Last Friday marked the one-year anniversary of the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology (CMIST). In honor of the anniversary, CMIST held an event, “Celebrating CMIST: Pathways to Public Service” on Friday, in which Nathaniel C. Fick, the inaugural U.S. Ambassador at Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy, discussed his role, the path he took to get there and the significance of CMIST’s work.
Before being an ambassador, Fick was an undergraduate at Dartmouth College majoring in Classics. It was Professor Jerry Rudd, a former Green Beret and Special Forces Officer turned professor of classics at Dartmouth College, who inspired Fick throughout college and later in life. Fick said of the classics major, “It’s perfect for the … indecisive … you get language, you get politics, you get art, you get history, sort of everything.”
It was after college that Fick decided to join the U.S. Marine Corps. During his time there,Fick learned a lot about leadership and authority. He explained that his superior saw leadership as a responsibility, and consequently slept less, ate less, drank less, and exposed himself to more danger, thus gaining the respect and support of everyone he led.
After September 11th, the United States saw a huge demand for special operations forces, so the U.S. Marine Corps began a component within the Special Operations Command (MARSOC) which Fick joined. Fick realized he enjoyed being a part of something bigger, something that was being created, and wanted to continue doing that after leaving the Marines.
It was then that Fick decided to go to business school at Harvard University. There he learned the skills necessary to fund, start, and run a business, and created Endgame Inc., a cybersecurity software company. He emphasized the importance of having a good team and culture in a business setting and asserts “a perfect strategy will get screwed up by a better team every single time.”
Fick reminisced about his dislike for bureaucracy and recounts “We hired at will, we fired at will, we promoted at will,” which worked fine in the private sector but was the exact opposite of how things were done in the Department of State. The Department of State operates at a global scale and deals with various types of issues, something, Fick stated, companies in the private sector don’t do. Therefore, the Department of State requires bureaucratic stability “across time, across geography, policies, across administration.”
When asked why he accepted the role of America’s Inaugural Ambassador for Cyberspace and Digital Policy, Fick replied, “Life only looks linear in hindsight, things that seem inevitable or predestined are not … but every now and then, something will come your way that feels like the perfect combination of all the experiences you had previously.”
CMIST is a Carnegie Mellon-wide initiative that takes advantage of the university’s appreciation for interdisciplinary research and strong computer science and engineering departments to develop and govern innovative and emerging technologies that are shaping war and peace.
Students at Carnegie Mellon can obtain a Bachelor of Science in International Relations and Political Science (BS IRPS), a Bachelor of Science in Political Science, Security and Technology (BS PSST) and/or a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Politics (interdisciplinary degree) through the CMIST program.
“CMIST serves as a bridge at Carnegie Mellon University between those who are building the technologies and those who shape policy, and those who enact it, fostering dialogue and collaboration to maximize the global benefits and minimize the harm for the United States and its allies and partners,” stated Director Audrey Kurth Cronin, Trustees Professor of Security and Technology and Director of CMIST.
When asked by Cronin as to why a student at Carnegie Mellon should go into the public policy field, Fick replied, “Because it is the most meaningful work you do and trust me, I have done both … you could do a 20-year career in public service or build a business and still have another 20 years to do something else … I think you could do both.”
Fick proceeded to emphasize the importance of having individuals from various fields, whether it be in technology, business, or academia, engage in public service to help strengthen the nation’s collective ability to protect itself. “There’s a degree of moral bankruptcy for senior technology executives who never do anything to contribute back to the society that has created the opportunities for them,” states Fick.
With a variety of courses, majors, and minors to choose from, CMIST offers a great way for students at Carnegie Mellon University to get involved in public service later in life.
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