Justin Cowdin (’22): Senior Microelectronics Analyst

“The book learning at IWP is great, but you learn so much from interactions with professors and students. You get such diverse backgrounds at IWP, with students working all across the Intelligence Community and defense.”
-Justin Cowdin (’22)

Justin Cowdin (’22) was laser-focused on joining the Intelligence Community (IC). After obtaining a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) clearance during his Army service, he enrolled at IWP to further his knowledge in this area. The week before beginning classes, he was hired by SAIC as a facilities manager. As he completed his M.A. in Strategic Intelligence Studies, he became more qualified for other positions within the IC. He now serves as a Senior Microelectronics Analyst, where he impacts microelectronics strategy for the U.S. Navy.

Please tell us a little about your background.

I grew up in Northern Virginia and went straight to Virginia Commonwealth University, where I triple majored in criminal justice, homeland security, and political science. I studied in Guatemala and worked with indigenous communities there.

After graduating, I tried to find jobs in federal law enforcement or the IC, but I didn’t yet have enough experience to be competitive for these roles.

I enlisted in the Army as an infantryman, where I was lucky to get a TS/SCI clearance. I attended infantry school at Ft. Benning Georgia (now Ft. Moore) and was stationed in Alaska.

When I finished my contract of three and a half years, I moved back to Virginia to begin my M.A.

How did you decide to attend IWP?

I had a strong goal of getting into the IC. That was all I wanted to do in life. IWP offered the most specific program in intelligence that I could find. It had everything I wanted.

It was a big change going from a bachelor’s degree to a master’s. In a bachelor’s program, the teachers are usually professors but not career experts. In my M.A. program, I was studying with real professionals. Prof. Sano rose to the top of the CIA, and Dr. Chodakiewicz is a world-renowned writer. They are masters of their fields. IWP brought real subject matter expertise to the classroom.

It’s hard to find that for the IC, and IWP does it really well.

How did you know you wanted a career in the IC?

My dad is a car salesman. When I was about 16 years old, he sold a car to someone who worked in the FBI and had taken down a mafia boss.

When my dad told him I was interested in law enforcement and the military, he offered to take us on a private tour of the FBI facility at Quantico. We got to go through the town where they do live operations with method actors playing the victims, and we visited the range and the helicopter area.

I thought it was so cool that they were taking down bad guys, and this became my driving factor. When I did my B.A., I did everything focused on getting into that world. At first, I was primarily interested in federal law enforcement, and later I discovered a love for intelligence.

When did you get your first job within the IC?

I started working pretty much the month that I started at IWP. I wasn’t planning on doing it that way!

When I came back to Virginia, I had been planning to live off the GI Bill. I put my resume on Indeed and made myself searchable. I got a call from SAIC, one of the largest defense contractors. They were looking for someone with a TS/SCI to manage their facilities in the Chantilly area.

I agreed to interview with them but let them know I was starting a graduate program that very week. During the interview, they offered me the job on the spot. They agreed to accommodate my school schedule, which involved going into D.C. at night.

What was your schedule like working and going to school?

I got up at 4:00 AM and got to the office by 5:00. I worked for eight hours and took the metro to IWP. I would read before class. I had class from 6:30-9:30 PM and got home at 11:30 PM.

I did that for a year and a half before burning out. I was still trying to go to the gym and see my son, who was three years old at the time. I pushed my classes back a bit, so it took me a little longer to graduate.

Tell us a little more about your first job at SAIC.

I managed all the facilities in the Chantilly area and served as a liaison between the program managers for the agencies who used these facilities and SAIC. I worked with the program managers to understand what they needed in that space to be mission successful. Sometimes it just involved AC problems. Sometimes it was more than that.

There were five facilities, from 70,000 to 200,000 square feet. I had to get to know all the program managers. I let them know that I was working on my M.A. and would eventually be interested in transitioning out of the facilities role. They invited me to pop into their SCIFs and do informal interviews to see if I might be a good fit for their programs in the future. This is how I eventually transitioned into a direct role in the IC.

What was your experience like at IWP?

It was great. My favorite professor was John Sano. He is amazing. He helped me out when I was navigating my career.

I was so busy during the time that I was at IWP, and I think I would have learned more if I hadn’t also been working. It is possible to have a kid, work, go to school, and work out, but you have to be really ready to succeed and go above and beyond.

I knew the statistics for people applying to IC positions. For every 30,000 applicants, there are roughly 50 positions. They weed out plenty of people who don’t meet the bare minimum requirements, but even so, it is competitive. I realized I needed to be at the top if I wanted to make it in this type of career.

I decided that I would crush it at IWP. I wanted to have good writing material to use for job applications. It was nice to have those. For a lot of roles, I didn’t have to write anything because I already had something from IWP on a relevant topic. If I was asked if I had written anything on strategy, current world events, etc., I had stacks of papers from class.

Please tell us a little about your first direct role with the IC.

After my facilities role, I switched to a new position within SAIC supporting one of the agencies in a logistics operations role.

I soon switched to a position that suited me better on a different contract, as a senior research analyst. That job was more my style. I sat in a dark room for eight hours focused on my task. I didn’t have to talk with anybody, I got free coffee, and I did my job well. The position involved open-source intelligence in support of Intelligence Community operations. It was a small program with 15-20 people, and I was the only person who did research. I had never served in a research role, but I had my M.A. and understood the databases we were using, dark web sources, and social media.

How did you get involved with microelectronics?

When the contract began to conclude, I started interviewing within SAIC, which was my comfort zone because I knew all the people there. I was invited to work on policy on the Defense Microelectronics Cross-Functional Team (DMCFT). This team came out of the CHIPS Act to coordinate between the Department of Commerce Chips Program Office and the Department of Defense.

The team worked to develop a microelectronics strategy by coordinating with the armed services. The team included representatives from the different research labs – usually engineers with Ph.D.s. They would explain what their service needed in terms of microelectronics.

I was the only non-engineer on the team, working with some of the smartest engineers in the world. I helped get their thoughts on paper and ensure that they made sense in terms of global politics, supply chains, and risk management. I wrote and edited congressional responses, did standard reporting, and made presentations for senior government leadership.

When I was on that team, I worked with the Strategic Radiation Hardened Electronics Council (SRHEC), which falls under the Office of Nuclear Matters at the Pentagon. I told them I enjoyed supporting their team, and they asked if I wanted to work with them. This led to my current position, where I am a senior analyst for a new company called M Technical Services. It’s a 20-employee company. It’s amazing. I have been there since March.

Please tell us more about your current role in microelectronics.

I am the senior analyst on the Navy Microelectronics Strategy Team (NMST). Part of my job involves supporting the Office of Nuclear Matters. I am focused on helping the Navy and the larger DoD get the best warfighting technologies into the warfighters’ hands.

I serve as the link between the defense industrial base and the Navy programs. I work with the Navy programs to understand what their needs and issues are. I go between the Navy programs and the Navy warfare centers and talk with their chief technology officers to understand what they are lacking, what microelectronics issues keep them up at night, and where they foresee issues in the next 2-3 years.

I have found that I need to speak with Navy leadership in terms that they will understand – instead of focusing on the nerdy technical aspects of chips, I focus on what the chip can do, for instance, giving a missile a longer range, or making a submarine operate better.

I also work with 50 defense industrial base companies. I meet with them regularly.

Ultimately, we are working on the Navy’s grand microelectronic strategy.

Do you feel like you are making an impact in your current role?

Yes, I feel very good about what I currently do. We are such a small team – our microelectronics strategy team is five people. We are all doing our part to work on this grand strategy.

It is very important given the global political landscape with Taiwan and China. The U.S. does about 90-95% of the R&D for microelectronics in the world, but we only produce about 6% of it. We are trying to bring this production back to the U.S., but it’s hard for a lot of these companies, especially when their government contracts are such a small part of their business.

Could you share any advice for veterans who are transitioning to civilian work?

It’s really important to keep some of the veteran mentality and ditch other parts of it.

At first, being formal with everyone helped me, but eventually people told me to stop calling them Sir.

It is important to keep a disciplined mentality. Organizations hire veterans because they have a disciplined mentality and are ready to complete a mission effectively. While it can be good to ditch the hard core military attitude when working with civilians, it is good to keep military habits like seriousness of purpose, getting to work 15 minutes early, etc.

It is also important not to feel entitled to your job because you are a veteran. You need to keep your edge and remain competitive. And use your GI Bill! I still have some GI Bill money left, and I’m thinking about getting another Certificate.