 Welcome to 2021. I hope it's exciting for you, as it is for me. I kind of think it feels like 2020, but I'm waiting for the excitement to mow me over. Anyway, today I promise we're going to have some excitement on the episode. We've got the CIA RISE group. I'm so happy to have them here. I'm going to let them introduce themselves to you and talk a little bit about what's important about CIA's RISE committee. This group is growing very rapidly. They are made up of the young professors of our industry. These are going to be the people leading our industry next. You can engage with them today. I'll talk about how you're going to get to engage with them in the future. Erin, I want to kick it off to you. How about a quick intro and why RISE is so important for you and for our industry? Thank you again for having us on this episode, first one of 2021. Happy new year to everyone listening. I'm Erin Mann. I'm the chair of the RISE committee this year. I'm really, really excited to be able to kind of a leadership role with this group. I joined RISE probably a little over a year and a half ago, and it gave me my first understanding of what a community in the industry felt like, and gave me an understanding that my job within this industry, and I can really build an awesome career in the industry. It gave me kind of just a window into all of the dedicated professionals who have been part of the industry for 40 plus years. That's why I'm super passionate about it. I love working with people. I love everything to do with young professionals. We're really, really excited for 2021. We've got some fantastic stuff planned and the members who are on the call today from the committee have some really incredible initiatives underway, so we're excited to share them with you. Awesome. All right, Kelsey, take it off. Give us a quick intro and why you're passionate about RISE. Yeah, for sure. I echo what Erin said. I appreciate you having us on and we're so excited. Happy New Year. Happy Holidays. Belated to everybody. RISE to me. I joined RISE pretty much same time as Erin. It was like a year and a half, almost two years ago, after Accelerize. It was quite honestly life-changing, sounds pretty dramatic, but it's true. It really was like a career alternating activity. I think that RISE is, it really is like a second family and it's a group of people that are going through similar things with you. So we're all young professionals. We're all new to the security industry, are relatively new, so it's a really relatable group and especially this RISE group. All of the initiatives that we're pushing and everything we're trying to do, I think just is amazing. The group is awesome. The initiatives are great and it really is a group that quickly becomes very close. I'm honored to be a part of it, for sure. I think there's a lot of potential, so stay tuned. Yeah, and we're talking about a thousand people close gang, so pay attention to this group. Hey, Jake, tell us a little bit about yourself and why you joined. Thanks, Andrew. So I'm kind of the RISE baby. I joined in February of 2020, which is crazy to say. I'm coming up on one year, but I mean, so my experience in RISE has been mostly virtual with the pandemic. But the impact that developing relationships with everyone in the committees and whatnot and the RISE community as well, it's been amazing. I mean, it feels like I've known these people for years and years and I've only been in the industry for about since 2018, so about two and a half years. But I mean, just the impact it's had on me, like Kelsey said, it feels like we're a second family. So to me, it's the impact. It's kind of the fact that I'm really excited to take the momentum that we've built virtually that I've been a part of building virtually and hopefully, hopefully in the latter half of this year, seeing everyone in person and the fun in person events and whatnot. But it's been awesome so far and I can't wait to work and continue working with the team. Yeah, I love this family theme that's growing already. It's perfect. Hey, Mark, give us your intro there, sir, and then what RISE means to you. Awesome. Thank you so much, Andrew. And again, happy new year to everyone out there. I joined RISE in December of 2018. And in thinking about it, it really doesn't feel like it's been barely a year as the opportunities have been absolutely fantastic joining RISE. I'm an outside sales. So in 2020, really being forced to stay home most of the time kind of caused me to be a little bit more siloed than I normally would be kind of serving a regional office for a Legion. And in joining RISE and becoming more involved in RISE, I really, again, have found this family and this community that has given me the opportunity to lead, to serve, to help connect others. And really, that's been tremendously valuable for me. Can't say how thankful I am for this group in 2020 for how much they helped me. And really, for all young professionals in the security industry, you'd be remiss not to join RISE. There's just so many great events, so many great people, so many opportunities for you to advance your career and really join this awesome family. That's awesome. I love, you can tell this sales guy, give us that call to action right off the bat. Look, join up. You're going to love it. You need to do this right away. And he's absolutely correct, by the way. So let's talk a little bit about some of the programmatic stuff that people are going to get when they engage with RISE. Some of the things that you guys are doing already, some of the things you've had some success with, and maybe if you want to get into some of the things that are coming up this year that are going to be new. I know you had a little bit of an opportunity to discuss how you're going to throw those around. So I'll start with Erin and then I'll let her just kind of, you guys kick it around in the format that you had designed. Perfect. So RISE this year has a number of subcommittees and these subcommittees are kind of siloed by category. So we have a scholarship subcommittee for our annual scholarship drive. We have our Accelerize subcommittee who is responsible for hosting our massive young professional industry conference. We have our Diversity and Inclusion subcommittee that has been, it was kind of recently born in 2020 around February timeframe and we just launched the time mentorship program. So that's the big initiative coming out of that subcommittee. And then we have our Content and Education subcommittee that's really focused on kind of some of those webinars, the content that we put out, the micro-learning series and things like that. But we have representation from all four subcommittees here today. So I'm going to let everyone kind of tell about their individual subcommittees. But with our most recent one that actually just kind of finished, I'll pass it to Jake to talk about the scholarship for 2020 and everything involving that. Thank you, Erin. So real quick, I'm just going to highlight the winners and give them a little shout out. So we have Nadim Hamoud from Phoenix, Olivia Peralta from Allegiant, Matthew Rios from Access Communications, Mary Sharp from Stanley Access Technologies and Trevor Zulorine from VPI Security. Trevor, sorry if I mispronounce your last name. But like we said earlier, we're going to be having these winners on a few more episodes going forward in our rise slot. Just talking to them about their motivations for applying and how they plan on utilizing the funds and whatnot. So that's a great transition to kind of my next point and explaining the scholarship in depth. So five applicants will be awarded $3,000 each. They can use these funds for things like continuing education in the industry, industry certifications, see a program, see offerings. And the biggie is now, we introduced this last year and people loved it, paying back student loans. The goal of the scholarship is obviously to provide that stepping stone for the young professional careers but to also kind of alleviate stresses in their journey and going to point A from point B. So as far as eligibility goes, you have to be in the rise community. That's a really simple process. All you do, we'll put a link in the description of this video. You're putting your email and you'll be getting notifications and whatnot as far as rise events and opportunities in the rise community. And your company has to be a CM member company. So if you're not sure, just ask your uppers. And if you're not a CM member company, that's a fairly easy process to do. You just, you know, you follow the prompts on the CIA website. And then last but not least, as far as application process goes, we usually announce the application around Accelerize. And Accelerize this upcoming year is in August. I believe it's August 23rd to the 25th. So the application will go live around then. And any questions, just, you know, please feel free to reach out as someone, you know, it's my first year on the subcommittee. But you could really see, you know, in evaluating these applications and whatnot, how important, you know, these opportunities are to kind of, you know, help these young professionals and help their career development. Something so simple as $3,000 can go a really long way. So that's pretty much all I got for the scholarship. Kelsey, if you want to add anything, Kelsey's my partner in crime when it comes to the scholarship subcommittee. And she does an awesome job. Yeah, thanks. Jake, you nailed it. I think that really it's just an awesome opportunity and something that we can continue to add to the CIA Rise Groups portfolio. And keep an eye out because there's more to come and scholarships just going to continue to grow, I think this year and moving forward. So a little teaser there for you. I'll add to that too, just because the scholarship has grown tremendously in the last couple of years. So the first year there were six applicants, I think the second year we had 19. And then this past year we had 46 from six different countries. So the reach of the scholarship and the hunger for what it can provide is global. And it's pretty exciting to see the impact and kind of connect with the people afterwards to see how it benefited them, how they used it, and then follow up with them in a couple of years to see, you know, is it still benefiting them. So it's an awesome program and we're really happy to offer it. All right, we have time for let's talk about another one. What's your next program? Yes, so I am here to represent the content and education portion of CIA Rise. So kind of when thinking about 2021 for me, I kind of thought on the content side, how can we attack and approach people with kind of a multi-segment value proposition in terms of the type of content we're pushing out. We're going to be pushing out digital written content in terms of our quarterly newsletter that people have come to know and love and expect from us. We're going to be expanding as seen here into the video and audio medium and hopefully more to come. We're going to be planning several events, including the book club that we started last year, including the trivia night that we started and Accelerize last year and did another one in December. So really when it comes to the content and education for 2021, I want to make things as accessible as possible so that any young professional or really anyone that's new to the security industry can have an opportunity to be able to engage with others. Whether you're in Seattle, Washington, whether you're in Hawaii, whether you're in Florida, New York, everyone can come together digitally and really find their niche within this RISE community through the content that we're pushing out. And we also have some really good educational opportunities. For me, we have some micro RISE or micro learning series that we published last year on some topics that are really relevant to young professionals, really any professionals in my opinion, these topics could help out. And we always are pushing out some new kind of learning modules on different portions of the industry that might be applicable. For me, dealing with the security hardware side of the industry, I really don't get exposed to some of the other parts of the industry. So having these tools through CRISE has really enabled me to broaden the scope of the industry perspective for me. And as the host of two of the trivia events, that has been really, really a fun way for me to get engaged. And Kelsey will actually be expanding a little bit more about some of the events that we look to host in 2021. That's awesome. I think it's so critical that people don't understand how broad our industry is. If you write code, if you're in the engineering for hardware, software, applications, sales, marketing, we have all of it. And no one sort of knows how big our industry is. And we're kind of like a successful industry. Like everybody kept working this whole time during the pandemic. So we're a little bit economically resilient. We offer opportunities that are just not exposed. No one sort of grows up thinking about the security industry. So what you're doing there is a great, that outreach will help sort of improve career opportunity, I think, across the spectrum of the folks that are joining CRISE. We're at about 14 minutes. I'll tell you what, we've got to pay some bills. So we'll take a break for about one minute. And we'll be right back with CRISE. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. We are talking with the CRISE leadership, committee leadership team today. And we are trying to advise you. If you're a young professional, I think 40 and unders may be good. 30 and unders may be better. I'm not really sure what their limits are, what they'll expect. But check this group out and get engaged with the work that they're doing. We're going to hear about another program that I think Kelsey is the committee chair for. Kelsey, take it away. Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. So just elaborate a little bit more on some things that the CRISE crew is doing. So I am honored to be the co-chair with Erin, Erin being the chair. And we talked about some of the initiatives that we had. We talked to the group. There's a lot of exciting stuff that's coming. But Mark highlighted two of the things, which are Book Club and trivia night. And those two things kind of sprung from the initiative of the RISE group. We're over 800 members, right? And we're all over the globe or all over the U.S. too. So we're trying to figure out how to get people more involved. We're hosting, again, last year, being the virtual world. We learned our lesson quickly that we can expand our portfolio in that virtual world. So things like trivia night, Book Club, more to come, happy hours potentially. There's a lot of potential, I think, and there's a lot of people that are in the group that we have either yet to meet or have a lot of potential. So those are two things. And then it was spoken about before, but Accelerize is another biggie. We have a whole committee that works on Accelerize. They work their butts off, for sure. And Accelerize this year is August 23 to the 25th. It's virtual as well. But more to come on that and mark your calendars because that is quite the event. I joined Accelerize almost two years ago, and that was my first Sea of Rise event. Quite impactful, for sure. There's a lot of awesome people that I met and a lot of good content. So something you want to keep your eyes out for. Awesome. Yeah, definitely. I mean, these groups, I know the early, I know definitely the first Accelerize I went to and it was maybe 50 folks there. And I mean, to get from 50 to 800 as quickly as you have is amazing. So congratulations. You guys obviously know how to communicate well and to draw them in. And if you haven't gotten a hit yet, we'll go ahead and make it official here. This Sea of Rise group is going to take over one of the broadcasts for Security Matters on the third Tuesday of every month at noon. It depends on, it's at 10 o'clock away time. So that's noon Pacific. It'll be one Pacific a little later in the year when the clock changes. So check, keeping out for that content, keeping out for the guests that they're going to have. I think we're going to see a lot of broader perspective, a different industry perspective coming out of the programs and the folks in their community. And I'm really looking forward to that. And I'm looking forward to having a week off once a month. I really appreciate that as well. So thank you. Okay, Erin, I think you were going to talk about the new the time. What time is it? Let's talk about time. It is time to get involved. So one of the really kind of exciting programs and initiatives that Rise worked on over the last probably seven, eight months is our time mentorship program. So time is an acronym, it stands for talent, inclusion, mentorship, and education. And it is the brainchild of our diversity and inclusion subcommittee. So we have been engaged in a lot of conversations over the last few years about how there is a need for mentorship within the industry, not only just from a, you know, passing knowledge and helping coach people through their careers at whatever stage, but also because the industry is traditionally white male, and we really want to diversify that. And so if we can connect some of the trailblazers who identify other than white male and connect them with young professionals throughout the industry and others as well, we think that we can make a really big impact on kind of this idea around inclusion and diversity and bringing people to the table where they belong. And so we're really excited about it. We launched our call for mentors right before the holiday season hit. So we have about a week and a half on those mentorship or the mentor application. So if you're someone who's been in your career or in your job and you feel like you've learned a lot and you want to pass on that knowledge, we would love to have you apply to be a mentor. I've been in so many conversations where people are just saying, you know, we really want a robust mentorship program. We've worked really hard to structure it. So it is a time commitment. There's an expectation of 90 minutes a month. There are, there's an entire program booklet that mentors and mentees are going to get. There's categories that have to be discussed. There's ratings and scorecards and we're really focused on building a community within the industry to really connect to the tribal knowledge with the individuals who are going to be leading the industry. So we're really, really excited about it. But January 15th, the mentor application closes and then we will open up the mentor or the mentee application soon after that. So stay tuned for that. Yeah, I love that it's got a lot of structure. I know that I've talked to folks about this. I myself have sort of been accused of like reverse ageism because I'm constantly beating on all the old white guys like, hey, you're sitting in a chair. What are you actually giving back to the industry now, right? You've got all this knowledge you need to share it. I haven't necessarily heard it called tribal before, but that's I like that. I like that word. There's a, there's a, there's sort of a problem. I think our industry grew up out of really, you know, military and law enforcement, right? And those were traditionally these, these white male, white roles, you know, for years, right? And, and there was some other, other folks represented there, but, but in a small representation. So that our industry became, you know, this, this representation of that. And today, you know, we can't continue forward like that. We've got to recruit far broader. We need everyone's perspective brought in as law enforcement is found out as military is found out, right? So there will be that, that traditional funnel won't, will also is getting more diverse as we, as we go forward, which is a good thing. But how do we take the, the knowledge that we've got? How do we accelerate the past for young professionals to grow quicker in the industry? You don't, a lot of us, we weren't that bright. So it took us 20, 25 years to learn stuff. What I've witnessed is that a lot of, a lot of these young professionals are brilliant. And the world today is digital. It's technical. It's connected. And they understand all that going in the door, where most of us had to learn all that along the way. So I think that the, the path to leadership should be shorter. But along with that leadership, what I think these mentors can provide for you as a, a connectivity to the other people with the knowledge, right? It's kind of a who, not where the bones are buried per se, but, you know, who can help you with that idea? Who can help you accelerate that thing? Who's, who's knowledgeable about that stuff? That's maybe respected in the industry that can share it with you. It's a, it's a sharing of contacts as much as it is direct. You know, how would you do this or something like that? You know, if I think, I think the young professionals have probably more skills than the old professionals. I'm just going to put that out there. So talking about the application process, so they can go online and get that done. Give us, give us, tell us what that's about. How long is the app? What, what are you looking for? It is, I would say it's pretty easy application process in general. You go to the CIA website and then rise. And then time has its own kind of banner and page. You can't miss it, but we'll include the link when we post the video too. And the application is pretty quick. They give some background about, you know, name, position, career, contact information. And then there's some targeted questions just to get to know them better so that we can pair them with mentee applicants who are looking for, you know, the same kind of match up compatible experiences. But there's some questions about, you know, how have, how has an applicant created a space that's really respectful of all identities or really safe? But there's also, you know, questions about why do you, why do you want to be a mentor? Did you have someone in your life that really changed your career? What is your ideal mentee look like? Are there specific areas that you feel you could do really well as a mentor versus maybe areas that you'd like to steer clear from? And we made it, like I said, the program itself is structured, but we made the application structured as well. So that we could really do justice to both applicants on either side and connect them with another individual who's going to make an impact. And so we have individuals from our Diversity and Inclusion Committee that score all of the candidates based on a rubric for their answers. And then we'll do the same for the mentees before we accept them into the program and then we'll match them. But shouldn't take more than, I mean, put thought into it, but it shouldn't take more than like 10, 15 minutes. But the applicants who have come through on the mentor side have been incredible so far. It is so cool to see who's willing and ready to give back. So if you're looking for just a way to connect with anyone in the industry, please apply for time because it's going to be such a cool program. And we're really excited for its inaugural year. I love it. It seems to me that all the programs you guys come over there are just super refreshing. I love it. This is going to be another success. I'm quite sure of that. So we got a few minutes left. Let's do final thoughts, final encouragement, final cost to action maybe from Mark. What's going on, Mark? Yeah, no. So I actually was going to throw out a call to action. That's some good sense you got there, Andrew. Yes. So for anyone that's on the fence of being a mentor or a mentee, I would say don't be afraid. Whatever's holding you back from joining, go ahead and just go for it this year because at the very worst possible outcome, you at least will be making another contact that you have in the industry and that can be invaluable. There's a ton of companies that these days have their own mentor programs. But the unique thing about this is you're going to be paired with someone who could be in a different country, could be on a different side of the country and works in a completely different part of the industry most likely. So I think that's the beauty of the mentorship program and the beauty of RISE is really connecting with all these different people from different backgrounds and really expanding your own network in such a positive and meaningful way. And I'm just so excited to see how we're going to go deeper and wider and further with that in 2021. Awesome. All right, Jake, final thoughts? Yeah, one final call to action is just if you're considering getting involved with RISE, do it because coming from me who's only been involved for less than a year, I feel like I have literally 50 new colleagues who I never even knew existed before. For example, when I shut my computer down the last day of Accelerize, I said to myself, I was like, wow, I have at least 30 people that I will not hesitate to send a note on LinkedIn to and connect to. And if I sell them in person, I'd be able to easily have a conversation with them. So like I said in the very beginning, it's the impact that this community has. Definitely join RISE and definitely get a part of it. Nice. Kelsey, final thoughts? Yeah, I'm just super excited to be part of this and be able to share everything. Thank you again for having us. It's been incredible and I'm so excited for our future podcast. They're going to be awesome. But I would just say I would echo what the rest of the guys said. I would join RISE because as I've said before, it definitely was a very, very impactful opportunity and keep abreast of everything that we're doing because there's a lot that we've done, but there's a lot more that's coming. So probably the best way is the CRISE LinkedIn page and then the website. There's already some events that are loaded up there already. So you can register for those. But the other thing too is just to add to the mentorship program. I feel like in my opinion, everybody needs a mentor, right? And really, it doesn't have to be like a CEO that is the mentor. They could be the mentee and that's the really, really cool part about this time program because I feel like everybody could use some advancement, right? And we learn from each other. So I think that that's the coolest part about this time program and this opportunity because it allows you to be vulnerable, but learn from each other because we're in it together. So I think that's the coolest part. Yeah, and this pandemic showed us we're definitely in this together, right? Erin, final thoughts. I'm really, really excited for everything that that RISE has to hold this year. I think the programs and the initiatives that we're we're trying to champion and trying to put out are hopefully going to benefit a thousand plus people if we have high enough goals. But reach out to us if you want to get involved, if you want to get engaged with us, if you want to participate in something, but you're not really sure or you just want to hear more about the program, the entire committee is super accessible. Reach out to us, find us on LinkedIn, connect with us. Our goal is to simply make your experience in the security industry the best it can be. So even if you have just another idea of something that maybe we can put out, because we have, you know, RISE resources and things, share that with us because all we want to do is make everyone feel part of this industry, like they have a right to be here, help them kind of gain the skills to continue being here and really growing careers. And I don't know, my hope is that in five years, a lot of the people that we've touched this year will will still be part of the industry and hopefully blazing your own trail. So we're pretty excited about it. I love it. I really, really appreciate what you guys are doing. I'm looking forward to it. I'm here to help. And I think CRI is just one of these groups that's going to make a difference and nobody's even calculated yet. So you guys are just getting started and you're really strong. So thank you so much. Check out RISE again, January 19th, 10 a.m. Hawaii time. That'll be noon PST right now. I'm sure you'll see some ads for their upcoming episode on LinkedIn or wherever they post them all. And we look forward to having you guys out. I appreciate you running an episode. And I think it was a great talk today. I hope we got your message out. I think we did. And I look forward to seeing what you do with your upcoming episode. Thank you. All right. Hello, everybody. Take care out there. Have a great January. We'll talk soon.