Secret Service member speaks at Rotary Club, school

“It is–and it isn’t–what you see in the movies,” comments 2009 Waseca High School graduate Caleb Davies, whose post-secondary education in criminal justice led to his current career with the Secret Service.

 

Davies provided presentations both at some Waseca High School classes and for the Waseca Rotary Club on Thursday, April 16.

 

Having been with the Secret Service since 2016, Davies stated his job has better and worse elements, but the more enjoyable ones outweigh the undesirable ones.

 

He made the decision to seek the job during his early career, he said, because he sees it as a way to genuinely serve and “give back” to society.

 

Among the positive elements of his role, he listed a wide variety of opportunities. At the current time, he is working out of a Twin Cities office where his primary focus is the agency’s original assignment–the one Abraham Lincoln created it for–the investigation of counterfeit currency. Other divisions working out of the same building, he said, scan the internet for evidence of various crimes, focusing closely on international crimes against children.

 

He admits he “nerds out” when it comes to detecting counterfeit money and trying to locate and charge individuals and agencies who commit the crime.

 

He explained “field agents” like himself can also find themselves drawn back into the more famous role of security and protection. “This past weekend I was part of an operation in Miami,” he told the Rotarians. “I found myself standing in a stairwell for 12 hours.”

 

During other security operations, he has found himself in the movie-scene-like settings the public is more familiar with–standing within feet of presidents or national leaders, constantly assessing the vicinity for any threats and ready to respond at a moment’s notice.

 

During Donald Trump’s first term, one of his primary assignments was protecting the Jared and Ivanka Trump family; the couple has three children. His role was to be in the family’s company, including transporting the children to school and back. He mentioned being almost like part of the family, even helping the children learn to ride bicycles.

 

While on Jill Biden’s protection detail, part of his job was to spend time in college classrooms, since Biden was a college instructor. She also went on trips to locations around the world; being part of the team that traveled with her afforded Davies the opportunity to visit noteworthy locations.

 

He mentioned he keeps a world map at home, and takes pleasure in putting a pushpin into each new location he’s visited.

 

He also described some less pleasant aspects of the job, including a time when he was on protection detail outside a then-unoccupied house. A woman he described as “mentally unwell” approached his parked vehicle, said that she had been watching him and noting his activities, and tried getting access into the house. Davies said her behavior was attracting attention to a point where people were watching and even filming the exchange. Moments like that, and being positioned in a stairwell for  hours on end, he joked, might be enough to make a secret service agent “question your career choices.”

 

When it comes to what Davies called “forward operations,” that is, times when a team must go ahead of a traveling dignitary to ensure safety during a trip, Davies mentioned that the Secret Service team relies heavily on local law enforcement. Their knowledge of their landscape, their local residents, and of potential hazards make them invaluable as partners in the operation.

 

For anyone considering a career with the Secret Service, Davies said the pay for a starting agent is about $130,000 a year  “for what we do and for what we might be called upon to do.”

 

But the path to employment is not an easy one. “The application process usually takes about 9 months,” he described. He mentioned the first step is to take a specialized test. For those who do well, there is a “panel interview,” and then again, for those who pass muster, there is a “polygraph test” apparently meant to measure how well candidates handle stress in tense situations. Davies said his polygraph test lasted four hours–and was considered short. Other agents told him of polygraph interviews that lasted 8 hours or even went into a second day. “They’re designed to be uncomfortable,” Davies observed. 

 

He also described how, over the long term, agents tend to be cycled into and then out of the high-stress protection roles and the lower stress field agent positions.

 

“The mission never ends,” he observed, but then pointed out how one’s role in the mission tends to change.

 

“We’re part of it, whatever role we take,” he said.