So, I was supposed to go to the Marine Corps War Fighting Lab as the Naval Advisor for amphibious operations. And as you can imagine, when we're sending our mass amount of Marine Corps forces into Iraq, we needed to give them the proper tools for the counter IED defeat. Byung Hee: Well, so in the Marine Corps, I was at the Marine Corps War Fighting Laboratory, which is kind of like the, fast acting research and development, testing and evaluation to try to get technology out to the Marine Corps as quickly as possible. Did S&T kind of fall in line shortly after that, or how did you come to get to know about the Science and Technology Directorate? It was early on in my, in my Navy career. And then, you know, when we started sending forces to Iraq, they started ramping up counter IED program all over to DOD. Actually, it didn't come into light and it didn't really take off until Afghanistan. It was something that wasn't a big program within the Department of Defense. And, I was assigned a program manager for counter IED, which back in 2003, it was fairly new. And this is when we were doing the Iraq surge, uh, the beginning of the Iraq war.

I started off in the military and, it's through the Navy and also working for the Marine Corps that I was exposed to the counter IED field. Byung Hee: Oh, well, I mean, it's really simple, honestly. So, how did you get interested into this kind of work? Was it later on in life? Was it through perhaps like another primary career you had already started? I'm just kind of curious about your origin story. Being a doctor, every Asian parent aspires to that.

And if that falls through, then, I'll be a doctor. So, I was thinking, huh, astronaut might be good. There's a lot of anime in Korea when I was a kid. And, I remember watching a lot of scifi films, and, uh, anime. Byung Hee: Well, you know, it was, I grew up in Korea. Deepak: What inspired you to want to be an astronaut? I feel like, when we were kids, there was so much, with NASA and the movies that were coming out. I think I wanted to be an astronaut, not dealing with bombs. So, let's go to when you were a child, did you always imagine as a little five-year-old Byung Hee, that you would one day work, in this type of work? So, I'm excited to learn all about that Byung Hee, but before we get into that, I want to take you way back. At S&T we take a really collaborative approach to address IED response and capability gaps for federal, state and local bomb technicians.

So, for anyone listening, who might not know, REDOPS stands for response and defeat operation support, which is R&D for bomb squads. Today, I'm joined by Byung Hee Kim, a program manager for REDOPS in the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate. I'm one of your hosts, Deepak, or Dee Saini.

Welcome to this episode of Technologically Speaking. Join me and meet the science and technology experts on the front lines, keeping America safe. You can call me Dee, and I work for the Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate, or S & T as we call it. Guest: Byung Hee Kim, Program Manager for REDOPS at the Science and Technology Directorate Technologically Speaking Transcript: The Bomb Squad Is Not an Afterthought

Bomba squad