 Welcome back to Falcon 2022. This is Dave Vellante. We've got a special presentation segment for you today. This is a wall-to-wall day one of day two's Cube coverage. JC Herrera is here. He's my designated co-host. He's the chief human resource officer at CrowdStrike. Craig Neary is to my left. He's the beneficiary and the beneficiary trustee and ambassador of Operation Motorsport and former U.S. Air Force. Thank you for your service. Thank you. And Dietzel Lauter, who is CEO and co-founder of Operation Motorsport. Gents, welcome to the Cube. Thanks so much for coming on. Thank you, great to be here. JC, set this up for us. Explain your role, explain the corporate giving, the whole student connection and the veterans. Take us through that. Yeah, sure. Yeah, so as head of HR, one of the things that we do is help manage part of their corporate giving strategy. And one of those things that we love to do is to also invest in students and in our veterans. It's just a part of our giving program. So this partnership with Operation Motorsport is really critical to that. And if you want to dive a little bit deeper into that, we just see that there's a gigantic skills gap in cybersecurity. And so when there's over millions of open roles around the world and 700,000 of them in the U.S. alone, we've got to go close that gap. And so our next gen scholarships that come out of our giving funds are awarded to students who are studying cybersecurity or AI. And the other side of that is that this partnership with Operation Motorsport then, we get the opportunity to do some internships with veterans through Operation Motorsport as well. The number 700,000 now, but pre-pandemic, I remember number 350, 350,000. It's doubled now just in the U.S., amazing. All right, Diesel, tell us about the mission of Operation Motorsport. Like, who are the beneficiaries? Let's get into it. So Operation Motorsport engages ill-injured wounded service members, those that are medically retiring from the service or disabled veterans. These individuals have been taken out of their units. They lose their team identity, their purpose. And what we do is those that apply to the program and have a desire to work around shiny objects and fast cars and all the great smells or just car guys or gals that we have some of those as well, they, we bring them onto the teams as beneficiaries. So embed them into a race team and give them the opportunity to find something new. We're a recovery program. We're not about finding jobs for these folks. It's about networking and getting out of that, out of the dark places where some of them end up going because this is a huge change for them. And in doing so, we now expose them to CrowdStrike. You know, that's one of the new relationships that we have where potentially if they want to, they can pursue new opportunities in areas like cybersecurity. And they're chosen through an application process? You're, I'm inferring? Yeah, they just go online and say, you know, through word of mouth or through a friend or through the USO and other organizations, they go online and they click the apply here and they fill it out and our beneficiary trustee, Craig, and calls them up and says, hey, tell me about what you're looking for and we pair them up with the race team. And Craig, you're also a beneficiary in addition to being the beneficiary trustee. So explain that, what's your story? Right, so I started in this organization as a beneficiary. I was the one that hit the button on the website and a few minutes later, I got a phone call from then Tiffany Lodder, Diesel's wife, who's our executive director in the organization. And I had that same conversation that I now have with beneficiaries today. I did a full season with them last year in 2021 as a beneficiary. But at the end, I realized how big of an impact that this has with folks. Transition can be very difficult, especially if they're ill-injured or wounded. And so I asked if I could help, if I could give back because it had such a big impact on me, I'd like to help other veterans as well. Can Ashley, what made you hit that button? What made you apply? Oh, that's a great question. So I was one of the very fortunate ones that had a transition coach. I was in the military for 29 years and had a lot of great connections in the military and was connected to a coach, a transition coach. And just exploring what that would look like. And she was the one who said, hey, why don't we explore this passion of motorsports that you have? My family had been going to motorsports events for 50 years. And so I thought back, all right, this is, I like this idea, let's pursue this. So a quick Google search and operation motorsport popped up and I hit the button. And what programs are available in operation motorsports? Yeah, so diesel kind of outlined it. We have basically three different programs. We have our immersion program, which is exactly what diesel described where we take that veteran and we actually immerse them in a race team. They're doing exactly what I was doing, tires and fuel and whatever the team needs them to do. We also have our eMotorSports program where folks who can't do the immersion program, the immersion program takes a pretty big time commitment sometimes and so they just don't have the capacity or abilities to be able to do those. We could put them in our eMotorSports program where they can do it all virtually. We're actually, we have a season going on right now where we have veterans racing in that eMotorSports program. And then we have a diversionary therapy program where we have a Patriot car corral set up at all these tracks so they can go out with like-minded individuals and spend the day out there with those folks, other veterans. And we do pit tours and we get them out on the track for a little bit of highway speeds, nothing ridiculous, but we do them doing some highway speeds. So we have a few different ways for them to be involved. So the number three is like a splash in the pond whereas number one's like full immersion. Correct, correct. And so what are you doing in the full immersion? What is that like? I mean, you're literally changing tires and you're... Yeah, you name it. In that sort of sphere of battle, if you will. The beauty of this is we could take somebody's capabilities and skill set and we can match it to whatever that looks like on a race team. Some people come in and have no experience whatsoever. And so we find a team that needs, that has a development opportunities where they could come in, their initial job might be to fuel cans or take tires off the car, wipe the car down, it's little things in the beginning and then slowly as they start to grow and learn, then they take on bigger roles. But we also have different positions. They can be immersed in teams, but they can also be immersed in the series. So we have folks that are doing like tech inspections. We have folks that are doing race control up in the tower, direct and race operations. So we have lots of opportunities, tons of potential. We foster those relationships and take the folks, whatever their capabilities and abilities are and find the right positions for them. Thinking about your personal experience, how would you say it affected you? Yeah, to understand that, you really have to understand military transition. And I think that's where a lot of the folks that have never experienced this really struggle. Transition from the military is really difficult and it's really difficult, even if you're not broken or you don't have some kind of illness or injury, but you add that factor into it at the same time and it could be extremely difficult. And that's why we see like the 22 a day suicide rates with veterans, it's very, very high, right? And so when you come into this program, it is a little bit of a leap of faith, right? This is very new experience for somebody, right? Somebody like myself, who had 29 years of experience in the military, a very senior person in the military. And now you're at the bottom of the totem pole and trying to figure it all out again. It's a big jump, but what you realize really quickly is, a lot of the things that you experience in the military, you experience in that paddock, same exact things. Lots of small team environment, lots of diversity, lots of challenges, lots of roadblocks, ups, downs. You deploy just like you would deploy in the military, you bring the cars to a track, you execute a mission, then you pack it up and bring it home. So there's so many similarities in the process. I mean, yeah, here in Craig explained that there are, the similarities sound very clear, but how did you come up with this idea? It makes sense now in retrospect, but somebody just said, hey, we have this and we have this and we can marry him? No, not really. And it's a funny story because I always said, I don't believe in reinventing the wheel. I believe in stealing the car. And so there's a sister organization that we have in the UK called Mission Motorsport. And they invented this five years before we did. And they were successful. And I was through friendships and opportunities, I got to witness it in 2016. So went over to Wales in the UK and watched it in action. And we were there for one race weekend, race of remembrance, which is where we go back to, we'll be going back to November, taking 13 beneficiaries over to race in our own race team for a 12 hour race. And that's a whole other story, but that's where it all started. You know, we saw the opportunities and said, wow, they're changing lives through recovery, you know, through motorsport and the similarities and what they were achieving. Our initial goal was, let's just come back and do this again next year, because we need to bring North American transitioning members over to witness this and take part. And then fast forward, we said, why stop there? And we stood up an organization now, I'll tell you that the organization is not what it was, the initial vision, this is not where, I mean, I never imagined that we'd get to this point this day, especially with the announcement this morning, you know, with the partnership with CrowdStrike, it's huge for us. But we've evolved into something that was very similar to the initial vision and that was helping medically transitioning service members with their own personal struggles and recovery. You know, the reason we call it operation motorsport is because operations have no beginning and no end, and what we do makes us so different in that we're not a one and done, we take care of these guys, even when they become alumni, they still come back, they come back to volunteer, they come back to check on their friends and all kinds, it's really, really neat. And JC, of course, CrowdStrike has an affinity for motorsports, right? You got the logo on the Mercedes, you've got the safety car at this, I think it's called the safety car. That's it, yeah. So, okay, so that's an obvious connection, but where did the idea germinate for this partnership? There's so many things, but first and foremost, I think that the values of CrowdStrike and those of operation motorsport are very much aligned. If you think about it, we focus a lot on teamwork. There's no way we do these jobs without the teamwork part. We all love data. These guys are all into data all the time, trying to figure out what your adversaries are doing, so there's that kind of component to it. And I'd say the last bit is critical thinking. So when we think about our organizations and how well aligned they are, that was a no-brainer. And then to the other side of it, we get the opportunity to do mentorship programs, I mean, I think both ways. Hopefully, I get invited to the Patriot Corral at some point, I can go work on a car, but we'll do those both ways, or mentorship opportunities if folks from operation motorsport want to team up with a CrowdStrike or so. Do you ever get to drive the car or is that just an awful question? No, it's a good question. Actually, I do from the track to the pits at very slow speeds. They don't let you out on the track. That's right, no, I don't get to go out on the track. Diesel, you ever drive one of these? I've been on the track on different cars, not in the race cars that are on the team, but something that's unique in the Patriot Corral, for instance, because JC brought that up, is that when we do these Patriot Corrals, part of that program at lunchtime is taking the individuals and doing parade laps. And now, a parade lap, well, what's the fun in that? But you drive highway speeds on a racetrack and your own personal car following a paced car, that's a pretty cool experience. Yeah, that's very cool. Guys, congratulations on this program and all your success and all the giving that you do for the community and your peers. Really appreciate you guys coming on theCUBE and telling your story. Thanks for having us. Thanks for the opportunity. You're very welcome. All right, keep it right there, everybody. Dave Vellante and Dave Nicholson back from Falcon 2022 at the Aria in Las Vegas. You're watching theCUBE.