The Intersection of Cybersecurity and Personal Development: A Deep Dive with Aaron Crow and Neal Conlon at the Lone Star Cyber Shootout

Aaron Crow (0:2.926): All right. Hey everyone, Aaron Crow. Neil Conlin. For those of who may not know, Aaron Crow, I've been 25 years doing cybersecurity, IT, a lot of stuff. I've got a podcast called Protect It All. And I've stumbled into cybersecurity 15 years ago and have been doing it ever since in many different forms. And one of the things that Aaron and I realized when we got to first meet each other a couple of years ago was we kind of aligned on these

Aaron Crow (0:31.886): let's call them pillars of really wanting to help people provide more, protect more and pioneer more. And that's the premise around the event that we're going to talk to you today. And in the world of cybersecurity, what's interesting about Aaron's and I's relationship is he's very technical and a great family guy and business driven. And those three things kind of come together in this concept

Aaron Crow (0:59.362): Providing protecting and pioneering and it's a big important piece that I align on very very much and that's the premise between Getting this event now. I'll say off the cuff here This is a very different type of event than you're used to If you're if you've gone to cyber conferences cyber events, you're used to just kind of going doing a bunch of things meeting much people and nothing comes to

Aaron Crow (1:25.858): And we want to have this kind of anti -conference, which is more about community, building trust with each other. And we really want to show you what that's going to be like in a cyber extension. Yeah. So that's why we kind of came up with this idea of we want it to be different. Like you go to cyber events, you go, play top golf or you're doing these types of things. We want it to be something different, something memorable, but also something where it gives you an opportunity to interact. Right. So

Aaron Crow (1:51.626): especially as leaders and finding time and ways that we can interact with each other, doing something that maybe gets us a little bit out of our comfort zone. And that's where we can build bonds and we can go beyond just a deck or a sales pitch or just having beers and talking small talk, actually getting deeper. So that's why we started out, we made this partnership and relationship with Stacotto Ranch.

Aaron Crow (2:17.454): You may or may not know Staccato. Staccato is a firearm manufacturer here in the state of They are owned by private equity firm and they launched this brand to be focusing on freedom and personal responsibility and all these things. They're building a legacy with their brand. With that, they've got 800 acres just north of Austin, which is where this will be located and it's called Staccato Ranch. Staccato Ranch is, like I said, 800

Aaron Crow (2:46.850): They've got pistol bays, they've got all of these, know, it's like a golf course, golf club, high end golf club membership, but with guns, right? So they've got all, we're going to have all these elite former special forces and three letter agencies and, and, know, law enforcement agencies, all these guys that have lots of experience, professional shooters, three gun experts, like all these different, like you're going to have people that are there doing instruction. So whether

Aaron Crow (3:12.810): shot and you're an expert and you're a perfect marksman, you served in the military, or maybe guns are something a little bit you're not super comfortable with, or maybe used to be and you're not as comfortable, you don't go shoot as often. It's not something that you have to be any one level and everybody's gonna get experience and get value out of this thing, no matter what that level set is for you. and it all goes back to this triangle of how we're building these type of events, where if

Aaron Crow (3:42.409): feel like you are meant to be a provider. I mean providing value as a professional in the field that you work in, predominantly is gonna be cybersecurity or information security. If you feel like you need to be comfortable with being a protector for your family or the values and assets that are around you, both physically and digitally, right? Because that's the intersection of the world that we're at, where physical security is just as important.

Aaron Crow (4:12.233): as your digital security is, even probably more so now. And the other piece of it is about pioneering. This whole country and the world we live in is built upon progress and the ability to move forward. we've now gone past the point of pioneering between knocking down trees and building log cabins into pioneering technology and technically in different ways.

Aaron Crow (4:39.159): So this event is for you, if I'm saying those three things in your head, you're checking those boxes and you're going, yeah, I care about protecting people, I care about providing for people, and I care about the future and pioneering. This is the event where you wanna come September 6th, it's a Friday, you wanna spend the day with us at Staccato Ranch. We're gonna be spending an entire day firing different types of firearms.

Aaron Crow (5:7.105): We're gonna have lunch and learns. We're gonna have community. We're even gonna have a raffle where we're gonna raffle off a staccato pistol for one lucky person. So if those things are interesting to you and you're getting excited about that, that's the conversation we wanna have with you. Yeah, absolutely. And just to dive a little deeper on what to expect that day, right, is we're gonna show up in the morning, we're gonna have food and drinks. You literally don't have to have anything. You don't have to bring anything. You don't need to bring a gun. You don't need to bring ammo. You don't need to bring anything. Like, obviously you're gonna need to wear

Aaron Crow (5:36.897): the right clothing and we'll give you all the details of that stuff, but you're just gonna show up, right? We'll provide your ear protection and eye protection. There's gonna be safety briefs. There's gonna be all of these things. We're also going, the location that we're at is also where Staccato builds their firearms and they do all of their ammunition. So you got some of the ammo over here. All of their ammunition is built there as well. So part of this event, we're also going to do a tour of their factories. You're gonna actually see.

Aaron Crow (6:3.915): from the beginning to the end, how they build their ammunition, how they build their firearms, taking a raw piece of iron and steel and turning it into a firearm out the other side, where they do their testing, the automation, they've got all the lays and robotics and really amazing, awesome stuff. We're gonna walk through that stuff, right? We're also gonna have thought leaders and sponsors coming in that are gonna be bringing in. And again, we're not gonna have just a sales pitch. These are gonna be people that are gonna come in and they're gonna interact with us throughout the day.

Aaron Crow (6:32.799): And they're gonna provide thought leadership and conversations around topics and ideas and problems, not just, buy my widget or buy my product, we can do this thing, right? So it's gonna be a lot deeper conversation. The intention of this is to dive deep and to have a lot of interesting conversations, both between sponsors and cyber executives, but also between executives themselves and us as well. So like the whole thing is supposed to be one big place where we can have some different conversations.

Aaron Crow (7:2.905): So we'll do morning shooting, we'll roll into factory tour, we'll have lunch, we'll do the lunch and learn sessions where everybody's getting up and we're asking questions and we're having this introductions and thought leadership. And then we'll roll into some more shooting in the afternoon, both pistols and shotgun. And then in the evening, we'll kind of wrap it up with a fireside chat. And then we'll have cigars and bourbon and a lot of opportunities if you're interested in those types of things to stay

Aaron Crow (7:32.505): So there's a lot of opportunities to fit in where you feel comfortable and dive in in a lot of different ways. And we've all been to the conferences, the bigger conferences, these big events, and you get your lanyard and you go through it and you leave at the end of the day and maybe you know a couple of people, maybe you met one or two other people. And Aaron and I very much align on this idea that everything happens at the speed of trust.

Aaron Crow (8:0.013): Our goal and our attention is whether you're a vendor or a sponsor and you attend the events with us, you will leave at the end of that day with 12, 15 or 20 new trusted partners that you've spent meaningful and intentional and conscious conversations with talking about how you can provide better in the environment, protect better in the environment, both physical and digital

Aaron Crow (8:28.630): learn something about how you can pioneer going forward. And if that's something that gets you a little bit excited about the opportunity to, and again, whether you're an expert and you carry all the time, or whether you have always felt drawn to learning more about firearms but haven't felt comfortable enough, we're going to have expert trainers and operators there that in this premium environment, it'll

Transcript lightly edited for readability.