Sit down with Eric Parker, a Special Operations Combat Veteran with nearly 30 years of experience in the security industry. Eric's impressive career includes military service, private security, high-threat contracting with Blackwater in Iraq and Afghanistan, and federal service with the Diplomatic Security Service as a Subject Matter Expert on High Threat Protection.

Now the President of Vault Management Group, Eric oversees Red Variable Concepts, a security consulting and investigations firm, and founded the Select International Training Institute, where he trains elite executive protection specialists.

In this episode, Eric shares exciting and sometimes frightening stories about his experiences overseas and how he transitioned to founding his own companies to fulfill his mission to train the next generation of security professionals. He also discusses the importance of mental health awareness and his dedication to supporting fellow veterans. Tune in for an inspiring and exciting conversation about courage, resilience, leadership, and the ever-evolving security industry.

Announcer: Coming to you from the Sunshine State, this is Create Brand NV, a podcast dedicated to entrepreneurs and business owners, discussing businesses, marketing, leadership, and best practices in this ever-changing business landscape. Every week, we'll introduce you to a different business leader who has taken their company to new heights despite the odds. Learn, engage, and thrive. This is Create Brand NV.

And now your host, President and CEO of Brand NV, Nicole Alicea!

Nicole Alicea: Today, we have a truly exceptional guest on the Create Brand NV podcast. Joining us is Eric Parker, a special operations combat veteran based in Tampa, Florida. Eric served honorably in the U.S. Army for six years, including a tour in Mogadishu, Somalia. With nearly 30 years of experience in the security industry, Eric's expertise spans military service, private security, high-threat contracting with Blackwater in Iraq and Afghanistan, and federal service with the Diplomatic Security Service as a subject matter expert on high-threat protection.

Today, Eric is the president of Vault Management Group, overseeing Red Variable Concepts, a security consulting and investigations firm he founded. He also founded the Select International Training Institute, where he trains executive protection specialists and leads the Protective Detail Specialist Course. He has developed and led low-profile protection teams for the State Department in Iraq and served as a team leader for the ambassador's protective detail for Ambassadors Ryan Crocker and Christopher Hill.

Notably, Eric planned and executed with his team the first-ever Red Zone Movement for then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He and his team also rescued now-President Joe Biden, along with former Secretary of State John Kerry and former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, off a mountain in Afghanistan. Wow, Eric, we are so honored to have you here today. Thank you so much for joining me.

Eric Parker: Thank you for having me.

Nicole Alicea: You've had an amazing military career, and I've known you for many years. I never realized how profoundly accomplished you were. I just had a general idea of what you did. In fact, we met in college. Do you feel comfortable sharing that?

Eric Parker: Yeah.

Nicole Alicea: We were in college; I was a student at USF. Where were you in your career when we met?

Eric Parker: I was working at a security company.

Nicole Alicea: You had already been in the military?

Eric Parker: Yes.

Nicole Alicea: You were studying criminal justice?

Eric Parker: Yes.

Nicole Alicea: You were working for a private security company, and my apartment complex near USF was one of the clients. My friends and I were just hanging out, being college students, drinking, having a good time, playing music, and we hear a knock at the door. You and your friend, what was his name? I don’t remember. Anyway, you both were security officers, and you said, "Hey, guys, you have to keep the noise down, but just so you know, we clock out in three hours. Can we come by when we're off duty and hang out?" We were like, sure. So we turned the music down, and later, you came back, and we partied. Eric and I have kept in touch over the years. After doing the show prep and learning more about everything you've done, I'm amazed. When I was thinking about what this episode would focus on, I realized we should talk about how you transitioned from an incredible military career to being a successful civilian.

We’ll also discuss suicide awareness among veterans and people in your field. You not only transitioned successfully, but you also started your own company, which is difficult by itself. Not only did you start it, but you’ve also been unbelievably successful. I’d love to help the listeners get to know you as well as I have. So, after we hung out at USF, and you were working for that security company, you went back into the… No, I'll let you tell it.

Eric Parker: Well, first off, you might be getting me in a little bit of trouble here.

Nicole Alicea: We like trouble.

Nicole Alicea: What was that training and vetting process like?

Eric Parker: It was stressful because you’re going through things. Some of the stuff you know, some of the things you don’t. A lot of the high-threat protection was being taught with the weapons systems. You had to have a certain background to apply. I had a lot of Army Rangers, Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and even one guy from SEAL Team 6 in my class. You’re watching guys get cut every day. You’d go back to the hotel at night, and everybody would go right to the bar. It was like a tiny bar with just beer and wine. Everyone would grab a beer, stare straight ahead, then head to their rooms, not talking to each other because you didn’t know if it was going to be your last day. Somehow, I made it through the cut and got to have the experience of a lifetime.

Nicole Alicea: And then they sent you to Afghanistan? Iraq?

Eric Parker: Iraq. I went to Iraq for three years. I was in Baghdad for most of my time, working on various teams doing high-threat protection. When I first got there, I was assigned to the Regime Crimes Liaison Office, State Department. We were protecting federal investigators—FBI, DEA, ATF. They couldn’t go out without any security, but they were there to train up the investigators who were going to prosecute Saddam Hussein. We got to go to some of the old mass grave sites in Kurdistan, so you got a real feel for who Saddam Hussein was and how evil he was. Then I worked on the low-profile teams. We decided to start them up. The State Department had never done it before in that kind of environment, so I was on the very first low-profile team. I did that for a while, and then I took over. They created another one, and I became the team leader for that.

Nicole Alicea: What is a low-profile team? What makes it low-profile?

Eric Parker: Okay, so you have high-profile, which is like three black Suburbans—everyone knows that's security. Even when we do our details around here, people think it's Secret Service or something. Low-profile is more like us in sedans. You grow your beard or have nothing at all to blend in with the locals. In high-profile, you're wearing all your gear. I joke that my back is messed up because I was 185 pounds, but with all my gear, I was 245. In low-profile, I had a big baggy shirt covering up my rifle magazines. The goal was to drive through the city without getting blown up because they would see the Suburbans coming and be ready to hit the button to blow you up. So, in low-profile, we would decorate our cars like locals, even down to having a tissue box on the dash. This way, we could move through the area without drawing attention.

It led up to a huge event called Nisour Square, where Blackwater was villainized in the news. There was a big story claiming we killed a lot of innocent people, which isn’t true. The Biden administration and Clinton were going after my friends, and they ended up imprisoning four of them. Trump pardoned them, and one of them lives here locally and is back with his family. His daughter saw him for the first time out of prison, and we watched it all on Facebook Live—there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

You mentioned the situation with John Kerry and Joe Biden. We had guys on their bird, and they wanted to fly to Jalalabad. They were visiting as senators, and the military advised them not to because of the weather. But they insisted, saying, "We're senators; you will do this for us." So the Army agreed. They went out for their photo op with the troops, and on their way back, the weather worsened, and they got stranded on a mountain. We had already been up to...

Nicole Alicea: When you say stranded on a mountain, was it snow, rain…?

Eric Parker: Yeah, it was wintertime. The ceiling came down, you couldn’t see, and you have to land. Especially in Afghanistan, the mountains are like nothing else I’ve seen. They’ve got a device, almost like a GPS tracker—I can’t say what it is—that can set off an alarm so we know where they are and track their position. So we got the maps out, plotted a route to get to them, and went in with the Army. We had to wait a while for the Army to get ready because there were some generals on board as well. As we were going up this mountain, we were laughing in our internal comms, saying, "If this goes really bad, we’re going to be all over the news tomorrow saying Blackwater killed three senators. But if it goes well, no one will even know we were here."

There are very few articles written about it. Somebody ran a nice article on it, and I had to comment to tell my side of the story because a lot of the Army guys were trying to take credit for it. I said, "No, we’re the ones that made it to the site, guys. You were with us, but we led the way." We got them back to the airfield at Bagram. John Kerry actually thanked me, which was nice because the day before, he wasn’t very pleasant. Then we had about an hour-and-a-half drive to get back to Kabul. By the time we got there, we turned on the TVs, took off our gear, and saw Joe Biden on TV thanking the United States Army for rescuing them. We just cracked open some beers and said cheers because the Army couldn’t drink, but we could. I’d rather have my cold beer than their thanks.

Me being in the agent in charge position, it’s a label; I’m riding in the limo. They actually put a Diplomatic Security Special Agent in there, so I got bumped to the counter-assault team. My rules of engagement were to keep all traffic back 100 meters, as we didn’t know if there were more car bombs out there. We made it to the location, loaded the Americans up, and on our way back, I had all traffic held back. Suddenly, one car comes around and guns it right into the center kill zone, so I lit him up. It was the first shoot that happened in Kabul under the State Department’s WPS contract. They thought I killed the guy, who turned out to be a very high-ranking Afghan intelligence official, a lieutenant colonel. I found out later that night that he lived. The bullet grazed his forehead, skirted around the skull, and exited the back of his neck.

The Diplomatic Security Agents had to go to the hospital to interview him and get his side of the story. Luckily, it happened right in front of their compound, which had cameras, so it cleared me of the shoot—I had followed all my rules of engagement. But being so high up in intelligence, they decided they needed to get me out of the country because he was going to put a hit out on me. I was out of the country within three days. Blackwater gave me my choice of assignments. When I went to Afghanistan, I wasn’t looking to get in any more shoots; it’s just one of those things that follow me. So I said, "I’ll go to the ambassador’s detail." If something's going on with the ambassador’s detail, I know we have all the authority in the world. He’s the highest-ranking person in the country. Even with Petraeus and others, I’d tell them to move their vehicles because the ambassador was coming out, and they’d comply.

I worked for Ambassador Crocker and eventually took over the detail. That was a really good experience for me. It allowed me to gain more insight into the inner workings of the Diplomatic Security Service. I did a lot of things that most people haven’t done, making decisions because I was protecting the highest-ranking person in Iraq. There are lots of stories I could share, and we could go on for hours. But I’m very proud of my time with Blackwater. I spent five years with them, and I’ve made friendships that will last a lifetime. We have an annual reunion every year, and I talk to those guys daily. Fortunately, many of them live here in the Tampa Bay area, so we see each other regularly. That was my time contracting. While I was on the ambassador’s detail, my DS agents encouraged me to apply for a new position.

Nicole Alicea: What are DS agents?

Eric Parker: Diplomatic Security Service agents. They're federal special agents. They were recruiting because they didn't have enough DS agents for all the teams; the contract was so big. After the Nisour Square incident, they wanted an agent on every team for government oversight. They were bringing me in at a very high level, FS3, which is equivalent to a GS-13 or an Army major. I barely made it through the interview process. I ended up going to D.C. and started my training. I went through the high-threat protection program with all the DS agents. There were five of us, called Security Protective Specialists, and I finished that up. They sent me a visa for Afghanistan, but I told them I couldn't go back to Afghanistan. I thought I was out of luck, but they said, "No problem. We're sending you to Pakistan instead."

So, they sent me to the tribal region of Pakistan, to a consulate that had just been blown up a week before I got there. They were deciding whether to close it down or continue, and they sent me and another guy there. The RSO, the top Diplomatic Security Service agent there, gave us M249 SAW machine guns and told us we were the quick reaction force. It was just the two of us. I spent a year there, one of the most dangerous places I've ever worked because, in Afghanistan, you have the Taliban, but in Pakistan, you have TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan). They're the varsity level and will hunt you down.

One morning, I got to the consulate, and another agency's chief asked who was driving a specific license plate number. I realized it was mine, and he told me I'd been targeted to be killed and should change my license plate. So, I had my guys make me a new license plate. It was an interesting time. I was there for a year and left the day before they got Bin Laden. They were going to mission-essential personnel only, and I was scheduled to fly out that night. They wanted me to go to Islamabad, but I refused because I had already upgraded to first class and wanted my pajamas.

I had no idea what was going on. They told us there was a different threat, so it was quite a surprise when I got home. I was jet-lagged and woke up at 11 p.m. to see President Obama announcing that we got him. It was surreal, knowing it happened so close to where I was. After that, I went back to Iraq for refresher training, which seemed a bit silly. I was assigned to Basra, Iraq, near the Iranian border, to help stand up a consulate and protection teams. I was the first one there, so I started learning the city by going out with the military before we fully deployed our teams.

While I was there, the Benghazi incident happened, where an American ambassador was killed. They made a movie about it called 13 Hours. My teams were supposed to be there, but someone decided to send DS agents from the States instead, who were upset about not getting their TDI money or the experience. Some of the GRS team members from the CIA are friends of mine; one lives locally, and the other is Tonto, who I was on a podcast with for a couple of episodes. After that, I decided I didn't want to be with the Diplomatic Security Service anymore due to the bureaucracies.

I came back to the U.S., went through a divorce, and applied for a job in Dubai. I moved to Dubai and worked in Abu Dhabi for 15 months. I preferred living in Dubai, so I had a long drive each day. Dubai is amazing, but after nearly ten years in the Middle East, it got old. Even Dubai is still a Muslim country with Sharia law. There are strict rules, like no public displays of affection and limited alcohol availability. The thing that turned me off was the reality of Sharia law. For example, there was a woman, a Filipino maid, who was raped by her employer. She got pregnant, but her husband was in the Philippines, so they convicted her of adultery. The punishment for adultery is stoning, though they wouldn't do it because of how it would look internationally. She was likely going to spend the rest of her life in prison.

Nicole Alicea: She was pregnant and in prison?

Eric Parker: Yes, and that happens over there. In Afghanistan, we visited a prison where women had their babies with them.

So, I was there for 15 months, and then the contract ended. That's when I decided to move back to the U.S. and started my own private investigations agency. It just snowballed from there.

Nicole Alicea: Let's talk about that. When people leave military service, they often go through a rough transition into civilian life. I can't relate, but I've heard from other veterans that it's challenging. I know you were with Blackwater, which is different from the military, but still, the transition can be tough. How would you describe your journey transitioning into regular civilian life?

I found a job listed as a "Custom Protection Officer." I went to job services because the internet was still new, and one of the qualifications was "former elite forces." I thought, "That's me." So, I applied, went through a security officer course, graduated, and ended up making $9 an hour guarding a construction site. All that cool military training, and that's what I was doing—nine bucks an hour.

Nicole Alicea: Like a rent-a-cop.

Eric Parker: Pretty much. But I tell everyone, if you're in the security industry and have half a brain, you'll rise to the top. Most people aren't in it for a career—maybe they're in college or retired and need extra income. But if you stick with it, there are professional certifications and growth opportunities. I focused on executive protection. I got my start in the industry working for the company I was with when I met you.

Nicole Alicea: In hindsight, it seems natural that you would move into private investigations and security, given your background. Can you tell me about your journey deciding to start your own company? That takes guts—to say, "I'm going to start my own company" instead of working for someone else. What was your thinking behind that decision?

Eric Parker: Well, the whole private investigation thing—I had my private investigator's license before I went to Iraq in the beginning. Because that’s the license you needed to do executive protection the way the statutes were written. You couldn’t just be a security officer. So, that was the first license I wanted to get back.

I was newly married again, so I needed to provide for my family, and that was the quickest way to start earning income. I was doing investigations a little bit, but then I saw protection jobs coming up. I would get those companies coming out of different states, and it just basically became a money thing. Even when I was in Iraq, at my heyday as a contractor, my rate was $630 a day, which is nice when you’re getting those seven days a week, 30 days a month—huge paychecks. One of the first jobs I worked out here was a workplace violence detail. They were paying me like 45 bucks an hour, 12-hour days, that’s $540 a day. It’s great money, but it’s in short stints. Then I started thinking, “I don’t ever want to be capped on how much money I can make a day.” The only way you’re going to do that is to be the boss. That’s when I created my school. I figured I could start training people so they’re all trained the same. I can vet them.

After I spend a week with you—and, I mean, it’s a rough week. I’m told I can be very intimidating, abrasive, and I don’t have a filter either, so I will make some very offensive comments. But I want to see how they respond. Because if I put you with a billionaire client, they are the most eccentric you can imagine. They will gaslight you just to see how you respond. They want to see a reaction from you. You have to be very neutral in this, as far as politics, religion, and so on. I’ve seen a lot of that, especially with guys coming back from doing what I used to do. I’ll see the anti-Muslim rhetoric, and I was just making a comment the other day to somebody. I said, “You know, it’s funny how saying ‘Merry Christmas’ is so taboo anymore.” But on my Facebook, all my Pakistani and Muslim friends, every year, the first thing they say is ‘Merry Christmas.’ How could that be so offensive? They respect my views, and I respect them. I always issue a ‘Happy Eid’ or ‘Ramadan.’ I try to be very respectful of everybody, regardless of ethnicity, color, or background.

I credit a lot of that to my time in Pakistan because when I was running missions, I was the only American. I was working with the Pakistanis, so I had to trust them with my life. I was very much trying to build a rapport with them. One thing I didn’t mention is that I went to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Irma. I had to fly in there with a client on a private jet. I had never been to Puerto Rico before. I understand they’re still recovering from that, but I’ll tell you what, in my time there, everybody was so nice. It’s hard to believe they had just gone through all that. It makes you start looking at people differently, and I think it makes you a better person as a whole.

Nicole Alicea: Yeah, you may not know, but I grew up in Puerto Rico. That’s where I’m from, but not everybody knows that. We are very warm, loving people. I don’t want to go off topic here, but when I went to USF, I specifically signed up for a “Racism in America” course because I literally did not understand racism. I knew about it, but in Puerto Rico, we don’t experience it the way it’s experienced here. I think that has to do with Puerto Ricans’ self-identity. When we describe where we’re from, we know that we are a mixture of the Spaniard who came to colonize the island, the Taíno Indians who were already there, and the African slaves. We all know that we are all three. So, you’ll see white Puerto Ricans, black Puerto Ricans, and brown Puerto Ricans because we’re a mix.

Eric Parker: I’ve got this saying that Americans are some of the most ignorant people in the world because they... Yeah, I’ve seen some stuff. I’ve been at a gas station with someone trying to use their Puerto Rican driver’s license as an ID, and they’re asked, “Do you have an American ID?” I’m sitting there, thinking, “Are you kidding me?”

Nicole Alicea: You know, I think part of the reason why some Americans can be ignorant has to do with the fact that our military has done such a wonderful job protecting our freedoms and our beautiful, peaceful way of life. The most tolerant people I’ve met are those who have gone through a lot of hardship or have dealt with things that are unbelievably unfair and unjust. That’s when you start to build character. Whereas if you’ve always had a very easy, peaceful life, you lose sight of the things that are important.

Alright, so you decided to start your own company. You were telling us about how it sounds like you’re testing a lot of their soft skills. What do you do in terms of their ability to handle a gun or shoot?

Eric Parker: Well, that’s a huge misconception of what we do. It’s all about identifying danger areas and mitigating threats. A lot of times, you’re not carrying a gun. I joke that Florida’s the “Gunshine State,” so I’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it. So all my guys carry. In fact, people ask me, “What’s your unarmed rate?” I tell them, “I only have one rate. All my guys are properly licensed to carry, so I’m not going to adjust the rate because of that. You either want quality or not.” You can always go to another mall and recruit those mall cops or whatever. I’ve got a team in South America right now, and they’re not armed, but they know the culture. They know how to navigate through things. That’s basically what we’re trying to do—identify threats and avoid them. It’s a huge planning process. It’s not just the guy standing next to the guy, protecting the guy. There’s a whole process that goes into it.

A lot of people ask, “What’s the best background? Prior military, prior law enforcement, or whatever?” I say, “A lot of times, it’s hospitality. How well do you deal with people?” Because it’s about talking to someone, being friendly with them. What people don’t understand, especially with law enforcement coming into mind and training with me, is that if you’re working in the private sector, you’re not a law enforcement officer. You don’t have any special authority. So I can’t go to a restaurant and start demanding things. I can’t say, “I need to see this, I need to see that; we’ve got a VIP coming in.” It’s private property, and if they don’t like you, they can tell you to leave. How would you like to go back and tell your client, “Well, we can’t go there because they don’t like us”? Your client’s probably going to be pretty upset and say, “Well, I’m going anyway.” So it’s all about building rapport and relationships. You need people who can actually talk to others, be respectful, speak intelligently, and have a professional appearance. You’ve got to look the part to play the part.

Nicole Alicea: So it’s all soft skills.

Eric Parker: Oh yeah, the majority of it. It’s probably more soft skills than hard skills.

Nicole Alicea: Cool.

Eric Parker: All right, so you decide you’re going to start up a school. The first thing you need to do is get people to sign up and establish credibility. How did you jump through that hoop of getting your first class to start and really convincing them that you had the chops?

Eric Parker: I offered 50% off. Partly joking. I did. It was severely discounted—I think it was 50% off for the first class because I wanted to get the pictures and stuff so I could start marketing with that. But I had to build my curriculum first. So I built it off my time doing domestic executive protection, my time doing high-threat contracting, my federal time with the Diplomatic Security Service, and then coming back and doing it again as a business owner. I built up my curriculum and decided to send it to three trusted people that I value in the industry, whose names are very well known. They all came back saying it looked great. Then I started pushing it out on social media, and believe it or not, it was Facebook. People can hate Facebook all they want, and I do. I wish I didn’t have to have it, but being a business owner, you have to. People talk about LinkedIn. LinkedIn sucks. It’s just not user-friendly. I use it, but Facebook and Facebook groups are where it’s at.

I did a couple of things. First, I started up my own groups, one specifically for Florida, one for anyone.

Nicole Alicea: What are they called in case somebody wants to join?

Eric Parker: Well, there’s a story behind it. I don’t have any admin authority anymore. I got hacked, and everything else, so other people run these groups now. But it was a free place I could advertise. So, I joined other groups, saw who was in there, and then I invited them to my group. That way, I could start pushing out all my content to them. You have to learn whose group is what, though, because some of these groups are run by people who own schools, so you don’t want to step on their toes. I tried to work well within the industry. I play it like Switzerland—I don’t go on the attack. I’m very big on loyalty and respect. As long as you’re being respectful to me, I’ll play nice. But if you try to downgrade me in any way, I’ll say, “Alright, here are my accolades. Let’s see yours. Let’s line our bona fides up next to each other.”

Nicole Alicea: And that led you to create another business or another business concept, a website with credentials. Can you tell me about that?

Eric Parker: Yeah, that’s the International Protection Hub. Basically, I saw people advertising work, and others would just tag people or say, “Hey, I’m available.” I thought, “Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just attach a link with your name on it?” So, you pay me to be a part of it. I put you on there, get your picture on it, and there’s a short bio of you. You can then post that link right in there. Some people ask, “Well, what if I have my LinkedIn? Can’t I just put my LinkedIn link in it?” The problem is you’ve got to be signed into LinkedIn, and a lot of people don’t have LinkedIn or don’t want to. I encourage them—I just want to see it. Of course, I want my students to join my protection hub, but I also tell them, “Look, get a LinkedIn profile.” Mine’s pretty elaborate. I was looking at it the other day and told them, “I think I have like 38 recommendations that people have written out. I’ve never seen anybody with that many.” One of them is from a U.S. ambassador, which I always thought was pretty cool when I was protecting her. She was a consul general, so that’s nice. I say, have it—you want to be treated like a professional, you’re going to be looked at as a professional. Do that.

Even when I started my Facebook, I already had one. And of course, you know me—I’ve had my wild days, especially with 10 years of contracting, you know, partying like a rock star. I’ve got a joke I tell all my students: “It was all about hookers and blow, hookers and blow.” And I’ve never done that in my life.

Nicole Alicea: Yeah, yeah. I was going to say, I’ve partied with you. There was no hookers and blow.

Eric Parker: No, I’ve never done it before, but I created a whole new Facebook just to interact with people, put a professional headshot on it, and stuff like that. Now, as I tell my students, "Do as I say, not as I do," because that Facebook got hacked. I lost everything, including control of all my groups, even my alumni group. Luckily, I had moderators in there. So, I’m back on my old one. People can see what I put on there. But I do tell them, “Look, I’m at a different place in my career where I can put out certain things, and it’s not going to affect me. I’m not looking for a job. My clients are usually aligned pretty much with my beliefs.” Most people just look at my background and say, “Wow, okay. Can we go shooting sometime?” But I tell people, “Just don’t get into arguments. It’s not worth it. It doesn’t make you look any better.”

Nicole Alicea: Going back to building credibility, you mentioned that Chris Ferrano from the 13 Hours is backing your stuff. How did you get him to back your stuff? How does he support it?

To me, a lot of the training out there was pre-9/11, kind of dated. People got comfortable with the courses they had, and they never evolved. The problem is, the bad guys are always evolving their tactics, so we have to keep up with theirs. So, we’ve got to evolve ours. Things happen, so that’s what I was hoping to do. I also didn’t want to create some really long, expensive course. I keep mine at five days and make it very affordable because, as I stated earlier, most people don’t know what they’re even getting into. I’ve watched people spend 30 grand on a course for a couple of months, and then they get into it and think, “This is the job?” It’s pretty non-gratifying at times, with long, long hours. I don’t believe you should go bankrupt just to get your feet wet and then decide it’s not for you. That’s another reason I don’t accept the GI Bill. I tell them, “Use that for a college degree, and don’t major in something like poetry or French.”

Nicole Alicea: The other tip you mentioned someone gave you when you were in Dubai was to go on LinkedIn and write articles as a subject matter expert. You said that worked out well for you?

Eric Parker: I did, because it gave me name recognition in the groups, the Facebook groups. What I would do is write an article on something I know or an event that took place, and then share the article in the Facebook groups. It establishes me as a subject matter expert—the guy who’s talking on it, I’m the authority. Since then, I’ve been interviewed by news crews and such. I just got a thing—I was interviewed by a Japanese newspaper, which was a recommendation from an ambassador. She contacted me out of D.C., asking if I’d be interested, and I said, “Absolutely.” So, we did the interview. It was about a year and a half ago, when the former Japanese Prime Minister was assassinated. We went over what they could have done better and what went wrong. It was nice because she sent me the actual newspaper when it came in, along with a thank you card. It’s all done up, but it’s all in Japanese, so I can’t even see my name. But at least there’s a little thank you card. So, that’s in the file.

Nicole Alicea: The last time you were in the news was because you took a guy down on an airplane.

Eric Parker: Yeah. There’s an ongoing joke about me being a “shit magnet.” I talk about it a lot. I mean, down to the time I was teaching a class in Arizona—I went out to smoke a cigarette on a break, and I had just been telling the class, “I’m a shit magnet,” when some girl was being abducted in the parking lot. I ran out there, and there were two big guys. One of them was trying to get her in the car, the other guy was trying to pull her out, and another guy was in the driver’s seat. So, I yelled to the class, and I told the front desk at the hotel to call the police. These were big guys, too. I was just trying to make sure they didn’t get her in the car. My whole class came out, and the cops were there within minutes. Turns out, it was a domestic thing. The estranged husband or boyfriend was at the hotel, trying to grab his wife and take her back.

Nicole Alicea: So you didn’t run out like a hero and get involved. You called, you said to call the police.

Eric Parker: No, I did get involved. I got in between them and realized these were some big boys. That’s when I thought, “Yeah, it would be better for me to run to the lobby and say, ‘Call the police.’” Even the plane story—so, I was at a Blackwater Reunion in Dallas, Texas. This was two years ago. It was a very, very drunken weekend, as you can imagine. So, by the time I got to the airport, I was just drinking ginger ale and got on my plane. I was sitting in first class because I’m bougie like that, and I’ve got a bad back. I was in row four. We were at 36,000 feet, and they turned the seatbelt sign off. They had just brought me another ginger ale. I was getting my laptop out when I watched this guy stroll up to the front of the first-class area. He had a hoodie on and was kind of wobbling, almost like he was carrying something and having a hard time with it. So, I immediately started watching the flight attendant. She was in front of the cockpit door, and I could see her face changing with her micro-expressions. She had one hand up—I found out later she was hitting the emergency button for the other flight attendants to come assist—and her other hand was in front of her, giving the universal sign for stop. She was saying, “Sir, sir, sir.”

So, I’m watching this, and he hasn’t done anything to her yet. He paused right at row one, where a lady was sitting in seat 1B, right on the aisle. She started screaming bloody murder. For all I know, he’s got a severed head he’s holding right there. So, I jumped over the guy—I was in the window seat—and got behind him. He didn’t see me coming, but I didn’t want to just grab him blindly, not knowing what he had in his hand. I kind of looked around his shoulder, and he had basically exposed himself and was urinating all over the female passenger in the aisle and everything else. So, I did what’s called a break-el stun. I hit him in the side of the neck, which basically knocks you out. It drops you for a brief second. As he was falling down, I put my arm underneath his and tried to get under his chin, but I ended up busting his lip to choke him out. I flipped him over so now we’re facing the aft of the plane, all while I’m still trying to grab his jeans and pull them up over him because he’s exposed. I choked him out, and I thought for a minute, “Did I screw up?” Then I looked back, and the flight attendant just put her hands up like, “What do you need from me?” I said, “Thank goodness, I’m good.” She jumped back. I said, “Notify the pilots. They’re probably going to want to divert.” And we did. We diverted to New Orleans. I was just thinking, “Dude, New Orleans is not a good place to go to jail. That’s a bad place.”

So, the cops came on the plane. I went back to my seat. They duct-taped him up and put him in row eight.

Nicole Alicea: Yeah, I have a question. Where did you get the duct tape from?

Eric Parker: The flight attendants.

Nicole Alicea: Oh, they handed it to you?

Eric Parker: Yeah, they asked me to sit in row eight with him. They’re like, “We cleared it out. Would you mind sitting with him?” I said, “Do you have any zip ties? But they had "binding tape," but it’s duct tape.

Nicole Alicea: Did they ever ask you who you were?

Eric Parker: Oh, yeah.

Nicole Alicea: And what did you say?

Eric Parker: Well, I mean... Parker. Yes. Don’t you know? Shit magnet. Eric Parker, the shit magnet. So, I sat down with the guy, and a guy who was previously sitting there—a lot bigger guy than me—said, “Hey, I don’t mind sitting here. This was my seat.” I’m like, “Absolutely, I want to go back to where I paid to be.” So, I got back up there. We landed, and the cops came on board to take him off. The cop was standing at the front, talking to the flight attendant, and she was pointing back at my row.

Well, the guy next to me—he’s a lot bigger than me, everyone’s bigger than me—starts talking to the cop. The guy’s like, “No, dude, it was him.” And the cop looks at me, and I’m wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Afghanistan on it that says, All for What? I’ve got on a pair of jeans with a hole in the knee and flip-flops. My toenails are painted black. And the cop’s like, “Alright, get off the plane. Come on, come on.” So, he takes me off onto the jetway. He’s like, “Normally, we’d want you to stay here, but they could call you if they need anything. They might still need to record a statement if they need to.” So, I couldn’t get back on the plane or back to my seat because all the cleaners were on board by then.

The captain came out, shook my hand and everything. The flight attendant was going off, saying, “I was hitting the alarm, and nobody was responding. I can’t understand it. Thank you for actually getting up and doing something.” I told her, “Well, out of the corner of my eye, there was a guy in the back, one row behind me and over. I saw him unbuckling his seatbelt. So, I think he would have helped if I hadn’t gotten up there—I was just closer and quicker.” He actually helped me get the guy up after I duct-taped his arms behind his back and put him in the seat.

When I was getting off the plane, I just wanted to get off. I flew back into Tampa. My flight was delayed. I was supposed to have a ride—my daughter’s mom was going to pick me up, but now it was going to be too late, and my daughter was going to be in bed. So, I told her I’d Uber home to my place. As I was getting off the plane, one guy behind me was like, “Where’d you learn that karate move?” And I was like, “Yeah, karate move.” But while I was sitting there waiting for my luggage, it was kind of awkward because everyone was pointing and looking at me, you know? They were all like, “Who’s the badass?” Everyone was staring at me. When I looked up in the aisle, everyone was just looking out from their seats, and I’m on the floor, and there’s not a lot of room between those seats.

Nicole Alicea: You’re like Liam Neeson!

Eric Parker: Everyone’s like, “Who’s this guy?” Yeah, I wish. But one lady did come up to me and said, “I’m 69 years old, and I was telling my husband, thank God there are men like you who actually step up.” She’s like, “I mean, there are men everywhere. They’re blossoming everywhere, if you know what I mean.” I just started laughing.

Nicole Alicea: Well, you know, you knew what to do. And not everybody has the training. Going back to Liam Neeson, not everybody has those special skills. You knew how to handle the situation. I think any situation like that is terrifying for a layperson.

Eric Parker: Well, I’ve got a philosophy, you know, and I’ve done a lot of case studies and things like that. You can’t win a fight unless you get in the fight. At the end of the day, I’m going home to my daughter, my kids. I’ve studied things like the Pulse nightclub shooting. There’s no reason that many people should have died. I’ve got a lot of gay friends, some of them really big. A buddy of mine was a Navy SEAL. All it would have taken was a few of them to rush that one single shooter and take him out, just bludgeon him to death. But people don’t know how to do that anymore. They get caught up in conflict avoidance and run. But sometimes, you actually have to get your hands dirty.

Nicole Alicea: You need to be trained. Without training, you...

Eric Parker: No, you don’t. A guy who wrestled in high school—I guarantee he can still take somebody down. Played football in high school or something like that. A lot of times, it’s just being able to react. It takes one person to rally everyone else and get them going. Once they get that encouragement, then you just rush. And I guarantee you, maybe you get shot, but running at somebody might result in non-life-threatening wounds that can be treated. They could have gotten that guy under control. Very sad.

Nicole Alicea: So, are you suggesting that if something is going on around you, have the courage to be fearless and rally other people to bring the perpetrator down?

Eric Parker: Think of it like United Flight 93. They heard what was going on. Back in the day when hijackings were going on, you were taught to just cooperate—they’re not going to blow up the plane. They’re going to land somewhere, negotiations are going to take place, and we’re all going to get home free or something. I tell my students, when I was growing up, if you get yourself dated a little bit, the guy with his hand in the paper bag like it’s a gun, or his hand in his shirt saying, “Stick ‘em up,” you were just taught to give them what they wanted. It’s not like that anymore. People lose their moral compasses. There are so many senseless shootings that go on.

Nicole Alicea: I’m asking for real advice. Obviously, you’ve been in many situations where you’ve had cortisol just pumping in your system. I would imagine that you have felt fear. How do you overcome that overwhelming sense of fear that paralyzes most people?

Eric Parker: I don’t know. I guess it’s just muscle memory. I’ve had people say it—I’ve been interviewed, and I said, “Everybody I know is like me and would have done something.” Ever since 9/11, I’ve always sat there and thought, “What would I do?” I play that what-if game. I do that in a lot of places I’m at. That’s just how I am.

Nicole Alicea: And I think now is an appropriate time to just kind of switch over because you’re making it sound like, “That’s just how I am.” It takes a special kind of person to get into your line of work. It takes a special kind of person to go to combat, you know, and then come back. So, when you paint your nails black, does that have to do with suicide awareness?

Eric Parker: Yeah, it’s to honor all my brothers who are no longer here. It’s a constant reminder for myself. I deal with my own stuff.

Nicole Alicea: Can you share a little bit about that topic?

Eric Parker: Well, you mentioned, you know, the—I don’t know, you used some word. I don’t know what that is... Cortisol or whatever.

Nicole Alicea: Cortisol.

Eric Parker: Yeah, like your stress hormone. I’m just going to go with adrenaline.

Nicole Alicea: Yeah, it comes from your adrenal glands.

Eric Parker: Again, Army guy. You know, day in and day out, when you’re peaking that much, where it’s just a constant rush every single day, and you get back. I hit on it a little bit earlier—getting out of the military, I basically just went and drank beer at Hooters and stuff. You know, it wasn’t those highs and lows. My combat tour was four months long in Somalia. But then I was trying to tally it up the other day, and I think I did 22 tours between Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. So, it’s a constant. We were running missions every day, with the thought of getting blown up. I ran up on this stuff. And I tell my friends, I’ve never been scared going into a gunfight. I want to get in that fight so bad because I know I’m going to help my friends. They’ve been ambushed. We’re going to get in that fight, and we’re going to bring them home.

Through that Nisour Square thing, I had my first experience of really getting scared because we did a standoff with the Iraqi police, and I was so exposed. When you’ve got time to think about it, you see all these guns pointed at you, and I’ve got no cover. I’m exposed from the waist up in a turret. I joke around, I said, “You couldn’t have got a greased BB up my ass,” because I’ve got time to think about it.

But when it's going on, you don't have time to think about it. I've seen grown men curl up in the fetal position. I've watched females. It's not a male thing, it's not a female thing, it's either you’ve got that will to fight and people that don't want to. You might think you don’t want to,

but you know you've got a little girl; you know that mama bear would come out if somebody grabbed onto that girl. I guarantee it.

Nicole Alicea: Well, we were driving to Fort Lauderdale this past weekend, and on the way, we were on the road in Florida. From the opposite direction, there was a line of cars just waiting for the light to turn. We were driving in the other direction, heading down, and out of nowhere, a car just kind of came in. I guess they were trying to cross this double yellow line, but she didn’t see us, and we didn’t see them. My daughter’s in the back seat, my husband slams on the brakes—thank God the car stopped. I screamed really loudly, and then I felt overwhelming anger. All I wanted to do was get out of my car, grab that girl, and just punch her in the face. And you know, anybody who knows me—that’s just not the kind of aggression they would even imagine I have inside of me. Would I do it for real? Probably not. But did I want to? Absolutely. And it was a mom moment. All I was thinking was, "You’re so effing stupid. My family is in the car. My daughter’s in the car. You’re such an idiot." I really just wanted to bust her face open.

Eric Parker: I tell everybody, you don’t know what true love is until you’ve had a child.

Nicole Alicea: That’s right.

Eric Parker: There’s nothing I won’t do. I’ll spend the rest of my life in prison if it means somebody’s hurt my child. I will just do very, very bad things to them. I’ve had a great life.

Nicole Alicea: Yeah. What I’ve said—which is, again, such an underhanded insult to everyone I’ve known, everyone in my life—is that when I had my daughter, it made me realize I had never loved anyone or anything before that point. I don’t know what that was when I was saying, "I love you" or "I feel like I love you" or whatever. No, that was not love. I don’t know what that was. But now, I know what love is. Absolutely.

Eric Parker: So, we were talking about the highs and lows. I think that’s where a lot of guys have a hard time coming back from—20 years in the global war on terror and stuff. We try to find some statistics. I mean, we’ve lost so many on the contracting side. I just found out about two that I didn’t even know about. I think it’s from going at such a high tempo for so long, and then you come back, and it’s just... and people need to find new purpose. I see it all the time—“Hey, if you need somebody, reach out to me,” and it’s not even like that. It’s like, once the decision’s made to do it, you’re going to do it.

Nicole Alicea: I would imagine they wrap up a lot of their self-identity in that. And then when they lose that identity, that purpose, that function—because now they’re just, again, living a normal civilian life—there’s a little bit of, "Who am I? What am I doing? What’s my purpose?" What keeps you focused?

Eric Parker: My kids. My eight-year-old daughter... I seriously don’t know where I’d be without her. But work, you know, I focus on that. I’ve got a lot of responsibilities, a lot of people who depend on me. So, I’m always trying to find that next thing. But every once in a while, I’ll jump back into the mix. Last year, I protected Senator Marco Rubio at a fundraising event here in Tampa.

Nicole Alicea: And you did it yourself?

Eric Parker: I had a couple of my guys with me, but I was assigned to him. I’ve got a nice picture with him on the move—I don’t pose with clients. And we did it pro bono. He was at my cigar bar, so I told the owner of the cigar bar, "We’ll handle this for you." She was like, “Oh, thank you.” Which was great because he did have a stalker, and the stalker did show up, so we handled that guy. And it does make me feel better when I’m doing it, but my body is just not like what it used to be. I had some opportunities when the Haitian president was assassinated—his widow. I got contacted about going back to Haiti with her to escort her for the funeral, be part of a team. It was nice that I got that call and was thought of. It was all government-sanctioned and everything, but the problem was, you know, with my schedule, having a young daughter, I pick her up from school a lot. They didn’t know how long it was going to be—seven to ten days. And that’s the other thing, too. I tell guys, I’m playing the long game. If I’m out of the country or doing something like that, who’s handling my clients?

Nicole Alicea: Right. Well, you’re training guys now, so they can take on those types of opportunities. You’re leaving a legacy, versus letting the work die with you. If anybody is a veteran or has needs, or is struggling in any way, what are some resources you can recommend to them?

Eric Parker: You know, I really don’t use any of the resources. I’ve got my own things, and I understand that everyone has PTSD to a certain degree. I wish they would rename it because everything is encompassed under this PTSD label. You could be a rape victim, you could have been in a tragic car accident that gave you trauma, and so I wish they would have something like Combat Stress Disorder that distinguishes combat veterans from other things. That’s why I don’t go to these group treatments and stuff, because I don’t want to hear about anybody else’s problems. It makes me sad. Plus, I can’t relate. I’m one of those people—I don’t talk to people I don’t know. And if I don’t have anything in common with you, we’ve got nothing to talk about. I’ve asked people to go to the other side of the bar before because they wouldn’t shut up. It affects me adversely. The other day, a friend of mine invited me to his retirement party. He’s been a longtime family friend. The retirement party was at the church I grew up in, and I’m not a religious person—I don’t go to church. But I wanted to go, especially when his wife invited me. It happened to be his birthday; he was turning 64, 65. So, I really wanted to be there. But when I got there, I didn’t know anybody, and it felt so awkward. Even his wife, she was trying to introduce me to people, being nice, but I just felt so uncomfortable around people I don’t know. I ended up walking out and leaving. I sent her a message, saying, “I’m sorry, but I get sensory overload. I just don’t know what to do.” That’s part of what I deal with, part of my trauma.

Nicole Alicea: That sounds very opposite to some of the missions you were describing earlier. I would have sensory overload. I absolutely would not be cut out for any of that.

Eric Parker: But it’s different for work. If I’m on the clock, I know I’m getting paid, and it’s my job to engage, then I have no problems doing that. I’ll engage anybody, tell them what to do. It’s just that downtime. The other thing is, when I was living there, we had little tiny trailers. So, I’m used to a little tiny single bed with a little desk, a TV, a wall locker where I put my clothes, and a mini-fridge. That’s what I lived in. Sometimes, I think it would be so nice just to have one of those and live in it. So, I got used to being alone, and I’m okay with being alone. I don’t like crowds. I went to see one of my former students, who’s on tour with a celebrity. He asked, “Hey, do you want to go to the show?” I said, “Okay, I kind of like the guy. I like his music.” He says, “I’ll get you a plus one.” I said, “Can I get a plus two? Because I’m with two people right now.” So, I brought the two girls I was with to the show. I asked him, “Where are you going to put us?” He said, “Backstage.” He said, “This is where you’re going to enjoy it the most.” I don’t do crowds, so he put us with the soundboard manager. We sat there, and it was all gated up or fenced up. So, he opened the gate and said, “These guys are cool,” and put us in there, so I didn’t have people knocking into me or anything else.

Nicole Alicea: I would imagine you're really on guard when there are a lot of people around because you can’t help but be hyper-aware or hypervigilant, and you just can’t relax.

Eric Parker: Yeah, yeah. I go down to Ybor sometimes, but it’s not like the old days.

Nicole Alicea: Oh, Ybor. I can’t do that. Gasparilla? No way.

Eric Parker: Good old Ybor. Yeah. I went there—I say the other day, but this was like 10 years ago—and I was like, they look like children standing in line. They still have those little round foreheads. I thought, "Is that what I looked like?"

Nicole Alicea: You should have seen me at that concert when I met the singer, Kid Laroi. He’s 20 years old. I told him, "I was probably your oldest fan in the audience. I’m 50 years old." And he was like, "Whoa, that’s cool! No way."

Eric Parker: Hey, I had someone ask me if my daughter was my granddaughter.

Nicole Alicea: I get that all the time with mine. "Is that your granddaughter?" I’m like, "No, that’s my daughter."

Eric Parker: Yeah, as a woman, and I’m 41 now—back then I was either 39 or 40. I had to take her back. She was a little girl. Otherwise, I would have wanted to smack that person in the face, but no. Alright.

So, the name of your company is Red Variable Concepts?

Nicole Alicea: Red Variable Concepts. Alright. And then for business owners, you guys do workplace violence protection detail, correct? Can you explain briefly what that is?

Eric Parker: Basically, it’s for when you do hostile terminations, someone’s made threats, or if someone gets fired and says, "I’m going to come back and kill everybody." We’ll put people in there to make sure they keep a nice, safe workplace, which they’re required to do by OSHA.

Nicole Alicea: And you stalk the person, basically? Keep tabs on them, make sure they’re not planning anything?

Eric Parker: We just start looking into the person, you know. That’s part of being an investigative agency. If someone makes threats, then we can start looking into that. I don’t want to give away all our tradecraft.

Nicole Alicea: Well, I mean, the stalking is pretty, like...

Eric Parker: Usually, once we go in there, we’ll work with human resources and make sure that we’re all aligned because sometimes they have a different approach. A lot of times, they want a uniformed guy in there, and we’re like, "That’s the wrong thing to do." You want to stay undercover, stay under the radar.

Nicole Alicea: You also handle hostile terminations. So, if you’re worried, you can...

Eric Parker: Yeah, in today’s day and age, a lot of people just don’t like to take chances. So they’ll have someone on standby to help escort the person being let go out of the building. And it’s a tough thing because you never know what someone’s got going on in their life as well. Maybe they’re slacking at work because of something going on at home, so you have to have some empathy towards these people. Maybe they go home at night and are treated like crap by their spouse, which causes them to self-medicate, drink, and you know, the wife talks down to them. "You screw up one more time, I’m going to take the kids and go live with my parents." So, he knows he’s getting terminated, and that’s what he’s going to go home to. That makes people react, but it also makes them spout off things. We need to determine if it’s actually a valid threat or just someone venting.

Nicole Alicea: That’s such a tough call to make. You also do threat and vulnerability assessments?

Eric Parker: Yes.

Nicole Alicea: So, if someone wanted to secure their building or their facility, you handle that?

Eric Parker: Correct. Residences, things like that.

Nicole Alicea: And you also do active shooter response plans?

Eric Parker: Correct.

Nicole Alicea: Which is getting a plan in place in case there’s an active shooter?

Eric Parker: Yes.

Nicole Alicea: If people wanted to get in touch with you, what’s the best way for them to reach you for your training, executive protection, or any of your services?

Eric Parker: Probably email. Eric, E-R-I-C, Valt—like a bank vault—MG at gmail.com. And then I’ll respond back from the particular company that offers the services. But that’s my overall one.

Nicole Alicea: And again, tell me your three—well, it’s not really three companies, it’s two companies, right, for the general public?

Eric Parker: Yeah, it’s Red Variable Concepts, which is my security consulting and investigations agency. So if you need to hire a bodyguard, as some people like to say, or want protection for something, that’s who you’d go through. For the guys who are already in the industry, it’s Select International—that’s my training school. We’re doing some revamping because we just shut down the main training center and are doing it mobile now, on location at various places. So, we’re cutting back on some courses and probably adding some more.

Nicole Alicea: Very cool. Well, thank you, Eric, so much. It’s been such an unbelievable honor to be with you today. I’m so glad I got to meet your daughter. She’s lovely. I’ve been following you on Facebook for years, and she’s such a sweetheart. She’s been so well-behaved. You haven’t heard a peep from her because she’s been super quiet. Such a good job. Alright. Well, thank you so much, Eric. I really appreciate it.

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, help is available. Call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. For veterans, press 1 after calling 988. Remember, reaching out is a sign of strength. You are not alone. Thanks for listening to Create Brand NV.

Be sure to subscribe wherever you heard this podcast so you never miss a future episode. Brand NV is an integrated marketing and advertising agency that helps brands innovate while maintaining their focus and identity. To learn more or to get in touch with Nicole, visit CreateBrandNV.com. That’s Create Brand and the letters N V dot com. We’ll see you next time.