as you saw in recent events over the summer, our men and women are trained to move into action and, and protect our protectees without thinking and without hesitation and proud of the ones who were able to do that. And, and to, uh, and to highlight exactly how great this agency really is.
Yoyo:It's a really lovely way that you phrase that to be honest with you, because you're talking about that dedication again. what would you say to a young, a young person now who's thinking, oh, well I've always wanted to do this, I'm wanna do this. What, what would you advise that young person if they wanted to start a career off in the Secret Service?
Michael:Well, if they're looking to start off a career in a secret service, and I get this, I get asked a lot by young college students. Now they're thinking about coming down this career. one is, I tell'em, make sure they're studying something in cybersecurity. Uh,'cause that's where everything is going. It gives'em a leg up in our cyber investigations. Um, uh, it'll just benefit them in the long run. Not only in in the law enforcement career, maybe in a corporate career later on, um, uh. But I also make sure I tell'em that this is a lifestyle. and this is something that, that, that intertwines with everything that you do in life and it impacts your family strongly. But it's also the greatest mission that there is out there. You will learn, you will see everything. You'll be a part of history every day. and I think, that's probably something that I took for granted for the first part of my career as I was just trying to survive every day in a career and, you know, figure out my own way is that. Everything I did every day, whether it was walking into the White House or you know, traveling to do an advance somewhere or doing a criminal investigation somewhere. It's a part of history and, I wish, looking back on my career, I got to enjoy a little bit more of that. I was able to take my family, not too long ago to, to an inauguration event and get to see their faces. Enjoy it and say to myself, you know, I probably should have done more of this throughout my career to have them experience some of the things that I got to experience. But, when you're living it and you're working it, you're not really thinking about that way. You're thinking about everything that can go wrong and how you can protect it from happening. And the last thing you want is your family there if something ever went wrong.
Yoyo:So how many presidents have you seen in your line of service so far?
Michael:Wow, you're really now I feel old. I always thought I was kind of young, but now I, now I'm gonna feel old. So I started, my career when I was done training. I graduated from, the academy and, I had the back half of President Clinton, not the back half, like the back couple weeks, of President Clinton's administration. So I kind of always say I started, with President Bush. I think my first major, assignment on the, on the job was, president Bush's inauguration. at that time I was stationed in our New York field office. So I spent the first six years of my career in New York City, before coming to DC and doing, Uh, our protect our protection requirements. And then I bounced around DC for various different assignments through our Washington Field office, and then our headquarters, a couple different headquarters assignments before going back to Philadelphia to be the special agent in charge of our Philadelphia field office. Which was quite special assignment for me to go back home. and at that time, which was. You know, the last three years, it was President Biden's home, also President Biden lived in Wilmington, Delaware. and that was part of my area of responsibility. So, I had some large capabilities or some large responsibilities there to fulfill, making sure he had a safe environment every weekend coming home. and then, this past summer, unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I was brought back, to be in the role that I'm in now. and that's, you know, kind of a, in a nutshell, my career. but it just shows you the diversity too, of some of the assignments that we're able to have.
Yoyo:Well, we agreed, didn't we before this, that we weren't really gonna include the last year, for a number of different, highly, uh, potentially critical reasons. But if we just ignore the last year, and, but everything seems to have worked, doesn't it? I mean, Biden's safe, Bush is still safe. He's alive. Obama's doing his thing, so it's working. What's happening is working. It's such a shame that, you know, one thing happens and everyone gets hauled over the coals. But that's what happens in security, isn't it? No one really looks at us until something goes wrong, and then we're all very much in the limelight. How do you deal with that pressure?
Michael:Huh? That's a good question. How do you deal with the pressure? I think we have to focus on our successes every day. of course the media and the public are gonna scrutinize, rightfully events that go wrong or presumably go wrong. Um, but that was one event. Or two events that happened in a short period of time. we have a long history of providing safe environments. We have a long history of providing successful environments, for our protectee and events that go on. And since then, every day, we continued to win. as you know, from former law enforcement, the bad guy has to be right once, we have to be right 365 days a year, every minute of the day. I'm proud that we are, and we have successfully completed that mission. There's been hiccups and we continue, we continue to focus on those hiccups and, and how we can make it better. and I'm proud of the way that the agency and the mission is moving forward on, on changing some of the things that we've learned. And we will continue to do that. And you can only get better from learning from mistakes. And that's exactly what we're hyperfocused on here as an agency and we owe it to our protectee and we owe it to the American people to be better.
Yoyo:No, that's, that's very fair. That is, and it's a very pragmatic, sensible approach. And I think for all security professionals, you know, everyone's probably thinking the same thing. we are called Harbinger of doom, really? Because we're like,, that could happen. And, but ultimately it's our job to think in that mindset, just as when we were police officers, we had to think how criminals used to think, because if we didn't. How could we possibly in any way sort of catch bad guys, and girls, if, if we didn't think or try to think how they thought. nine 11. It was hugely impactful and I talk to people all the time that bring up nine 11. I joined the police because of nine 11. It was that inspiring for me to feel a sense of patriotism and I joined the British Police Force'cause I felt I should be doing something more worthy and more purposeful. How did nine 11, sort of shake up things there in terms of the Secret Service? What can you talk to about that?
Michael:I'll talk to my personal experience. I think it changed, I think it changed and shaped, changed and shaped everything about me. it changed and shape how I thought about law enforcement and what I, I think it put in perspective how real the threat is. and everything that we did or do, surrounding that threat and protecting of the people. I don't think we talked about this in the pre at, in the pre-meeting is, I was in New York City on nine 11. I was in a north tower when the South Tower fell. I was entering into the city. I was a little late that day entering into the city, because I contemplated not going to work that day because I had a toothache and I thought about going to the dentist, and I ended up remember saying to my wife. We had a very young family at the time. my daughter was only a couple months old and uh, I can remember saying to her, I'm going to, I'm just gonna go into work today. I'm too young, too brand new to miss a day of work.'cause I had to go to a dentist. I can remember driving in that morning and remembering how beautiful the sky was. It was my son's first day at kindergarten. have all those things going on in, in your family. I was coming through the Holland Tunnel, if you're familiar with Manhattan at all. When the tower, when the first plane hit, and, so what you do, your instincts kick in. You go to the site and you try to help. and that's exactly what we did as, a lot of my friends and my coworkers, we rallied up on, on this, on the, west Side Highway. that's when the second plane hit. And then I think when the second plane hit is when we realized that this wasn't a, Uh, a joke. It wasn't that it was an, it was actually an attack or an accident. I'm sorry. Yeah, for lack of a better term.'cause originally we thought it was an accident, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, it was a small plane and we're on the ground and you're getting a lot of bad information from people talking. And, uh, uh, at the time we had pagers. We didn't even have cell phones at the time. We had pagers. I can remember my pager blowing up different phone numbers, calling me, trying to figure out what's going on., and a senior agent, I don't remember who was, tapped me on the shoulder and said, Hey, there's a hard line. In a rental car dealership across the street from the World Trade Center. Go in and call your family and tell'em you're okay. So, I went in and I called my wife and I told her on the phone, Hey, I'm okay. this is, we're just dealing with this right now. I'll call you in a little bit. She's actually the one who told me that the Pentagon was hit. Okay., I had, and I had told her at that point, Hey, go get our son from school and go to your parents' house and I'll call you later, and let you know what's going on. And then when I hung up the phone is when the tower fell. Wow. And so she didn't know, she just knew I was in the area. She didn't know if I was in that building or under that building. And it was several hours later, that we were able to gather ourselves. We were able to walk up. The West Side highway in, in Manhattan, a couple miles and get to a safe location and finally make some phone calls to let her know I actually am okay. And then, yeah, I'll be coming home. So, uh, that was my experience on nine 11. Of course, afterwards we had, Fresh. We had to go to Fresh Kills, which was, the main site where a lot of the, the property was going to the cipher through to, look for, we were looking for our evidence. We were looking for weapons, we were looking for anything that belonged to our property for the Secret Service. we were, uh, I failed to mention this. Our office was in seven wall trade. So that's where I was located. Seven world trade was the last building to fall on, on, on nine 11. It fell about six 30 that evening. Our responsibilities of the months and even year moving forward was collecting our information that was lost, when the building fell at fresh kill. So,, that was a different experience all altogether, but I think, it shaped my focus, from day one and a lot of my coworkers, created unbelievable bonds that I have to this day with coworkers, of, You know, friendships and just going through that traumatic moment, that, you know, these friendships and this, recollection will last forever.
Yoyo:We know that those towers came down, but at the time of watching it live,, when we saw the firemen running in to trying to save lives, it's really even quite painful now to realize that they were running into their death and then, and it was, that, that was, it was actually the firemen that inspired me to join the police because of that. You know, that whole sacrifice to your life is worth something when you're doing it for the better good, and you're doing it to save lives. I just couldn't think of a better way to say it than that. You know, we knew they were running into their deaths With hindsight, you nearly didn't make it then. If your pal hadn't said to you, go across the road and make the call to your wife, you could have ultimately not made it.
Michael:Yeah, we're lucky. we were lucky. The fact that the, the South Tower fell first, as the North Tower fell. First I was, you know, I was at the base of the North Tower and I was there with several coworkers and what we were doing at the point was as people were coming out, they had smoke inhalation and had burns. We were trying to pour water on people. I. Yeah, we had found water from a local store that was underneath the World Trade Center. We were just trying to help people and, give them first aid. And the noise is what we heard first. When the towers started to fall down, the noise is what you heard. And we all kind of scattered and ran. I can remember, I. Uh, I actually, uh, not to be, not to be cliche, but I actually ran south. I ran to the problem not knowing'cause the smoke was so thick. and I ended up in a, uh, a courtyard inside of a, condo complex that's on the south, south side of Manhattan. And it wasn't for a flickering light. I was getting consumed by the smoke and, I can remember saying to myself, shit, my wife's gonna be so pissed if I die right now.'cause my daughter was li young, my daughter's only a couple months old, and I was like, I cannot, I cannot die right now at this young age. And so luckily that flickering light came on. I. I went in, I thought I went to the flickering light and it was a, the laundromat of the compartment of the apartment complex. So it was just washers and dryers inside the room. And I actually in somebody's dryer and pulled out a shirt, covered my face, and went back outside and I met up with a, a senior agent who I still connect with now on every nine 11, and I ripped a shirt in half. I gave him a piece of the shirt and, he said to me, kid. This is asbestos. We are all fucked. And I, and I was like, and to this day, you know, I can remember his face, I can remember how I'm saying it. And every nine 11 to this day, Damien Schwartz is his name, he, he shoots me a text and says, kid, thinking of you today, that's all these years later.
Yoyo:Wow. And it's, and he is right about the asbestos because back in the day, that's what that building would've been made of. Right? I don't know what it was made of or whether that's been proven, but we know that a lot of the fire service certainly had a lot of, lung and inhalation problems after attending that incident. I think many of them didn't work again.
Michael:Yep. I think we, we all have seen some kind of repercussion from it. luckily I don't think that I have any outward signs of it. But yeah, I have coworkers who've had, a little bit of struggles with respiratory issues and, it can all be related back.
Yoyo:It certainly changed a lot, certainly for the security industry. I think the security industry, you know. Woke up, certainly from private sectors as well. And I know from looking broadly at America's standpoint, you know, there was complacency there, I think. And I think that helped to sort of sharpen defenses, because that shouldn't have happened. It should never have happened. I really enjoyed, I, again, and I know it's another drama, but I enjoyed watching the Looming Tower. This great cast. Can't remember them to tell you now. It's a long day for me, but it's such a good story about the learnings really between the CIA and the FBI and why initially they're not talking and communicating and sharing information was fairly detrimental and there were lots of really good security lessons land from that, and let's just hope that that never happens again. But that's what you're guarding against, right? Anything crazy like that happening.
Michael:Yeah, that's that's the goal. And to pivot to your point is, we have to learn lessons from these incidences. whether it's major incident like that, or it's a small car breach, uh, uh, uh, you know, a car you're breaking through a security checkpoint or like we had here in New Orleans on, on New Year's Day, we have to learn from these incidents and we have to get better. We have to adapt and, and involve technology, make technology better, utilize technology, um, as an agency, not just an agency, but as a, as a society as a whole.
Yoyo:I should imagine, if we take the phrase, follow the money, I should imagine being a financial investigator is probably a great skill to have to go into something like the Secret Service. If you're thinking about ways in.
Michael:So in this complex world we're living in now, to have investigative skills in the financial world, the financial transactions are multinational, are transnational Now, our financial crimes are, when I first started it was, you know, mom and pop, fraud investigations where, you know, bank getting credit card fraud or even check fraud to date myself a little bit, where people were getting ripped off of checks. Now you have global. Cyber nation state sponsored criminal investigations. Uh, and, and that's kind of how we've evolved. So there is a skill set there, and that's why it's important for us with our dual mission. The school, the skills you learn to conduct a high level financial crime investigation translate nicely in, into, providing protective environment for our protectees and those skills that our young agents develop. Uh, doing those investigations do make them a better agent, and we can prove that throughout, throughout our history.
Yoyo:So, um, of all the presidents that you had any type of closeness with, I'm gonna ask you a question. I'm gonna be so cheeky, like, I wanna ask you who your favorite was and why, from your personal experience.
Michael:No, you're not gonna get me on that one. You're not gonna get me a say there. Say who my, my favorite is. what I will say is, the one thing that we get to see, we get to see the human side. And they're all uniquely human and they all have their flaws, but they all have their good points too. And I think we get to see'em with their families, which is important. And you get to see that side of them, what it's like, uh, not to be, not to be around the job. So, uh, they all have special qualities. I. To be in that limelight. I, I have unique experiences with all of them. Um, you know, I've watched football games with President Clinton. Uh, I've watched, you know, president Obama go to, his children's basketball games and, and enjoy himself there. Uh, I was around President Bush after nine 11 and seeing him go through that, and seeing him interact with the public, uh, you know, a few years later and seeing how gracious he was to, to everyone to to know him, president Trump before he was. President when he was a businessman in New York City, and foreign leaders would come to meet with him and when he was, dealing with golf courses and building businesses overseas. they all have unique qualities and, uh, and, and to be in that position, they, they have very special qualities obviously. That was
Yoyo:such a diplomatic way of answering that question.
Michael:I tried, I tried, I tried.
Yoyo:I did wanna ask you specifically about Obama. I'm so curious about him because from my, my, my personal view, I just found him such a beautifully eloquent speaker, you know, and, and I get it at the script. Writers can do so much, but he always kind of. Made it extra special. Hearing him speak was always something extra special I thought. but then, I think the same of Tony Blair people, there's a lot of people here who don't like him. Tony Blair, that is, uh, but I, I hear you an amazing speaker. So I can definitely put aside, you know, any kind of. Personal preferences, around them politically and see what their skills are. Could you talk to one of your best days in the job? How about that?
Michael:Wow. One, one of my best days in the job. Yeah. Well, it doesn't, it doesn't really, you know, circle around one of our protectees. Um,, there's probably a lot, you know, uh, we've had a lot of successful, uh, you know, missions. You know, I can. I've been to every major city in the world. I can remember, I can remember being in a, a Middle Eastern country and walking with the blue jeans on and a hat, and we just finished, a mission that we were trying to accomplish to provide a safe environment, for our protectee while they were going and being, and the call of prayer came on. And I could remember thinking to myself, what am I doing here? I'm just a small kid, from outside Philadelphia. I don't really belong doing this. But,, it, it was kind of an eyeopener, a kind, kind of a, a wake up call to like, wow, this is pretty cool and this is pretty special what we do. Um, I, every day is a great day. I, I love my job. I love everything about it. Um, I think the most special day, probably in the most recent time, uh, is probably the first day I was, I was, uh, sworn in to be the, special agent in charge of our Philadelphia field office. because I was going back home. I, I, that was, a culmination of my career. it was always, the goal was to try to get back home and, and be, and be in a leadership role in, in a city that, that I love. that was probably very special to me. And believe it or not, I mentioned that I was an intern. In the Philadelphia field office. A lot of the administrative staff, that was there, when I was an intern, was still there when I came back, to be their leader, so to be their special agent in charge. So, it was a little bit of full circle for all them too. They remembered me as an 18, 17, 18-year-old kid, and now I come back to be the special agent in charge. So they made it special for me. Uh, they, they were very supportive. They mothered me a lot, which was, which was probably not good. Um, and they, uh, they definitely reported to my wife when I was having good days and bad days. that was probably, one of the most special days on the career. Was that a day?
Yoyo:Oh, that's awesome. Now I'm trying to think really hard how to phrase this next question. I want to phrase it in a way that you feel comfortable answering it. imagine, as security professionals, without making any designate, protectee known. Talk to us about where the real threats, the real present danger sits. Because as professionals, we know if we're working in the cyber space, we know those threats are real. We talk to them every day. We talk about how businesses are under threat from cybersecurity attacks several million times a day. And that attacks are getting more sophisticated. We know in the physical space,, we've gotta be careful with pedestrianization of very busy streets. We know that threats still exist to your specialism. What can you tell us about how significant the threats are? In the sense that people can believe you, rather than believe it through a movie.
Michael:Well, I don't think you have to turn on, you know, have to stay on TV for very long to realize how, how much the threats are, whether it's, you mentioned some TV shows. My wife and I just finished zero a day, on Netflix. Okay. Okay. I think one of the questions that she may have asked me was, is could this happen? And I said, well, that's why I go to work every day.'cause this is very, very real. and I think the line between physical and cyber security or threats is no longer. Blurry. I mean, it's or is blurry? it's no longer separate. Yeah. they are now. They are now joint. our cyber threats are our physical threats, is the next attack, uh, you know, going to be, to be a physical or a cyber attack. Our threats now, you know, some people say you don't have to worry about a lone, lone goman anymore. Well, we saw that that wasnt true. Um, you know, we, we mitigate as best as we can. but, but threats are coming at us from all different angles, whether it's nation state, whether it's domestic, whether it's cyber, whether it's physical, whether it's a car breaking through a barrier. it's, they're coming. From all different angles. I think we could probably have a show an hour long topic on each one of the ones I just mentioned. But, you know, cyber, again, cyber and physical threats are very, very real. not only just to our critical infrastructure, but also to our protectees, deep fake voices. Ai, where is that leading us down the road? You know, a manipulation of. Of a voice of our, one of our leaders, my leader, you know, our president, your prime minister. That can change the history, that can change the nation, that can change, wars, given orders. I think we fight every day, both on the cyber side and the physical side, of how we can protect, not just our protectees, but our nations.
Yoyo:Yeah. And to talk to something that is a relatively safe subject to talk to that's current. I worry from a security perspective, the apathy that's setting in because people don't believe what they see. That it is almost like we've got them to not believe everything.'cause there's a phrase, isn't there? Trust? No one believe nothing. but. I've got a real concern from a security perspective, certainly when it comes around to security communications, that people won't even believe the truth when they see it. And that can be a real problem for us from a national perspective, from a local perspective, can't.
Michael:Yeah. Zero trust. And it seems to be the topic everybody likes to throw out. Zero trust. Yeah. I mean. There's so much coming at people every day, whether it's through, you know, media, social media work, and I get that. And I think as roles as, you know, in my leadership role now, is to get out there and educate the public, public, whether it's private sector, public sector, corporate America. Mom and pops to, to understand, if we're talking about cyber threats, exactly what those cyber threats are and how they're impactful and, business email compromise and how they're impacting small businesses to large businesses and the multimillion dollar threats. I actually met last week with the banking industry and that was one of the topics is how law enforcement can be more proactive in the communities. it's, the example I use is it's, you can't expect. Your local law enforcement office, you know, here in the United States, our townships, our communities, our city's law enforcement officer who's working the streets every day to be able to explain, you know, high powered electronic cyber crime investigation. Yep. So US as federal agencies have to get out there and be more proactive in educating the public and putting up more public awareness. And maybe there'll be, maybe that will. highlight to people what is important and what's not important. But, um, you know, I think the cyber threats are coming at people so fast and there's, they're so impactful that, we have to keep on beating that drum to educate people and make them aware that, you know, that you're one click away, from financial ruins.
Yoyo:Yeah. And so is an employee one click away from, making their company subject to ransomware. who, no one wants to be that employee. When we talked about law enforcement and you can't expect the cop on the street to be able to know about financial crime. That talks very nicely to something I'm quite passionate about talking about, and that is that we should have special courts, there should be special cyber and financial crime courts Obviously there are special courts for family and family, issues, but my opinion is there should be special courts for sexual crimes as well because it just doesn't seem fair to those crimes. And the vic. Tim, that you can't expect some people to understand the complexities of financial crime'cause it is very complex understanding and following the money. What do you think about that?
Michael:So let me back up a little bit. I don't wanna diminish the role of our local law enforcement'cause they are savvy and they are tech savvy. Um, my my point was, is that, um. The ever-changing evolution of the ecosystem of cyber crimes, it's growing and, and changing so fast that, that unless they're honing their skills and focused on it on a daily basis, we can't expect them to understand or, or be ahead of, of that engagement. So what the Secret Service recognized, uh, here in the United States, uh, several years ago was that need was that need to, uh, to. Public outreach to teach our, our local law enforcement, uh, these, and then give them the tools to help execute on some of this. So to your point is we created, uh, with funding from our, our Congress, the National Cyber Forensic Institute, NCFI, we call it for Little, which is in Alabama. And that takes in, uh, local, state and tribal leaders, uh, law enforcement leaders, and we educate them on cyber investigations. on how to exploit mobile phones, how to exploit computers, how to do digital evidence collection, and then we actually give them the tools to do that. All federally funded through Congress. They take those tools and they bring them back to their local communities to, to do these searches and to help, to further their investigations. And that's our give back. You know, we, I say all the time, as secret service agents, we beg, borrow, and steal for our protective mission. You know, we come to town, everybody drops everything, and they provide all the assets they can to pro to protect our leader that's coming, whether it's the president or vice president or the first family. To that event. So what we are able to give back now on the investigative side are these tools, and we do that through our cyber fraud task force. We have 45 of'em across the country. and they're able to go out and educate that. So to your point, we also now recognize the fact that US attorneys, you know, this is how can we expect them to do these prosecution and not under, and not fully understand cryptocurrency? So now we've developed courses that we can teach US attorneys or local, local judges on how to prosecute. cyber enabled crime. we recognize that as an important issue here, and we're trying to enhance that. We're lucky to have the support from Congress to, continuously fund our National Cyber Forensic Institute. I think that's a great tool that we can, we can help maximize and educate the public through
Yoyo:what a great advert as well. So I think a lot of people wouldn't know that, Michael, you know, so it's really good to hear that, to be honest.
Michael:Thank you. It's a great tool and we're very lucky to have it. We have some really great programs that, when I, to give you a little bit of example, in Philadelphia, in my, in our forensics lab when I was up there, probably I'd say 95% of our phones that we were there trying to collect evidence off of, had nothing to do with the Secret service statute. It had everything to do with local state law enforcement. Whether it was a murder case, a drug case, a hit and run, whatever it was, we were there to help our local community and make the local community better. it's a great give back that we are able to give to, uh, our law enforcement friends.
Yoyo:So I take it as the more kind of senior your role has become in your career. It's not just about protecting your protectees and making sure you've got, you know, everyone's following processes and procedures and everything's, running slick. You've also got the additional responsibility of looking after your staff globally as well, haven't you? How do you deal with that pressure?
Michael:in this role it's an enterprise role. You have to look out for the enterprise. I think I mentioned it. I oversee the largest organizational unit within a secret service. I have 3000 employees, that fall under my organization, which is the Office of Field Operations. That's worldwide. 2100. About 2200 are special agents. the remaining are our professionals, our professional staff, who, without them, we cannot do what we do. without our analytical support, without our administrative support, the agents can't do what they do on a daily basis. everyone is very integral to the mission. I'm proud of the work that each one of'em do every day, to help enhance our, both our protective and investigative mission. so how do I keep up with'em? It's really hard., I got a great staff. I have, I have, three deputy assistant directors that fall under me and a, and a great support staff here, to help us keep in line. But we're fighting every day for legislative change, for budgetary changes, to make sure they have the tools. as I say a lot, I. I used to say that's a lot in my Philadelphia spot is I've gotten to where I am. I never thought I'd be where I am. Um, and, and I don't want to go any higher. Uh, so my goal right now is to make sure that my people have what they need every day to be successful. Because if they're not successful, the mission's not successful and the agency's not successful, and we need to make sure that we're successful every day.
Yoyo:Well, I just, I'm, I'm a little bit blown away by you a little bit, Michael, to be honest with you, because you're such a great. Like walking commercial of what's great about what you do and what the secret service do that I think that, you know, definitely you, we should expose you to lots of university students and give them a great hope for the future that they could also be a part of that change that's needed for the future generations to come.
Michael:Well, well, yeah. Yeah. You told me, I had to think. I had to talk about the enterprise, right? Yeah. So the one thing my HR team would be very happy is that I'm recruiting right? Everything we do, my, our former director, Jim Mary, who I look up to, is a mentor. He would always say to me every time he went out, he was, no matter what speech he was giving, it was a recruiting speech. I've always taken a little bit of that and make him proud of, no matter time I go out and give us and give a talk as to promote the agency and promote what we do and glorify, the great things that we do every day.
Yoyo:Well, I can certainly say on behalf of our listeners that you are everything that is good about the Secret Service, and I really appreciate, even though there were lots of things we couldn't talk about, we navigated around it and managed to extrapolate as much as we can, about you and the essence of what you do. Michael, thank you so much for your service and thank you for your time today and for joining us on the Security Circle podcast.
Michael:Yoyo, thank you very much. Yeah.