Brittany Van Soest

"With effort and dedication, anyone can make a career change and transition their skills in support of the Intelligence Community (IC). My journey began in January 2015, when the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo was attacked in retaliation for printing cartoons of the prophet Muhammed. This launched my fascination with radicalization, national security and intelligence collection and analysis, and ultimately inspired me to change careers. With a background in sales and no connections in the IC, I needed some way to enter this new field. I found an opportunity to write for a small risk analysis firm and, in the evenings after my day job, I trained with a contractor where I analyzed critical incident trends in Algeria for an oil and gas client. Finding my niche in OSINT analysis, I pursued my education at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies in Denver, CO. Two years and three internships later I earned my Master’s in International Security, fully prepared to launch my second career in support of the IC in the private sector. I now have the privilege of showcasing Maxar Earth Intelligence capabilities to a wide audience through the bi-monthly Maxar Spotlight publication, available here:" https://explore.maxar.com/spotlight.html

"My career highlight was my time providing guidance to the first-of-its-kind, Algerian-run analyst group operating in the U.S. Embassy in Algiers as part of an internship with the Department of State. My role included clarifying requirements from key consumers at the embassy, identifying gaps in content and consistency, and advising the Regional Security Officer of areas for improvement. I am proud of my contribution to the collection, analysis and delivery of OSINT reports used to assess the risk to embassy personnel in Algeria."

"The United States and its allies will increasingly benefit from quick-turn, actionable GEOINT data and analysis. As machine learning is further integrated into collection methods and processing, the U.S. will need to outpace the competition by partnering with industry-leading Earth Intelligence experts."

"Being a recent student, my advice is threefold:

• Be A Learner: Remain teachable, ask for training and support, and always expand your skillset.
• Be Bold: Interview your superiors and glean insight from their career journeys; this was the #1 thing that opened the door to my career in the IC.
• ‘Know Thyself’: Take advantage of the plethora of tools available to identify your strengths, then pursue them ruthlessly. My favorites are StrengthsFinder, Stand Out, Emergenetics and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator."

Favorite movie/book/TV show/podcast: The book ‘Winning the War on War’ by Joshua S. Goldstein offers a glimmer of hope for those focused on the day-to-day support of intelligence collection and analysis. We in the IC can take heart that providing the most pertinent and timely intelligence to support our military and international partners is contributing to the broader goal of bringing current conflicts to a close and preventing new conflicts from developing.