Securing Our Future
Securing Our Future
SOF 014: From Special Operations Intelligence to National Security Porfolios with Trevor Hough
Host Jeremy Hitchcock sits down with Trevor Hough, the Owner of The ADK Group, an advisory firm focused on bridging the gap between industry, national security, and investors and helping companies scale up their business while solving vital national security challenges.
He retired from the Army in 2022 as a Military Intelligence officer after splitting most of his career between Special Operations and supporting national-level policy making. Now, Hough is a seasoned professional who operates at the intersection of National Security, Tech, and Data. With roles ranging from Strategic Advisor to Mentor, his expertise orbits National Security Policy, Risk Analysis, and building effective teams.
Introduction
Getting Started
Daily Habits
Startups and National Security
Building Better Work
What is Success?
Thinking About Core Values
Inspirational Stories
Conclusion
Transcript
This editable transcript was computer-generated and might contain errors.
Jeremy Hitchcock: Thanks for joining us today. Trevor on, securing our future.
Trevor Hough: Great to be with Jeremy, thank you for the time.
Jeremy Hitchcock: So, first things would love to hear your upbringing and the way in which you got to the army and how that's gotten you into this portfolio life that you now now live and is sometimes dreaded by people as A failure where you can't find one area of focus,…
Trevor Hough: but, Yeah.
Jeremy Hitchcock: you have to focus on many. So, how did you first get started in the arm services?
Trevor Hough: Yeah, Great question. So born and raised in Lake, Placid, New York and came from pretty much what I would probably loosely upbringing, humble grounds there, it's paying my own way through college made it as far as my freshman year before I ran out of money and I was on air as a disc jockey. I think they still have those, but this jockey DJ for a radio station, it was owned by class of 1976 Norwich University graduate just up the road.
Trevor Hough: From you in Vermont the university where Reserve Officer Training Corps ROTC was created and The oldest private military college in the country. And so he came in as a proud graduate and kind of said, Hey, what's your plan? And I said, I think I'm gonna apply for a scholarship because I'm out of money and take a year off and he's like, Hey let's go check out Norwich and the rest as they say is history, We went over there to Northfield Vermont and I was able to get scholarship in the right opportunity there at Norwich and I enjoyed it, it gave me a chance to be a part of something bigger than myself and that led to, entering the military first, as an enlisted soldier, as an officer, and then I blinked and some almost 30 years went by that entire time. And so it was a fantastic ride, a great career and I would highly recommend it to anyone. Listen, and in terms of your younger listeners, who might be thinking about,
Trevor Hough: Career of service to our nation and be a part of something bigger than themselves.
Jeremy Hitchcock: How did you think about assignments and choosing different paths while you were in uniform?
Trevor Hough: the first few were sort of decided for me. But I knew early on, essentially, I had the opportunity to go in what the Army calls the Combat arms. I spent my first probably about six years in the infantry and in armored cavalry and reconnaissance. And so think of Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, much of the And Kit that's still being used today.
Trevor Hough: Those assignments were decided for me, the only sort of thing I asked for was to be in Division, cavalry, which is a sort of what was, and is now coming back as an elite small unit. That each Army division had right. So, I did that for a number of years and then transition into military intelligence and coming out of military intelligence. There was a serendipitous as so often happens opportunity to go to 10. Special Forces Group at Fort Carson, Colorado. And I remember fighting with the assignment officer and she was saying, You can't go there. Your career will be dead before it ever gets going. And me telling her, I'm gonna go. this is where I want to go. This is where my passion lies. I want to give this a go and that's where I ended up and end up there and in June of 2000, and then you fast forward, and I'm there, certainly during 911. And once I was in that community and working with those men and women, I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay there and I knew that's where I could contribute the most and provide the most
Trevor Hough: to our service. And so I stayed in that community for most of my career.
Jeremy Hitchcock: And then, how did you know it was time to retire? What was the things that got you thinking about post service life,
Trevor Hough: Yeah. Yeah, I know Great question. Those assignments throughout my career, you should always take those opportunity. I think this will speak to the portfolio lifestyle too, but take the opportunities when they pop up. don't leave them there as opportunities come walk through that door, if someone's cracking a door for you, take it. Right? And so, I did that throughout my career and I had the opportunity to work at a couple of assignments at the White House, had the opportunity to work at places like CIA and the Pentagon And then command probably the most elite intelligence organization and elite because of the men and women in it. Not because of the commander. let me be clear about that at the Joint Special Ops. Command Intelligence Brigade.
00:05:00
Trevor Hough: And at that point, it was a time where they say Okay, Trevor you are on to The next rank, do you want to pursue it? And that verb is in there for a reason because it's a lifestyle choice, and it is not easy. And it can be incredibly taxing on you and your family. And at the time, my children, they're still very young, They were younger then and I elected to go and focus more on being a father. I view that as being my job, number one, and the only thing I couldn't outsource. So I elected to retire at that point and transition out of the military. Very after just shy of 30 years.
Jeremy Hitchcock: What was your plan when you got out? How'd you think about what was One day Day, 100,
Trevor Hough: Yeah, yeah, but a big fan of doing a transition program. I did the Honor Foundation program for special Operations personnel. There's the Commit Foundation. There's a bunch of programs out there and I'd encourage anyone who's at that stage and listening to take a look at those programs apply and go give that a chance because This program's give you an opportunity to think about transition in a more deeper fashion than just the regular programs that the ARM services have. And so, I did that.
Trevor Hough: and we knew we moved to South Carolina. that was a choice because your control and pursue of two things, as you leave the military, what to do, and where to do it. And I can remember, looking at my wife and saying, I don't want to solve both those problems at the same time. We have to solve one of them, so we elected to solve the where to live part, and then, what to do is going to come next. And so day, one of retirement looked an awful lot like me waking up and unemployed for the first time since I was 12 years old. and it wasn't. my gosh, sort of thing. this is weird. This is a little bit different. Let's figure out what the next steps are. Obviously. I've been doing a lot of that work leading up to that.
Trevor Hough: But Jeremy, I never found the right fit with the company. I've talked to some fantastic companies, some of the most up-and-coming or already there startups in the national security space and the dual use text space, and we just never got to where both sides were saying. This is a good fit and I wasn't gonna settle again. Focusing on the family, was what the whole purpose of retirement was so is that point where I said, I am passionate about giving our national security professional decisive advantage and providing that I did it while in uniform. I want to do it and continue to do it in this next chapter and then I came to how best to do that and that's when I elected to start my own company and work advising these companies as opposed to trying to find the perfect fit within the company.
Jeremy Hitchcock: And look forward to hearing that where your company does. But I also curious just how did you
Jeremy Hitchcock: The most interesting trends. How are you connecting with people? What were you saying when you were doing your 10th interaction with somebody new versus your first interaction? How did that engagement change? I
Trevor Hough: Yeah, yeah. It's
Trevor Hough: So networking is so critical for, I think anyone in business certainly and anyone transitioning out of the government and into the commercial world, because what some will call cups of coffee or those conversations, you never know where one's going to lead. And so Jeremy, what I elected to do, was the easy button for a guy or a gal coming out at my rank. And with my time, sort of in uniform, is to go to one of the prime integrators or to go back into government and I eliminated both of those out of the gate as possibilities. I wanted to pursue, never say, never if someone from Lockheed's listening, I'm still willing to talk. Now it never saying never right. But that's not philosophically where I was and so I decided that the ecosystem that you're well familiar with the venture capital private equity and their portfolio companies doing really cool things and national security.
Trevor Hough: That really excited me and I wanted to learn more about it. I had seen some of it while I was in uniform. I had touched some of it and worked with some startups, but I decided to jump in to that ecosystem without really knowing what I was getting into because I don't come, prepackaged with an MBA or with deep experience in that. What I come with this deep experience in the executive branch and in the federal government and intelligence community. And so I started learning and learning a lot and whole talling or asking for introductions depending on which fund we were talking about with some of the funds that we're doing and investing in national security, dual use technology and talking to them and then talk into some of their portfolio companies and sometimes a great conversation with one fun would lead them to introduce me to some of their portfolio companies. That could use someone like me either, initially, with the eye,
00:10:00
Trevor Hough: For a full-time employee. And then as they realized that maybe an advisory capacity may be better. And so I would structure every day, where one of the easiest things to forget when you retire is exercise and that the criticality of that for kind of your mental state and just overall health and people sometimes will drop that and say, I've been getting up at 6 to work out for 30 years, I'm not gonna do it anymore so I would continue to do that. So I view that as a center piece of Hey you got us still exercise and do that for your health and for
Trevor Hough: For your mental health and physical health. So, the rest of the day, I would stack up some meetings and some introductions, if need be and sometimes Jeremy, it would be reaching out to someone who I thought might be able to introduce me to a company that is really interested in. Sometimes the companies would find me because my resume went out and people were pushing it around, who were friends and colleagues and we're doing me a solid in terms of making sure that my resume got visibility. And sometimes, I've even not been shy to go on LinkedIn and find someone and say, Hey, you're an army veteran, you're working in VC, I'm an army veteran. Can we have a, Let's hop on a call and all those things added up to opportunities. And if you sit back and wait for stop to come to you, You have to go out and find it. And there is a little bit of hustle involved to take going out and meeting the right people and meeting the right companies and then being able to have those conversations where then opportunity may arise.
Jeremy Hitchcock: Yeah, I've always found that the openness of people in industry is very high and The number of times where I've been asked,…
Trevor Hough:
Jeremy Hitchcock: Hey, can you introduce me to this fellow government employee that I used to work with? And I think you guys have you're in the same building, Can't you guys talk to each other? But there it is, interesting, the hierarchical nature. And then when you get out into industry, There's just a different kind of a different approach to networking. And as you say never say never The community is very small, whether it's government military or…
Trevor Hough: Yeah.
Jeremy Hitchcock: industry and so paying it forward making introductions helping people through say never I mean, if Chris Moran called me up and said Hey I'm thinking about something over here at Lockheed's, a venture arm, definitely, that they do they and a lot of others do some good work but it's not necessarily for everyone.
Trevor Hough: They do Jeremy making a point.
Jeremy Hitchcock: Everyone's looking for their own thing.
Trevor Hough: They do some incredibly critical work for our nation out of the gate Though. I wanted to try something different, I wanted to see what this other piece to the national security. Infrastructure is like how our startups meaningfully contributing to our national security and how do I contribute to that? So that's where I ended up and I've been learning every day to your point.
Jeremy Hitchcock: Months.
Trevor Hough: There have been many extraordinarily Kind and just really generous people in terms of their time their ideas, educating me mentoring me through this and tons of them. and it kind of surprised me a bit because I didn't know what to expect, but it's been almost uniformly with very rare exception, they've been inviting and open and had really just given Some opportunities to pick their brain, learn from them and then leverage their Rolodex. And I've been trying to pay that back or forward I guess depending as people of engaged me now because they see me out in this space and maybe they want to give it a go.
Jeremy Hitchcock: Yeah no. it's very cool. I mean, one thing I remember doing was looking for someone who changed careers every two or three years because when I went through a career transition, I had the same employer for 15 years. doing my own thing and then suddenly was the same type of thing. What am I supposed to do? And so I wanted to find people who had gone through that transition on a more regular basis, you've been better at this decision making How have you thought about it and…
Trevor Hough: Right.
Jeremy Hitchcock: and you learn stuff and you're curiosity, really takes you in different places. Think your theme around hustle makes a big difference and,…
Trevor Hough: It does.
Jeremy Hitchcock: and going after it, there's plenty of opportunities out there, but you have to do a little bit of work to go find them.
Trevor Hough: You do and as you go out on your own, you have to believe in yourself. You have to believe that you can help. Companies or whatever you're going into. if you're a person a singleton or even on a small team you have to believe you can contribute and translate that to the people or person you're talking to so that they believe it as well. And that can be the hardest things sometimes because it is specially early on, it's an unknown. your company, you left 15 years with one employer and then you move out to something new no matter how successful you were for 15 years. You're now doing something new and it takes a certain amount of re Rebranding and just kind of changing your mindset a little bit so that you can be successful and contribute into this next phase or this next chapter.
00:15:00
Jeremy Hitchcock: So you're off doing your coffees and your thinking this full-time life isn't for you. And so what happened the next Trevor? Where's the first idea of I'm gonna go do this on my own. I have to do this portfolio life and…
Trevor Hough: Yeah.
Jeremy Hitchcock: and what was the first nugget of working on your own?
Trevor Hough: Yeah, so three days.
Trevor Hough: After leaving Washington DC and moving to South Carolina. I got a call from a senior, in the government saying, Hey, I understanding, you're on your way out. can you do some consulting with us? And I said, Holy cow. So I quickly, got online with the legal zoom, figured out how to get a company how to incorporated all that kind of stuff to cover me from a legal perspective and the bank account came and all that. So I had it sitting there once I decided we're just not able to laugh up on the full-time gigs. I quickly said I think I can still contribute I know I can as a matter of fact and then quickly over that summer they're talking the summer, the 22. So a year ago one company approached me and said Hey we have a small advisory board we've seen your resume. Would you consider joining us? And I said
Trevor Hough: To that and there's a certain momentum in certainly business literature will talk about the flywheel concept. There's a certain momentum that once you get going I had that one and then about a month later another company whom I was talking to about a full-time job. We just simply changed the conversation and said we're not going to get there in the near Fiscal years coming to an end, You got some things you want to get across the goal line, I can help you and the conversations were always very much, best case, perfect case, both parties like each other and we move into a full-time position. It worse case we don't like each other and there's no severance package. It's a very easy split in terms of Jetta saying and advisor and so that became the second company in the fall of 22 and that I've added a couple since then. There's a balancing act Jeremy with, being one person where you want to do well and provide value to all
Trevor Hough: Your clients or partners. However, you describe them, that means you can't take on too much work because then you get just spread too thin and you're not able to give quality time to each of the companies. And so that's a balancing act that I'm still learning, frankly as I go down this path,
Jeremy Hitchcock: And how do you think about? that hunting,…
Trevor Hough: but,
Jeremy Hitchcock: that I've heard a hunting and eating or pitching and catching whatever euphemism did, you get to a place where all of a sudden I have 25 hours of work tomorrow. There's only 24 hours in the day. is it something? Where have you as you thought about focusing where you're practices? How to you have a certain sense of intellectual curiosity about you, which I've gotten to have gotten know and enjoy very much. So you're balancing that plus where you can focus your time and get multiple reps and get better. I mean, how do you think about that,…
Trevor Hough: Be activated.
Jeremy Hitchcock: the framework for and that you have used to try to get better at your craft?
Trevor Hough: Yeah, it's a great question. First and foremost is develop and relationships with the founders of the suite of the companies. when I have that. And it's not always there. When I have that, I find that, I can really understand what their challenges are, where their pain points are, what their roadmap is for their product. And intellectual curiosity has led me to a place where I'm working with both hardware and SAS companies, right? So I see both sides from the intricacies of SAS, and then the hardware and supply chain issues that come in and supply like that, those are as you will know. But everybody listening, those are very Different problems and can be very different problems and so getting to know where their pain points are in that road.
Trevor Hough: Is absolutely critical because then I can say, Okay, you have on your roadmap. We're going to be selling into the Department of Defense at this figure and then we can start talking about some business development opportunities, we can give a good assessment of product market fit. We can do all those things, but I have to know where their head is to be able to do that. And so I try to invest in that relationship with the companies that I'm working with past that I try to anticipate the and this is where I think being an former intelligence officer comes in handy. I try to anticipate, what is coming down the pike, in terms of things happening around the world. That could impact their industry, whatever innovation that are happening. So I spent a lot of time reading across those disciplines, the verticals from a drone industry, maybe to a commercial satellite industry to artificial intelligence and trying to understand what's happening.
00:20:00
Trevor Hough: Those trends are Who are the movers and shakers, who are companies that, these teams are often small, they don't have ubiquitous knowledge across their industry, so I try to flag for them. Maybe. Hey, did you see this company? it's not identical, but it's parallel and we got to pay attention to them. And so those sorts of items that they give me to work on or ask me to work on or I just do on my own, keeps me busy keeps me very focused and allows me to provide them. I think something that they wouldn't be able to get normally when it's such a small team and some of these startups,
Jeremy Hitchcock: Cool. you're one just about in 10 years from now. How are you thinking about success? what will that mean? and what are the
Trevor Hough: Success is, the companies I've been working with this is all split it kind of in two. So there's a personal answer in a business answer and I'll start with the business The success is the companies I've been working with have been successful, and that means a successful exit, in one way, shape, or form. Maybe that M&A or through IPO, they're able to gain flight gain traction, enough, make it cross that Valley of death and are providing good meaningful things for our national security professionals again, be that sass or
Trevor Hough: Hardware. And if it's not the company themselves, it's the technology that they worked on. Obviously it could come to a point where it was obsolete and that's just a natural sort of path of things, but maybe it's B6 or V7 of a particular thing that's still out there doing something. And then, for the people in the companies, Jeremy, I'd like to think I'm still in touch with them and we are kind of mutually supporting each other and whatever career path. We've gone down. At that, point those relationships.
Trevor Hough: Important to me. And I think I've carried that over from my time in uniform where hey, if I'm talking to a CEO of a company she's doing really great things, I want them to continue to be successful even after they leave, whatever company or even after we part ways and move on, in terms of personal, I've taken a lot of time that I normally would have been putting into a full-time work week, and I certainly did, while I was on active duty and rededicated some of that time to my family. And I'd like to think in 10 years, my families in a really good spot. My kids are getting ready to head off to college and we've raised to really super young people who are gonna go out and contribute well to society and be good members of society.
Jeremy Hitchcock: Yeah, I think many times people underestimate the personal grounding as a foundation of success. Everyone thinks about doing the hard work,…
Trevor Hough: but,
Jeremy Hitchcock: the hustle the grinding, but there's a mental and physical preparation. Spiritual preparation has to go into oneself to Be highly productive.
Trevor Hough: Yes.
Jeremy Hitchcock: And sometimes the time and effort is much better…
Trevor Hough: This.
Jeremy Hitchcock: if it's well prepared, it's well grounded. And there's a strong foundation versus just I'm going to do more hours and…
Trevor Hough: Yeah. There's great.
Jeremy Hitchcock: thinking that that's
Trevor Hough: Right, more hours, more dollars. that is a thing and it's part. I talked to a lot of folks, who are transitioning Jeremy and I say, Hey, you got to kind of figure out What are your non-negotiables? What are the things that are core to who you are? And there's no right answer. It's a very much choose your own adventure and if that's maximizing income as you're leaving government service for okay back, there's no judgment here that you just got to know that's where you're at and you're gonna decide accordingly based on that as being your core in terms of what positions you talk to or take and what companies you talk to or maybe it's your faith. And that's gonna be the core, and that's gonna lead you down a different set of decision making. And so, I think the mistakes, I see, people make are when they don't take the time to figure that out, and they get cross. And their family is really at their center. But they're chasing a big dollar figure, and they're killing their family time as a result. And they've not sort of made peace with where they are in their life at
Trevor Hough: You can contribute a lot still without finding a full-time position in a company. If you can develop the right relationship with those companies or the funds, or whomever you're working with
00:25:00
Trevor Hough: Yeah.
Trevor Hough: Yeah, no thanks. So these are at a series of posters behind me I've used over the years Ben at my home office. And in visible there there for cues before myself and for whomever I'm talking to have good conversations about a variety of different things and a couple that I point out there's a hockey goalie mask. That looks for any of your horror movie aficionado listeners. It will remind them of Friday, the 13th mask, it was actually the goal mass that goalie Jim Craig War on the 1980 US Olympic hockey team that one famously in my hometown of Lake Placid New York and it's split into the goalie mask and it has a Soviet Union flag on one side of the United States flag on the other. I have that up there. A is a reminder of my hometown and certainly the Adirondack Group, the name of my company is
Trevor Hough: To my ancestral roots up there. But the goalie mask is there because it's a great reminder that her Brooks took that 1980 team and arguably beat the best hockey team that ever skated on ice in 1980, Soviet team. He was able to do it by getting a bunch of individuals to stop of themselves in an individuals think of themselves as a team and understand that they were playing for something bigger than themselves. Which was our nation and by being able to do that and train them and focus them and have that attention to detail that really a successful team needs, they were able to overcome and beat the best team in the world. And so that is extraordinarily important. that's up there. That's the only other one I'll do is
Trevor Hough: It's a picture of Ernest, Shackleton's ship The Endurance, Frozen and Ice. It's a famous hurley picture. He sets up his flashes and does a picture in the dark. And absolutely. Incredible. Story of survival of leading a small team, giving them hope in the future, keeping them together and ultimately arriving at success. Not from what the expedition set out to, but success after they had to remission, they had a pivot to use a overused term in today's world. They had to pivot off mission and say We're not going to make the South Pole. We need to go just try to survive and live and earn a Shackleton.
Trevor Hough: An example as a leader to lead his team through that it's the best. Small team leadership book I've ever read and has telling you early holds extraordinary significance for me as my wife and I did our honeymoon in Antarctica and I've been in those waters and Passage and what he was able to do in his navigator and the whole team in terms of surviving and making it was pretty special and so those are two that I'd highlight and again it always provides a good opportunity to have good meaningful conversations about things that are important to me. And I think are important to founders and leaders and in the business I'm working with
Jeremy Hitchcock: Very cool. I mean, both of those stories are absolutely fantastic. I mean, they're ones that I know and I know many others know and they're just stories of perseverance leadership and overcoming odds and anyone can do it if they put their mind to it. So very cool stories.
Trevor Hough: Yeah.
Jeremy Hitchcock: Trevor, thank you so much for sharing your insights and your path. I wish you luck over your next 10 years and we'll have you back then and talk about how it's been going.
Trevor Hough: I Enjoy the rest of the fall up in Manchester before the snow comes here. Before too long, but enjoy it. And I pray, this has been really fun. Thanks, Jeremy.
Jeremy Hitchcock: Great, thanks.
Meeting ended after 00:29:12 👋