Interview transcript:
Terry Gerton Tell me, what was the gap that USF was trying to fill when they started the Security Training Collaborative back in 2020?
Luke Bencie Sure, what they were essentially looking for is a pipeline to Washington, D.C. They had realized that the university had a fantastic strategic intelligence program. They had national security studies, international relations, and the fact that they were located right outside of MacDill Air Force Base. They wanted to get more students coming up to the Beltway areas is what they’re looking for. So they were looking for a tool that could be an internship opportunity just to get some practical experience. So I had a good relationship with USF in the past, I had some good friends there. In fact, I launched my first book there with a USF grad, Bill Esposito, former deputy director of the FBI. We did a book launch way back in 2012 and they reached out and said, hey, we see what you’re doing here in the D.C. area. Can we play? Can we participate and get some of our students involved?
Terry Gerton So this is not just a theoretical training program. There’s a lot of hands-on included for the folks who participate, right?
Luke Bencie Oh, absolutely. I’m far from an academic. In our office, it’s all practitioners, so when the students come in, they get a great opportunity to just roll up their sleeves and get dirty and see what government, national security work is like, what defense contracting is like, all of those good things. So yeah, we leave the theory to the PhDs.
Terry Gerton You’re working in the intel and security space here. Any issues with dealing with classified information?
Luke Bencie No, so we really don’t work on too many classified projects, although USF itself does have two SCIFs in their Cyber Florida global and national security area. The only students that would work on projects that — they’re not necessarily classified, they’d be sensitive projects — are only the military students that have clearances, or if any other students have clearances. But again, none of the work that we’re doing is classified.
Terry Gerton So Tampa might not be the first place that people think of when they’re thinking about a national security career. You mentioned that USF’s goal was to try to get folks up to Washington, D.C., but there are some unique advantages to USF and Tampa. Tell us about those.
Luke Bencie No, absolutely. And most people miss this. I mean, right outside the gates of USF is, like I said, MacDill, which you also have USSOCOM, you have US CENTCOM, you have JSOU, the Joint Special Operations University, is literally a nine-iron shot outside of the gate. In addition to that, all of the beltway bandits that you find up here, all the major defense contractors all have satellite offices down there too. So a lot of people don’t realize unless they work in the government and they’re pushing close to retirement age and they want to make their last posting or transition down to Florida, the opportunities that Tampa and USF actually have for everyone.
Terry Gerton So tell us more about this particular program. What can students who enroll in it hope to accomplish?
Luke Bencie Yes, absolutely. All the students, they have to be interviewed and brought on. They have to be recommended by one of their professors. Typically the professors are the ones from the strategic intelligence departments or maybe criminology, international relations. They have to recommended by a professor. They go through an interview phase. They have to do writing samples for us. And then when they do get accepted to come into the program, it’s 16 weeks long. During that time they would have to meet with us every week, we meet every week as a group. We do it in person, we try to get as many people in the office as possible, and during that time, what we’ll do is we will bring in retired, let’s say, generals or intel people or FBI agents to sort of tell them, hey, this is the progression of going from university to, let’s say, a graduate degree, and we have graduate students as well, into the field of national security and what you can expect, what the myths and realities are. So they’ll get those, let’s say, briefings. There’s a mentor-protege program as well, if some of the speakers come in, and let’s say somebody is, I don’t know, interested in Latin American intelligence, and one of the people that comes in was a former case officer for the CIA who worked in South America. They may mentor them off on the side as a side project just to help them with advice and things like that. And then as far as project work goes, we have a lot of various clients from Fortune 500s to the government agencies, to foreign governments, that may have us do primarily due diligence, I would say for the students, but we also do a lot of training. And we will allow the students to sit in on the training that even some of the government agencies will do.
Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Luke Bencie. He’s the managing director for Security Management International. Well, you’ve had somewhere around 40, 50 folks complete this program. What sorts of opportunities have they gone on to?
Luke Bencie Yeah, so the students have gone on to government positions, whether that be in intel or law enforcement, they’ve come to the D.C. area. Some have gone to the defense contractors. In fact, I always like to say that our very first two USF students who came on, one of them right now is the national security advisor to a congressman in Florida who sits on the HPSCI. And the other one went to the State Department and is currently posted in Africa right now. So those were first two USF students, and the other ones have gone on to some three-letter agencies and some other great places. And I do want to point out as well, the 50, 60 students that have come through USF in the past few years, prior to that, our company was based here in the D.C. area. So during that time we probably put another, let’s call it, 80 to 100 students, who primarily came from either George Washington at the Elliott School or at Georgetown, we put them through the program as well back in the day, we like to say.
Terry Gerton And do the agencies or organizations come back and ask for more? That’s always a good indicator of success.
Luke Bencie It really is. So the three-letter agencies, not so much. They kind of keep a lower profile, but certainly major law enforcement. So for example, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, that’s sort of our state FBI, let’s say. We’ve sort of created a recruiting pipeline for them. They’re very happy with the analysts that we’ve been providing them. So yeah, at the state and local level, absolutely. They’re there all the time. Government’s a little trickier, but they’re still recruiting and we still have a really good hit rate, success rate of the students that are applying to federal jobs.
Terry Gerton You’ve talked some about the technical skills that you’re trying to embed in these students, but what about mindset? Working for the government can be a bit of a culture shift. Are there particular ways that you try to prepare them for that kind of work?
Luke Bencie No, absolutely. So with the obvious, every Friday, we bring in an expert and they give them the down and dirty reality of, hey, what it’s really like. The intel community is not the movies. It’s not Jason Bourne. It’s not James Bond. Let me tell you what it is really like, let me tell what FBI is really like, warts and all. So you get the real-time war stories from those folks. But what we also do is we are also able to bring students up to Washington, D.C. I’m here right now in D.C. to do one of our Carver training courses. We will bring with us students from USF. Now, these students many times will be the military students because they have clearances. It’s a little bit easier to get permission to bring them into courses, and they’ll sit side by side with people, let’s say from the Secret Service or DIA or one of these other organizations, Homeland Security, and they will be able to ask questions to some of the senior agents in the course. And again, just get their name in front of the right people sometimes.
Terry Gerton And so what do you think is next for this program? Do you see it expanding? Do you it replicating?
Luke Bencie Well, absolutely, we see it expanding. The reason being that General Frank McKenzie, who was the former CENTCOM commander, in the last couple years has come and joined us at the University of South Florida. He runs the Global and National Security Institute there, as well as Cyber Florida. And the general has said, yes, we want to continue this program. We’ve got more students that want to get involved. So yeah, GNSI has been fantastic in supporting us, sending students our way. The university in general, President Law has been a big proponent of this. So yeah, we only see this growing and we hope it can actually expand to other universities as well.
Terry Gerton And if folks are interested in finding out how to participate, either as a student or perhaps as a recipient of one of the graduates, where can they find out more?
Luke Bencie So they can go to the University of South Florida. We have it actually listed as Security Training Collaborative, STC. You can find it on the USF website. Point of contact for that is Jay Riley, J-A-Y dot Riley at usf.edu. He’s the guy to talk to. Again, we want good writers. Again, it’s not just the James Bond stuff, we really are looking for talented writers, talented researchers out there, and people who really are committed to this line of work, strategic intelligence and global and national security
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