This week we're talking about the mission to give back and we're highlighting three organizations that are doing just that. Suzanne is joined by Brad for three conversations with charities that are making an impact. First up is the Special Operations Care Fund known as SOC-F.
SOC-F really targets their giving efforts to the special operations community in ways that you wouldn’t normally think of. They support things like treatments for traumatic brain injury but they also focus on providing therapy sessions to save marriages that are often strained by the multiple deployments that affect families. They also provide therapeutic and restorative experiences for gold star kids. We spoke with Co-Founder David Kramer and new Executive Director of SOF-F Jeremy Morton.
Next up we spoke with CSM (Ret) Mike Hall, Executive Director of Three Rangers Foundation an organiztion that serves the Ranger community. Three Rangers manages a significant network of former Rangers who mentor new veterans as they are transitioning, and beyond and offers some pretty impressive ways to build professional networks in the civilian world.
Last but not least we spoke with the Executive Director of the CIA Officer's Memorial Foundation John Edwards. John is a retired senior executive with CIA and now leads the organization that was created following the death of Mike Spann in 2001. Spann was the first American killed in Afghanistan, and was a CIA officer and it became clear very soon after that CIA needed a new type of way to support fallen officers. We talked with John about how the foundation works to provide scholarships and support for the children and spouses of fallen CIA officers.
In 1972, former CIA Executive Director William Colby proposed that the spy agency set up an employee museum as a way to share the unique mission and the impact that CIA had around the world.
It took 16 years for it to come to fruition. And some 34 years after that, a new museum expansion and renovation is helping the Agency mark its 75th Anniversary.
Now, the museum hosts artifacts from some of the Agency’s most successful – and some unsuccessful missions.
In this episode of The State Secrets Podcast, Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly sits down with the CIA’s Curator of Secrets – Museum Director Robert Byer, who gave The Cipher Brief team a tour of the new space and the new exhibits. Some of them stretch back to the days of the OSS – the World War II Precursor to CIA. And some, were used in active intelligence operations as recently as this summer. All have been declassified.
Here's a peek inside the world’s most secretive museum at CIA Headquarters, and Suzanne Kelly’s conversation with Museum Director Robert Byer.
In this State Secrets episode, Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly sits down with the Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Vice Admiral Frank Whitworth at NGA Headquarters in Springfield, Virginia to talk about what’s going on in hot spots like North Korea, as the North undertakes a series of missile launches, about NGA’s expected role with the artificial intelligence program known as MAVEN, and about how the agency is partnering with commercial businesses to know the world even better.
Vice Admiral Whitworth took on the role as Director this past June and he brings an impressive intelligence background in the military to the new job. His command tours included serving as commander of Joint Intelligence Center Central, commanding officer of the Navy element of U.S. Central Command and commanding officer at the Kennedy Irregular Warfare Center. He also served as director of Intelligence for The Joint Staff and as director of Intelligence for U.S. Africa Command and as director of Intelligence for Joint Special Operations Command. The list goes on.