Recon Labs is a podcast that showcases the many sides of successful entrepreneurship for military veterans.
Our Frontline Founders series focuses on technology entrepreneurship and veterans who have founded and built great technology companies.
Our Search & Acquire series focuses on veterans who have pursued small business ownership via entrepreneurship through acquisition, also known as search funds.
It's hard work to serve in the military. It's hard work to create and build a new technology company or to find, acquire and operate a small business successfully.
What about these veterans' service helped them build and lead their companies? What obstacles did they need to overcome?
Recon Labs opens the aperture for current servicemembers and for veterans, and shows the general public the power of these veterans' hard work, integrity, flexibility, and humor in the face of ambiguity and challenges.
Kyle Hanslovan is the CEO and co-founder of Huntress. Prior to Huntress, he co-founded and built a defense consulting firm, StrategicIO, worked as a senior cyber vulnerability analyst at publicly-traded defense firm ManTech, and won the World Series of hacking (DEF CON's Capture the Flag competition). He is still active in the ethical hacking community. Earlier, Kyle spent over a decade supporting Offensive Cyber Operations within the U.S. Intelligence Community and began his career as a non-commissioned officer in the US Air Force.
Craig Cummings is the co-founder and General Partner of Moonshots Capital. He actively invests and advises technology startups, many of which are founded by military veteran entrepreneurs. Before Moonshots, Craig co-founded and was the COO of RideScout, a mobile app that shows users how to get from point A to point B by providing real-time ground transportation information. RideScout was acquired by Daimler (Mercedes-Benz) in 2014. Craig has founded and built several other companies and organizations, including Upskill, which develops augmented reality software for smart glasses to enable the hands-free industrial and commerce workforce. Craig is a US Army veteran who served for 17 years, most of which were spent as an intelligence officer supporting the National Security Agency. He holds a PhD from Columbia University, and is a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point where he was their first Truman Scholar.
17 Nov 2021
Driving Value Creation through Technology After Acquiring an Old-Line Services Business
Matt Bauer grew up in the Midwest in a small farming community. He studied mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois and was commissioned in the Army as a field artillery officer in late 2006. Matt subsequently spent 6.5 years in the Army with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. After the Army, Matt moved to London where he attended London Business School and worked in private equity. In 2018, Matt successfully acquired two industrial services companies, American Scale & American Welding, in Charlotte, NC. He currently lives in Charlotte with his wife and daughter.
27 Oct 2021
Leveraging Prior Experience as a Pilot to Acquire an Aerial Services Business
Aaron Kinsey is the CEO of American Patrols and Partner in Bear Capital. Aaron is a graduate of Texas A&M, where he was the Deputy Commander of the Corps of Cadets. He served 9 years as an Air Force pilot. After leaving active duty, Aaron attended Harvard Business School, where he focused his studies in small business and real estate. Following graduation, Aaron returned to Texas to lead a commercial real estate company before partnering to form Bear Capital and acquiring American Patrols. Aaron enjoys swimming, road cycling, and telling dad jokes to his wife Katelyn and their three kids: Barrett, Charlie, and Isabel.
13 Oct 2021
Episode 11: Search & Acquire featuring Danny Fields and Steve Reis
Following their time in the military, Danny Fields and Steve Reis met in business school at Rice University and decided to partner on a traditional search in 2017. They ultimately acquired Holland Supply, a value-add distributor in Columbus, OH in 2019.
Our conversation includes Danny and Steve's insights into how they drastically improved their sourcing during the search phase by narrowly focusing on several specific niches as well as how to put in place a range of systems into a prior generation small business to enable it to scale and grow after their acquisition.
6 Oct 2021
Episode 9: Search & Acquire featuring Andy Rougeot
Andy is a former Army intel officer, and the owner of RG Maintenance, a commercial maintenance business serving the self storage industry, which he acquired after completing business school. Andy has owned and operated RG maintenance for the last four years. He is lucky enough to be a dad to a beautiful daughter, and to have “married up” to an amazing wife.
29 Sept 2021
Episode 10: Search & Acquire featuring John Hubbard
John Hubbard came from a military and law enforcement family, and joined the Army straight out of high school. He served on active duty for 13 years, with his first 7 years spent as an Infantryman in the 82nd Airborne and Africa Command, and his final six years in various roles throughout the United States Special Operation Command.
Post-military, John spent a year as a city cop, a residential home builder, and an Operations Manager for an exterior remodeling company. While working full-time, John received his MBA from SMU in Dallas, Texas. He launched his search fund, Blue Cord Capital, in October of 2020, and acquired his current company, Express Trailers, in February of 2021. He currently lives in Tampa, Florida with his wife and two sons.
25 Aug 2021
Episode 8: Search & Acquire featuring Nick Vandam
Nick Vandam is the Managing Principal of Trophy Point Group and recently closed on the acquisition of Midwest CATV, a telecom installation and maintenance company, where he is now CEO and President. Nick has a fascinating background - after graduating from West Point, he competed on the US national team in the Triathlon, followed by a combat tour in Afghanistan where he was awarded a Bronze Star. Since leaving active duty, Nick earned a CFP while working as a financial advisor, completed a Masters in Global Management at Thunderbird where he interned with a Private Equity group in Zambia, and worked in both finance and government contracting. He launched a search in September 2020 and acquired Midwest CATV in May of this year.
Josh Lospinoso is the co-founder/CEO of Shift5. Josh is an entrepreneur with deep expertise in cybersecurity, data science, and system software engineering. Prior to Shift5, he co-founded RedOwl Analytics, an insider threat detection platform acquired by Raytheon/Forcepoint in 2017. Additionally, he served 10 years as a cyber officer leading teams to build dozens of elite hacking tools for the National Security Agency’s Tailored Access Operations, Army Cyber Command, and the Cyber National Mission Force.
Josh is also the author of C++ Crash Course (No Starch Press, 2019), dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles spanning multiple disciplines, and multiple patents. Josh earned a BS in Economics and Operations Research from the United States Military Academy and a Ph.D in Statistics from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
11 Aug 2021
Episode 6: Frontline Founders featuring Andy Salamon
Andy Salamon is a partner at Material, a venture capital fund and studio, uniquely focused on company creation. Before joining Material, Andy was a General Partner at Atomic Labs, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm. While there, Andrew was a co-founding investor and advisor to several technology-driven, operationally intensive startups including Hims, Terminal, Bungalow Living, among others, which together represent over $1B of enterprise value created from a $10M investment fund. Prior to Atomic, Andrew was a venture capital investor with First Round Capital’s Dorm Room Fund, a senior manager at Bridgewater Associates, and an Expeditionary Combat Officer in the US Navy. He holds an A.B. in Economics from Harvard University and pursued an M.B.A. at Wharton prior to leaving to found one of his previous ventures.
4 Aug 2021
Episode 5: Frontline Founders featuring Tim Sullivan
Tim Sullivan, co-founder and co-CEO of Caveonix
Tim Sullivan is the co-founder and co-CEO of Caveonix, the first hybrid cloud security platform. Tim has a 20-year track record of building emerging technology companies, specializing in cybersecurity. In 2017, he co-founded Caveonix with Kaus Phaltankar.
Previously, as CEO of nPulse Technologies, Tim leveraged his industry knowledge and relationships to lead the company from a focus on providing packet capture technology to a position in cybersecurity as the premier provider of network forensics for the world’s fastest networks. nPulse products are used by the U.S Intelligence Community, leading Wall Street banks, and Tier 1 telco providers. In May 2014, FireEye purchased nPulse.
Prior to nPulse, he founded and was CEO of Fidelis Security Systems (now Fidelis Cybersecurity), another leading cybersecurity company, where he was a key player in the development of the data leakage prevention (DLP) market. In August 2012, General Dynamics purchased Fidelis.
Tim is a former U.S. Marine Corps Infantry Platoon Commander. He holds both a BA and an MBA from Columbia.
21 Jul 2021
Episode 4: Frontline Founders featuring Nick Culbertson
Nick Culbertson is the CEO and co-founder of Protenus, the #1 healthcare compliance analytics platform. The company reduces risk and ensures patient trust. Nick attended the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where he and co-founder Robert Lord saw firsthand how electronic medical records are used to improve patient care and share data more efficiently. They also observed that the electronic medical record created a whole new slate of serious security and privacy concerns. In 2014, Nick and Robert developed the initial prototype and algorithms that launched Protenus, fulfilling a critical need to better protect patient data in electronic health records. Earlier in his career, Nick served for eight years in the US Army and completed his service as a highly-decorated Special Forces operator (Green Beret). Additionally, Nick spent four years as a biomedical researcher at Johns Hopkins University. Nick holds a bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University in Cellular Biology and helps run The 6th Branch, a veteran-led community service organization in East Baltimore.
14 Jul 2021
Episode 3: Frontline Founders featuring Rylan Hamilton
Rylan Hamilton is the co-founder and Co-CEO of 6 River Systems. He is responsible for all operations, engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, and corporate functions. Rylan is focused on scaling the organization and making sure customers are highly successful. Prior to 6 River Systems (6RS), Rylan was a member of the leadership team at Kiva (now Amazon Robotics), and he led the design and deployment organizations at Kiva and Amazon. He is a US Navy veteran. Rylan holds an undergraduate degree in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University and an M.B.A. with distinction from Harvard Business School.
7 Jul 2021
Episode 2: Frontline Founders featuring Robert Johnston
Robert Johnston is the CEO and founder of Adlumin, a cybersecurity technology firm that focuses on revolutionizing the way financial institutions secure sensitive data and intellectual property and achieve their compliance objectives through its security and compliance automation platform. Before founding Adlumin, Johnston worked in the private sector as a principal consultant at CrowdStrike. He is an expert at conducting counter espionage engagements against nation-state, criminal, and hacktivist organizations across a variety of industries and sectors. Earlier in his career, Johnston served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps, including assignments as team lead for a National Cyber Protection Team, and as Director of the Marine Corps Red Team. Johnston holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology from the United States Naval Academy.
29 Jun 2021
Episode 1: Frontline Founders featuring Michael Madon
Welcome to the Frontline Founders podcast. Today’s guest is Michael Madon the founder and CEO of Pretaa. Previously Michael was the CEO and founder of Ataata, a security awareness and cyber risk management platform that helps customers combat security breaches caused by employee mistakes or human error. Mimecast acquired Ataata and Michael served as the SVP and General Manager for security awareness and threat intelligence products at Mimecast. Before founding Ataata, Michael served as the Vice President for business development at RedOwl, a cyber security company which was acquired by Forcepoint. Previous to that he was a Senior Leader in the Treasury Department, a current Army reservist, Michael spent nearly a decade on active duty. He holds an MBA from Wharton, a policy master's from Columbia, and an undergraduate degree from Cornell. Michael, Welcome to Frontline Founders a podcast mini series that showcases military veterans who've gone on to success as Founders and Builders of technology companies.
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