Being named Sailor of the Year on one of the most advanced fighting machines in the world is quite an achievement. USS Tucson Chief Petty Officer Michael Larson and his wife Alisha pop into the studio during their Namesake City visit to share some thoughts. Michael is a Machinist Mate which means he is responsible for maintenance and repairs of key components aboard the submarine. He was named Sailor of the Year for his steadfast commitment to vital repairs that allowed the USS Tucson to fulfill missions of national interest. While most of us would find the pressure of doing [...]

The Call of Duty Endowment was created by Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick in 2009 after learning that nearly 30% of post 9/11 Veterans were facing challenges in finding civilian employment. Since then, the Endowment has funded the placement of 50,000 veterans in careers paying an average of $27,000 more than the national median. Activision Blizzard is the world’s largest and most profitable western interactive entertainment company. Call of Duty Endowment Executive Director Dan Goldenberg joins us to share how his organization has achieved this milestone. Dan is a Naval Academy and Harvard Business School graduate. The Endowment’s focus is to [...]

Deliver Fund Co-Founder and Exec. Director Nic McKinley used to save lives and catch bad guys overseas. Now he does it right here in our country. Nic mentioned to a Navy recruiter that he wanted to be a medic in the SEAL Teams.  The response was “Why wouldn’t you just become a PJ?”  Nic had never heard of Air Force pararescue but went on to spend 10 years serving as a member of these elite teams. While attached to a Joint Special Operations team shortly after 9/11, he noticed some other team members that were “kind of held in reverence [...]

The Secret Service is one of the oldest law enforcement agencies in our nation and ranks among the most elite in the world.  Even though the Secret Service set precedence among law enforcement agencies when they appointed the first female officer to the Executive Protection Service in 1970, less than 10 percent of their agents are female. Melanie Lentz applied to the Secret Service at the urging of her grandfather.  At 22, she is one of the youngest female agents hired by the agency.  Her service included eight years in the Los Angeles field office working fraud and intelligence investigations [...]

This past summer, the Federal Trade Commission announced over 100 actions against charities operating fraudulently under the guise of helping Veterans or members of the military and their families. Two officials of the Federal Trade Commission, both involved in these actions, join us to discuss “Operation Donate with Honor” and ways we can all be more educated donors. The Federal Trade Commission chose to examining Veteran charity fraud because it plays upon two great motivators for Americans; we are very generous and we are very patriotic. Tracy Thorleifson, Senior Staff Attorney in the Bureau of Consumer Protection’s Northwest Regional Office [...]

The premise of the film “Black Klansman” sounds almost too bizarre to be true; a black detective successfully infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan.  But it actually happened to Ron Stallworth. Photo Credit: Jorge Salgado/El Paso Inc. Ron originally applied to the police academy in order to earn sufficient money to pay for college and become a high school PE teacher. But after a year on the job he was having too much fun and earning twice what he would have as a PE teacher. He was hired in 1972 as the first black police cadet in Colorado Springs [...]