A Veteran’s Perspective: Ontic’s Mission and the Parallels to the Marine Corps

With the birthday of the United States Marine Corps today and Veterans Day tomorrow, it’s important to take a step back and reflect on the contributions of veterans in serving and protecting our country. However, for many veterans, their service takes on an even bigger meaning — it has shaped the careers they have chosen.

Here at Ontic, we are honored to have three Marine Corps veterans on our team working each day to help make businesses safer by serving intelligence to those who protect: 

Conor Camicia, Director of Business Development — Enlisted E5, Sergeant of Marines. Stationed at Camp Pendleton, CA and served two tours overseas in Afghanistan. First tour served as a MK-19 gunner on a fuel truck. Second tour served as a Corporal of Supply & Logistics.

Travis Lishok, Senior Manager of Security Intelligence — Enlisted Military Police Marine in the USMCR. Stationed at MCAS Miramar, as part of the 4th Law Enforcement Battalion.

Scott Shepherd, Chief Legal Officer — Served in a variety of assignments and deployed around the globe while on active duty (1986-1991) and in the Reserves (1992-2008). Leadership positions ranged from a 5-man Firepower Control Team to a 90-man Reconnaissance Company to a 225-man Support Company. 

Read what they have to say about how their military experiences have influenced their lives and why they landed at Ontic.

Q: Why Ontic? 

A: The veterans at Ontic know from their days of service that there is no straight line to keeping people and assets safe. Whether you are protecting a company or our country, the risk of unknown threats to throw a plan off path is always present. 

Conor shares, “Being able to play a role in helping protect innocent people from physical attacks provides me a disproportionately large amount of fulfillment in return. When people feel safe, businesses run without interruptions, output is higher, and quality of work increases. I’m proud to work for a company that helps maintain business continuity for some of the largest companies in the world by protecting their most valued assets — their people.” 

The fact that Ontic has transformed  protection is also a major appeal to veterans, enabling corporate security teams to shift to a proactive, always-on security mindset.  This standard of protection has “the opportunity to help shape how our peers in the security space protect assets — and do it better than the way we’ve always done things,” Travis explains.  

Q: Describe how the Ontic mission compares to the mission of your work while serving in the Marine Corps? 

A: Ontic’s mission of “serving intelligence to those who protect” hits home on many levels to those who have served in the military. The feeling of wishing you knew more as an incident is unfolding is visceral to many who have been on the front lines. Scott shares, “At a macro-level, the military exists to protect our country and our people…” so it’s no surprise that he’s motivated by Ontic’s ability to surface the critical knowledge needed for clients to assess and act on more threats in order to keep people safe. 

Marines have internally adopted the slogan of “Improvise. Adapt. Overcome,” and the intelligence that Ontic’s platform surfaces empowers an iterative approach that is familiar to many veterans. Conor adds, “It has allowed our clients to efficiently  and effectively change procedures on-the-fly in accordance with rapidly evolving and expanding threat landscapes.” This ability to confidently assess and pivot when needed is ingrained in his work from his days being active in the Marine Corps.  

Q: What is one thing you still incorporate into your workouts for the sake of nostalgia?

A: Having a pull-up bar handy is a sure way to bring back memories of fitness tests in the Marine Corps. Scott remembers General Chesty Puller as an icon in the USMC and, by tradition, would often do one more push-up or pull-up “for Chesty.”  To this day, whenever he does push-ups (sometimes working out with his teenage daughters), he’ll always do “one more for Chesty.” (His daughters are rarely amused.)  

Travis and Conor miss the hikes — but these aren’t leisurely hikes with breaks for granola bars. Travis incorporates his own 60-lb “Go Ruck” sandbag. Yes, he’s gotten some odd looks from people while hiking, and sometimes some double takes when he’s with one of his friends who also has a sandbag over his shoulder. Conor has supplemented his yearning for battalion hikes with ultra-running and has completed a 33 mile run through the Umpqua National Forest in Oregon. 

The experience and motivation that Conor, Travis, and Scott bring to work elevate each of us here at Ontic as we work towards our important mission of making businesses safer by serving intelligence to those who protect. For more information on Ontic’s mission, please visit https://ontic.co/