Are Florida’s Ports Prepared? Inside the State’s Growing Maritime Security Risks

In this episode of the At The Boundary podcast, senior director of the GNSI, Jim Cardoso, sat down for a roundtable discussion with Mark Luther, an Associate Professor at USF and the Director for the Center of Maritime and Port Studies, Mark DuPont, the Executive Director of the National Maritime Law Enforcement Academy, and Brian Langley, the Senior Executive Advisor for Cyber Florida. The four recapped the 2025 Florida Security Forum, focusing on Port and Maritime Security, and they discussed the impact of the event, the major takeaways, and planning for the future of both state and national port security.  

The main
takeaways from the Forum were the necessity of following up on conversations
with plans of action, working across the state to reinforce port-to-port
relationships, and not losing sight of traditional threats, such as natural disasters, in the
face of emerging cybersecurity and drone threats. Action is needed to remind
both state and federal lawmakers of the importance of port and maritime
security.  

Another main
theme explored how to train the next generation of maritime employees, and how
to educate the general public on port affairs.
The current lack of a Maritime Academy in Florida is concerning; it outsources
maritime education to other states, could undermine the Florida workforce, and could thus have a
negative economic impact in the future. Additionally, policymakers can become
out-of-touch when it comes to creating policies around threats to infrastructure. Educational efforts will
reinforce state and federal port security, as well as create stronger
public-private partnerships between policymakers and the maritime workforce
which will enable a more unified threat response.  

Links from the episode:

• WTSP TV news Story Featuring Dr. Robert Burrell: “Venezuelans in Tampa Bay think the U.S. will cause Maduro's downfall”

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Transcript

Jim Cardoso: 0:00

Jim. Hello everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of at the boundary, a podcast from the global and national security Institute at the University of South Florida. I'm Jim Cardoso, Senior Director for GNSI, and your host for at the boundary. Today on the podcast, we've gathered some of the key people involved in the creation of our first ever Florida security forum. Florida is a hub for defense, international commerce and technological innovation and plays a supersized role in shaping national security policy and decisions. For this first conference, the theme was port and maritime security risks and resilience. We hosted the conference in partnership with port Tampa Bay earlier this month, and have been digging into the findings for a couple weeks in order to submit recommendations to our state and national policymakers. Joining me on the podcast today are Mark Luther, Associate Professor at USF and the director for the Center of maritime and port studies. Mark Dupont, Executive Director of the National Maritime Law Enforcement Academy, and Brian Langley, senior executive advisor to the Florida Center for Cyber Security, better known as cyber Florida. All three of our guests played vital roles in the creation and development of this forum, and I'm happy to welcome them to the podcast today. Mark Luther, Mark Dupont, Brian Langley, welcome to the podcast. So this podcast is more like a virtual panel than an interview with all three of you here. And while I look forward to hearing from each of you on some questions, please don't hesitate to respond to another, another answer or augment, or, you know, refute, if you feel the need to do so professionally, that's okay too, but we'll go ahead, just kick this off. So I'll start with, since I'm in studio with Mark Luther, so I'll start with Mark Luther to answer this question first, what is a what's a single major takeaway you had from the Florida security forum we did, I mean, I noted a continuing return to the vulnerabilities presented by drones in the physical security space, and also just the cyber security concerns as well. But anything you noted,

Unknown: 2:28

I was a little surprised at almost tunnel vision on drones and cyber security, while I understand that they're a new and emerging threat, I didn't hear very much about the more traditional threats that we constantly talk about at the area maritime security committee and things like that. And even in my sub panel on the working groups, we were supposed to be talking about critical events. We didn't talk very much about the sort of traditional critical events that that we are all concerned about, you know, attack on a passenger vessel, or attack on a bridge or things like that. So I thought there was a lot of good conversation about these new and emerging threats, but I was expecting more conversation about the more, shall we say, mundane,

Jim Cardoso: 3:27

perhaps mundane, but still threatening ones, right?

Unknown: 3:30

Yeah, with great potential to shut the port down, and it wasn't as much discussion as I'd hoped on natural disaster threats and how much that can disrupt port operations and destroy infrastructure?

Jim Cardoso: 3:46

Yeah, no, I Yeah. That makes a lot of sense, and I noted that too. Mark Dupont, how about your take any, any single major takeaways you had from the conference? Well

Unknown: 3:58

before Mark started talking, I was stumbling to think of one thing that was the singular most important or notable thing to come out of it. But when Mark just gave his point about cyber and drones, I have to echo it so much so that our subgroup, when we were looking at, you know, what were those key takeaways, when asking them that question. They brought up cyber, but they brought up, are we missing something else because all of our attention is focused on cyber and or drones? So I thought that was pretty insightful of the group. But aside from that, if there was something else I could pick, I would have to pick the Lieutenant Governor's speech, and one of the key things that he echoed, and I'll just use the word accelerate. We need to move. We can't keep sitting around talking about things. We have to take action. And that kind of echoes what Jay talked. Todd Inman spoke about from NTSB when he said, it's no longer about See Something, Say Something. It's about see something, do something. So there was a there was a action oriented theme, not only in our discussions on day one, but when it translates into the workshops that we had on day two. Everybody was what do we have to do about it, not just pointing to what the potential problems are. So that was an important takeaway for me, and it was great to be a part

Jim Cardoso: 5:31

of, yeah, and I want to follow up in a little bit on the day two as well, because, you know, a lot of people that came to the conference that may be listening, they were not at day two. So I would like to talk a little bit about that, but before we but before we do that, over to Brian Langley, any major takeaway you had from the FSF from what you saw? Yeah, no,

Unknown: 5:48

thank you. I think the major takeaway for me was just getting all these thought leaders together, talking about ports at large, and all the sidebar conversations that related to like port security, economic security as port security and vice versa. I thought it was just great to see so many different thought leaders come in and discuss, you know, generally, what can we do as a state, reflecting our communities on the supporting, you know, the Florida port ecosystem. So to me, it kind of created, if you will, a bridge on just getting all these different groups together in a consistent, policy driven manner. So I That, for me, it was a great takeaway.

Jim Cardoso: 6:25

Yeah, it was good and what, that's where we're going for we're trying to bring, you know, that's one thing we do at genocide, try to bring together government, industry, the academia, all together. Get some breadth of that discussion. I want to go back to one thing. So that mark, both Mark sort of alluded, to, was kind of, again, the tunnel vision, as was, I think was a term used on definite threats. I mean, cybersecurity is a threat. Drones are a threat. There's no question about that. Do you think that the focus on that? And I'll ask Mark l first, do you think the focus on that was an upgrade? Upgrade is the wrong word, an update, maybe in the thinking, was it just an oversight combination of the two? Or what would you classify it?

Unknown: 7:12

Well, I think there is so much focus on those two things, and so few in the maritime transportation world know how to respond to that, and again, with drones, we have so few tools that we're even allowed to put to bring to bear on the problem, because of the regulatory structures are lagging far behind the actual technologies to cause harm with those sorts of things, because, again, you can't shoot at a drone. You can't, you can't bother it at all under FAA regulations. And there's a lot, there was a lot of discussion about how that needs to change. And then the maritime world has been very slow to embrace the cybersecurity aspects of what can go wrong, even though we've had some fairly disruptive attacks on Maersk and Porter Rotterdam and others that have had major implications. So that's just coming to the mindset, or the attention of a lot of people who have been in this maritime world a long time and aren't used to thinking about such things.

Jim Cardoso: 8:29

Yeah, you know, I and it made me think of another thing kind of a takeaway, as I go back, and you sort of alluded to it, is the authorization, the authority to operate. Well, at O is a specific term, but I'd say the authority to to act. And Mark Dupont, you talked about acting, which, you know, completely agree with. But then there's some challenges in the authority to act against in the cyber world as well, too, which is kind of where there's, I think some people were, I think, you know, kind of, as Brian, you said, the breadth of the discussion was great, but it also illustrated that there's so many people involved with it they had that ability to have the authority to act can be very challenging, and some things are probably going to need to change. Have to change in the future as we confront these new threats that are different from the kind of traditional but still quite, quite capable threats in doing us harm, mark or Brian, anything to add to that.

Unknown: 9:27

Well again, just echoing Mark L, the thing that struck home for me is also a comment that general McKenzie made in his keynote and his welcome to everybody, national policy, so we can, we can sit here and talk about a lot of what these threats are, especially as we're talking about drones. But as Mark said, it came up in my group too. We need some authorities to be able to defend. Our ports, and there was interesting discussion, just in the diversity amongst the ports that were in my room, you had some that were dealing with this on a regular basis. Some were like, Oh, we don't have that problem. Now, whether they don't have it or don't know about is a different, you know, discussion altogether, but, but a national policy to give those types of authorities, and if it doesn't come from a national level, we're focused on the ports here in Florida. That's, that's an action we can take. That's an action at least we can recommend to Florida's leadership, that this is, this is a vital lifeline to not only the state of Florida, but to the entire country. Many of the speakers said that over and over again, in different ways about how many containers come through Port, ports in Florida that go the rest of the country, the economic vitality of our ports, all those things are important. But we don't want to be reactive. We need to be a little bit more proactive. And one of the way, one of the pathways to that is establishing some policy. Doesn't mean it has to be perfect from the beginning, but at least we have something that we can start shaping and forming as we go forward.

Jim Cardoso: 11:10

Yes, doing something of some sort. It's interesting. You know, we designed this thing as we called it, a Florida security forum. National security issues a specific, specific relevance to the state of Florida. But as the conference went on, we sort of saw, and you talked about, you echo general McKenzie's comments that, yes, I mean, Port Security is a vital interest to the state of Florida, but some of the actions we may take, some of the authorities that we may seek, it's, it's difficult a state needs to do things, but it's difficult for just a state to take action, because, especially in the cyber world, there's so many ways in and so there needs to be something beyond just state action as well to you know, along the lines of the national policy, which may need to be considered more fully. So I think I don't know, I see in the future that we are going to want to get this information up to the state leadership. We're going to want to make sure that they are understand the challenges and seeking the different policy actions. But at the same time, it may not stop there. We may need to find a way to continue that conversation up to the to the federal level as well, because of the nature of today's threats.

Unknown: 12:25

Well, I think that's kind of our identity, Florida's identity, and that is not that we intend to do it and actually mark glass said this great in his speech. He said He said a couple of things that were really good, but one thing he said is, you know, when you when you look at disaster response, whether it be man made, whether it be natural, it doesn't matter. We aren't necessarily the best at it, but we get good at it, because we do it over and over again. And there's just a lot of things that happen here in Florida because of the number of deep water ports that we have, that if we can figure it out here, it can be of great aid to ports throughout the country. And we have the unity of the state where we have all these deep water ports in the state, not to say that they're not competitive, and not to say that, you know they're they're competing sometimes for the same piece of business, but, but there is a unified thought process there, that when the proverbial brown stuff hits the circulating device, we have to do this together. And that was echoed Mark glass said, Hey, listen, I don't need access to your data and things like that. I need access to you. I need us to do this collectively. I cannot do this all by myself. And he said that, you know, the ports, in his opinion, as the Commissioner for Florida Department of Law Enforcement, that was a key priority on his his list of challenges was the security of our ports, yeah? Mark Luther thing, yeah, the only thing I was going to add is that we're quite often constrained by national policy and regulatory structures as well as to what we can do as a state. So that's why, yeah, this discussion can't stop at Tallahassee. It has to go all the way up to the federal chain of command, and then even International Maritime Organization has their own sets of international regulatory devices, structures that that we need to be compliant with, or perhaps constrained by,

Jim Cardoso: 14:39

at least cognizant of. Let's put it that way, so we can operate within the operate within the operating area and within the operational flexibility that we are given Brian Langley, anything, any anything to add to what these two gentlemen have been saying. No,

Unknown: 14:52

you know, I'll just reiterate the fact that it was just great to see all these different thought leaders, and it was also a testament to to hear people from different perspectives. Have to is talk about risks that you normally don't think about, and each port had different ways of addressing it. So to me, it was like a great assessment on the environmental, security, fiscal, business piece of ports in Florida, and they have all these different perspectives come in really gave you a lot of good groundwork to build from, you know, just having, you know, just having you know, folks there from the four department, law enforcement, multiple, you know, sectors, they're talking about different ways to approach this problem, especially when it comes to funding, it was just great to be able to get these folks together and actually come up with some concrete maybe after actions.

Jim Cardoso: 15:36

I agree, completely good to have cyber Florida there too. There's a little shout out for you. Well,

Unknown: 15:40

thank you. Don't, don't partner.

Jim Cardoso: 15:45

All the partners were there, and it was good to have them all kind of moving forward. Let's you know. Mark Dupont, you you alluded to this. So we'll start with you on this next question. You were all involved in the smaller working group sessions the next day after the public event and and like I said, Mark, you've sort of, Mark D, you've sort of started alluding that, but I like to continue this conversation. What, what stood out from those deeper discussions, uh, especially that those attending the first day weren't able to be a part of that. But may be interested in hearing about,

Unknown: 16:16

well, it was a fantastic process, because we first just started saying, hey, what? What are your takeaways? And asked of the group to throw up what they thought were key takeaway points. And then what that evolved into, very quickly, without me facilitating, these key takeaways would come up, and they'd already start talking about what's needed to kind of solve that particular problem, cyber attacks we already talked about, but what they started drilling down into is the reason we have this issue with cyber and specifically in the maritime domain, as Mark Luther alluded to, is it's a very fragmented approach to owning risk within the maritime Port infrastructure. They do it at a high level. They say, We ought to pay more attention to it. They give it to it. And, you know, how does that translate into everybody? How does that go all the way down to when someone's getting on boarded? What are they taught? And actually, that bled into workforce needs and workforce development. And that bled into Hey, you know, we, if we really want to prepare the maritime industry for the future, and our ports in Florida in particular, we have to really own this workforce development issue, and as ports become even more important. Again, I go back to what J Todd Inman said in his talk about, hey, this is ports are becoming more and more critical as we want more and more stuff, as more and more things happen and as resources might be moved towards border security and slightly away from the focus of the port. So, so it's a it's a vital thing. So people are important part of that puzzle. What do we do to ensure that they're we're preparing the force of the future? And it got into recommendations about how this should it be embedded at K through 12, and then, how do you go about doing that, there was discussions that went into great detail, and again, the diversity Brian. Brian touched on this, but I just want to emphasize the diversity of the people in the forum and in the workshop the day after was tremendous. We that's what really lit the conversations, because you would have people from academia. I'll talk about my work group in particular. You had someone professor from the University of Rhode Island, talking about what they were doing as it relates to natural disasters and and that impacted some people that were in a smaller port. I had a bigger port. I had cyber people. I had a lot of people that looked at each problem together. They didn't just sit back and say, well, that's not my problem. I'm a cyber guy, or I'm a big port, or I'm a little port. They talked about what those challenges and obstacles were, and then came up with recommended solutions at the end of the day. And it was, it was very rewarding.

Jim Cardoso: 19:15

Yeah, that's, that's great. That's what I saw, too. I wasn't there the whole day, but just kind of wander around. That's what I saw, too, some really just great discussions in depth stuff. And the folks the working group, people there, they're really invested in discussing the problem, which, which is what we're after, too. When we we kind of came up with this idea of how to, how to, how to run this two day event. Brian Langley, from your perspective, anything you saw from the working group sessions that you want to talk to?

Unknown: 19:38

Yeah, I tell you, you're in on those things. If you're you know, had the chance, you really, really appreciated what we can do together to identify risk and vulnerability. And then, as our counterparts at Idaho National Lab, who was in attendance, we talked about consequence management, you reverse engineer that and you figure out, okay, so what can we do to mitigate these consequences? By. Identifying risks. And so we really got down to some tactical discussions. To me, that was great about just talking about governance. You know, what can we do to expand our buffer zone? What can we do to harness our economic impact areas, and what that might mean to both supporting the port through a public, public and private sector enterprise approach, to really show the the impact the ports have, and if there's cascading incidences, how do you actually address them? Because it will have impact on our K through 12 programs or public or private sectors. So these ports that we looked at are just critically core, vital machines economic prosperity. So we really were able to kind of talk about what we heard, and drill down a little bit further about what kind of tactics could we do to present to the state and to our policy makers on what we are finding, what we're doing, and some additional due diligence that we can use in partnering with our academic partners to help and support maybe additional research on what both Marx had talked about or Jim for you. So I just felt we got even deeper into what some of these possibilities are.

Jim Cardoso: 21:05

That's great. That's a great answer, and that's a thank you for that. That summary there. Mark Luther, from your perspective, what did you see?

Unknown: 21:13

We had a really interesting group. We had a wide perspective. Mark DuPont touched on it that and we had the jacksport people and the Port Canaveral, and then the port Putnam person in there, which that's a wide variety. I mean, it's great, yeah, Jack's port is one of the biggest ports. Portnam is by far the smallest port, and Canaveral somewhere in between, and very diverse operations. Port. Putnam is basically just barges that came way up the St John's. Canaveral is almost exclusively cruise ships, one of the biggest cruise ship ports. And then Jacksonville is a very diverse port that moves just about everything that goes by ship. So it was interesting to listen to the mix of ideas and opinions and concerns that that came out of that, that wide variety of Port types. And again, that's as as again Mark DuPont alluded to that's one of the perhaps unique things about the state of Florida, is we do have these 16 ports that span that entire spectrum. And while there are some commonalities among them, they're all vastly different in some way as well. The old saying that I've heard throughout my interactions, if you've seen one port, you've seen one port so but we all have to play by the same set of rules, and

Jim Cardoso: 22:39

no matter the size of the port, too, in a very small port like Putnam, a huge port like either port, Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Canaveral, with just 1000s and 1000s of people that they have to be concerned about in their cruise in their cruise industry, yeah, they all have to. There are some similarities. One thing, Mark Dupont, you touched on, which I, you know, I remember being discussed, and this is on first day, and it sounds like it was second day as well. That relationship between Operational Technology and Information Technology, and kind of mark you alluded to, you know, kind of well, sometimes cybersecurity, if it's in the information technology realm, will sort of give that to the IT folks, and that's that's becoming less and less the right way to do things, because of that link between OT and it and on just the incredible damage that a sophisticated cyber security attack can can cause, even To the smallest port and even in coming into a small port, it could affect a larger port. That's part of the same system as we talked about as well. So I mean, I thought, you know, I thought that was interesting. And both of you also talked about that workforce development people have to understand. Mark Luth, you talked previously about sometimes think things sometimes don't always move at lightning speed, right in terms of lessons learned and moving forward. What are the next threats? But, yeah, there's, there's a significant, you know, we have to make sure that we're developing the next, the next level of education for our workforce to work in the ports of tomorrow. Any any thought, I mean, anybody from, I just threw a bunch of stuff out there. Any thoughts on that? From anyone? Mark Dupont, looks like you

Unknown: 24:23

got Yeah, yeah. I just think whether you pick the cyber discussion, whether you pick the drone discussion, whether you pick workforce development, all of them have threads that overlap and are similar and it goes back, I'm sorry, sound redundant, but I keep going back to the guest speakers, because I think they were so spot on in some of the things that they said, Mark glass, we have to do this together. The Lieutenant Governor, you know, we need warriors. And what he was saying is, you know, no, I'm not asking all of you to, you know, take up arms. But, but we. Need to be working towards this common goal. And everybody, if you look at cyber, everybody in the organization, has to have a piece of that and has to recognize their piece of it again throughout the two days. Example upon example, was given how little of a breach caused such large catastrophic outcomes, and that when I say little someone clicking on something, they shouldn't click on someone not validating, you know, where this particular thing came from, or some of the barriers that were in place at that time or were not in time in my group, I'll just simplify it this way. There were four primary groups at the end of the day on on the second day, where we kind of put everything in and said it falls into these areas. It falls into cyber, it falls into national policy, it falls into workforce development, or it falls into a public private partnership. And all of them are intertwined in cyber. We talked a lot about everything I just said about it trickling down to the lowest level. We talked about it from a funding perspective too. In people have to look at this as a look at it from a balance sheet assessment perspective of risk management, as opposed to just, oh, this is this thing that I'm going to buy or implement that's going to take care of it and, and it's not about what I'm going to do, what it's going to prevent from happening. It's almost a discussion about, if I don't do this, this is what the consequences will be. And that's kind of a shift, and it goes that trickled into the national policy discussion. Security at the port should be a national mission, and it may require national standards. That's one of the things that came out in our group, that there really weren't some standards. Yes, you're required to have a CISO, or you're required to have a facility security officer, but what are the standards for that? How do we measure this FSO against that FSO, this particular training versus that particular training. National Policy, also, we talked about it in supporting a national accreditation model where, okay, yeah, you're required to do all these things because of the Maritime Transportation Security Act, and you have these rules and regulations that you have to play by. But who's to say that, having met that you exceed it, you you go above and beyond, and does that create a competitive advantage, or does that create an opportunity for you to reduce your insurance costs and things like that? So that became a big discussion in our group. And last but not least, was the was the workforce development and how do we start working on creating awareness from a K through 12 Level. What are we doing to expose people to what goes on in ports and jobs that they can have, whether they be trades or whether they be working as a port executive? How do we fuel that to ensure that we have the workforce of the future. You know, here's an interesting thing. We got our 16 ports. We don't have a Maritime Academy in Florida. And you just pause that for a minute and think about that in so if we truly want to prepare ourselves for the future, because the theme we ended up with as it related to funding of the future. It's about funding the future, not not what I need to go get right now to replace this camera or replace this particular widget that I have. What am I doing to fund the future? Sorry, I went off on a tangent. No,

Jim Cardoso: 28:36

and educate the future. Just got, you know, I'm thinking of we were, I remember during the first day of the conference I was we were sort of joking about a lot of the experts. We had the civilian experts, and we were joking about how a lot of them were in the Coast Guard previously, and which is a good thing. It's a natural follow on. And no issue with that. But it kind of, it kind of goes along the lines of, there's really no Maritime Academy, so a lot of, where's the education? Where's that? Where's that directed education coming from? I mean, less, yes, we needed, we need to leverage our Coast Guard veterans to help that issue. But shouldn't there be something beyond that as well? Shouldn't there be a way to educate like Brian is doing in cyber Florida? You know, that's one of their main goals, is educating K through 12 so they understand what the cyber threats are going forward. There should be something similar in the maritime realm, because maritime is not going away. The ports are not going away in their importance. In fact, as Jay Collins and Mark glass said, they're only going to increase in imports. So how are we, how are we proscriptively educating the next generation, besides relying on wonderful and and, and highly value Coast Guard veterans,

Unknown: 29:43

yeah, and there's a limited resource, even if you're relying on those Coast Guard veterans. And of course, being one, I love that concept, and I support it wholly. But you know, even then, Jim, I'll make a comment, and I'm sure a lot of my vets, when they listen to this, I'll get an email or. A text message afterwards. But that knowledge is limited. Meaning you're born and raised and grow up in the Coast Guard. You You see things through that perspective. I had the benefit of doing reserve time and active time and and I got to work in the private sector. I got to work in law enforcement, at the local level, at the state level, I got, I got exposed to a lot of things, so it totally widened my view of how things should or shouldn't be. So allowing our kids and our young workforce to be exposed to many different opportunities is what only is going to support us. And you know, something simple we talked about in our group, one of the ports has done it, where you adopt a high school, where the Port says, Hey, we adopted High School X and and by adopting it, we means where they have field trips to the port. It means we come in and speak about things that are related, maybe to the subject that they're on at that particular semester in school. I went so far as to say, Yeah, well, every port should adopt a university too. It should be higher level too. It should be what's our alignment to bring? And again, I had the professor, Austin Becker from University of Rhode Island, and sharing what he was doing with the port providence in in Rhode Island, but that perspective that they come to look at particular problems and share with the port, hey, this is something you ought to be paying attention to, because this is what from a natural disaster perspective, this is what might impact you, and here's how it's going to impact you. Things that we we may not think about, but including academia in all levels is only a benefit. And this, again, goes right back to what our guest speakers were saying. This is how we do it together.

Jim Cardoso: 31:53

Yeah, Mark Luther or Brian, any, any additional thoughts on the working group before we kind of move on? Or anything you want

Unknown: 32:00

to add to that well as an academic professor, I guess I have to second some of what Martin DuPont just said, and we've been talking about that within the university for a while. I've had difficulty getting traction within our own university here, but we've been forging ahead anyway, and with relationships with port Tampa Bay, internships that they offer to help bring people on from that sort of higher end management end of things. And the propeller club has a high school outreach program to try to get more young kids into the maritime transportation world. In fact, we've had several high school kids that did go on to some of the other maritime academies around the US. But establishing some sort of a Maritime Academy within the state of Florida would be an ideal thing to improve our workforce development.

Jim Cardoso: 33:04

That's very I mean, look, as we go forward to and take this for that, that should be one of the recommendations. No, I mean, that's one of the things, I agree, the state can look at. So we'll see where it goes. It's probably going to take a lot, a lot more work than just suggesting, and everybody's Oh, yeah, let's do that. But, but it does. I mean, look, a lot of states in the in our nation, our our maritime states, no question about that. But I mean, Florida's in the class by itself. Obviously, it's surrounded on three sides by water, and you know that that's, that is the, I don't the main industry, but it's a, it's a significant industry state of Florida. So it would make sense Florida leads the country a lot of other ways. It would make sense for them to lead the country in this way as well. At least it makes sense to me. So all right, we'll make sure we add that to the list of things for Mark glass and Jay Collins to think about. So moving moving forward. Brian, I'm going to start with you this time. Everybody gets there, everybody gets at least one one shot, one chance. On the Hot Seat of going first. Yeah, you're welcome, no problem. I'm hooking you up, brother. So benefit of hindsight, you and look, this is a softball actually, because you guys already talked about this for a while, but I'm gonna go and go forward. Benefit of hindsight, what may what? What did we miss? What maybe we have missed? You know, high temping, 2020, what? Should we have made sure we included in this conference if we do something exactly like this next year, you know remains we've seen how that's going to look. What, what do we need to make sure we hit? Or when do we need to at least make sure we address with Florida decision makers as a, as a as a result of this conference, even if it was something we look at and say, Oh, we didn't hit this as deeply as we we should have. Again with the benefit of hindsight, Brian, what do you think?

Unknown: 34:50

Yeah, I'll be straight up a miss would be if we don't provide an after action to our state policymakers. Of all the great things wrong we discuss here on this podcast, but what we've documented. It as opportunities to grow and make, you know Florida, a gateway for the nation, and if not, you know the world, if you will, in terms of our ports and what we can do with these ports. So I think that the biggest thing for me being an inaugural event is I was hoping to see a little bit more people there that we engage. But the turnout was remarkable. And in addition to that, the feedback and the byproducts from these conversations have got us to this point where we have a lot of good things to work with. And again, going back to partnerships, is your academic partners, like at USF and cyber Florida, and what marks do and everything else, that's a great resource. So if there's any future edicts coming from the federal government, DHS, CISA, the Coast Guard, think for a second where your academic partners can sit down, identify the need, the gap or the problem, and work, you know, collaboratively to identify a solution set. So for instance, if ports need security training, cyber for at USF, and if I you has resources that can augment and support their training needs at no cost. So again, a key takeaway for me is just making sure that we follow up on the great work that was done at this inaugural event.

Jim Cardoso: 36:06

You're exactly right, and that's one thing that we try very hard to do at GNSI, is not just have a conference. You know, we all talk to each other, we pat each other on the back, and then we say, All right, well, we'll talk again next year. No, we want to have some type and look, we gotta, I have, I have it on video. I have the Lieutenant Governor of the state of Florida basically dropping a mandate saying, I need, that's right, you to help us solve the problem. It's I'm not gonna be able to do it. I need you to solve the problem. I need you to bring your good ideas, and that's what we're gonna do. And you know, if need be if his, if his staff is recalcitrant, to give his time on his calendar, I will send

Unknown: 36:45

them that 32nd clip. Well, it goes where GNSI thought leadership has come into play with both marks and everyone who's been contributing to this is that shows the Moxie of Florida is having a group. And this is not apple polishing, it's just, you know, fat, you know, good thought leaders like you come in and really identify these opportunities, and that can help lead the nation. And I think that we have the capacity to do so, especially with, you know, both marks, beyond the call, you know, they know their stuff, and then we start breaking into this ecosystem, as we call it, with the other mark, consortium management. We've got some dynamic opportunities here. Just have to, you know, can you continue the pressure and the application of engagement, and I think USF can do a lot of that, perhaps.

Jim Cardoso: 37:25

Yeah, no, I agree with that's a great answer. And you work the word Moxie into it, and which is, which was, anytime you could say Moxie, that is a great diatribe, and I appreciate it. Mark Luther, what do you think anything benefit? I'd say we may have, may have missed, or could have done better again?

Unknown: 37:43

I would have thought that we would talk more about some of the things that are actually in our maritime security plan for for Tampa Bay, for example. And I understand that drones and cyber the hot topics of the moment, but let's just don't lose sight of the more run of the mill type.

Jim Cardoso: 38:11

Just because we didn't have any hurricanes this year, thank goodness. Doesn't mean that's not still significant issue, which can cause national security issues even when a port goes down for extended amount of time,

Unknown: 38:23

or something simple as grounding a ship in the middle of the channel under the Skyway Bridge that could take weeks or months to clear without actually damaging the bridge, but still constricts or blocks the channel. That's one of our and, of course, all the hazardous cargo that comes in and out of Tampa Bay and probably Jacksonville, and lesser extent, Fort Lauderdale and or Port Everglades in Miami. So but that's the one thing that I would like to see us do better on next time, is spend a little more time at least acknowledging that those are things we need to pay attention to as well and not get too distracted by the new stuff, the

Jim Cardoso: 39:10

new the new the new cool, the new cool threats, if that's even a term, but we haven't saw the old ones, right. We're still working to mitigate best we can, but there's still challenges with that. Yeah,

Unknown: 39:22

and with all the new technology that's coming along that could be applied to those threats, as well as to the cyber and drone type of threats, yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 39:31

maybe we may not be doing as much of an application as you say, because we're looking more at these, the sexy new threats of drones and cyber and things like that, and the high tech threats. Mark Dupont, from your perspective, what do you think anything? What did we miss?

Unknown: 39:46

I think it's good that we're asking the question, what did we miss? But I think rest easy, what we did and what we were able to accomplish was tremendous. I have been to a lot of conferences. I've attended them, I've spoken at them, I've done a lot of these maritime type events. I was very impressed in two things, one, the just how it was all put together, and the professionalism that it was put together. And no, I'm not getting paid for that pat on the back to giving you that Pat of the on the back, but it was very well organized, including how the forum was put forward. It wasn't just people getting up there with PowerPoints and talking about their widget. It was people sitting around and saying, Okay, let's let's talk about this particular aspect of the maritime industry, the maritime environment, and the panels were all again, very diverse, so you weren't getting one singular, very narrow perspective. So I think the quality of the event was top shelf. The second part was the attendance. And, you know, bear in mind, we were in the middle of the shutdown and many people couldn't come that wanted to come, but we still filled that room and had a number of people online. So that says something right then and there. I think that we need to recognize that this was needed, that there was application for it. And to quote the lieutenant governor, let's not take our foot off the accelerator, meaning, let's keep going forward. Let's we. The door has been open. The opportunity has been given to us. Let's walk through it and present those things, but let's not give up. Next year, we can fine tune it a little bit, and to mark luther's point, make sure that we're not we focused a lot looking forward. So I can understand why we're talking about cyber and drones. One focus can be, let's just stop for a minute and let's forego the future for a moment. What's going on right here, right now? What can we impact right here, right now? And that might be part of the focus of the next one.

Jim Cardoso: 41:58

Okay, no good. Good stuff. So we're kind of coming into the end of our, of our time that we set aside for this. So I want to go ahead and go around the room, both in person, virtual for any for any final thoughts. And Mark Luther, I'll start off with you any final thoughts.

Unknown: 42:14

I think it was an excellent two days, well spent, and I'd love to be a part of doing it again at some time in the near future, maybe not next year, but certainly within the next two to three years. I think it'd be a great opportunity to revisit this and see what progress has been made and where we need to focus our efforts for the coming few years.

Jim Cardoso: 42:38

Yeah, I you know, look what you and I have talked offline. I think that GNSI and Martin Luther are gonna have a continued relationship, and I look forward to that, you know? I think that maybe it is next year, maybe it's a couple years from now. We've done that too. We did a from a GNSI perspective. We've done a conference when we first started off on Ukraine and Russia, and then we waited, and then about three years later, we did another one because, well, at the time, we didn't think we'd have to do another one. We thought this be over by now, but it's not. But also it gives you kind of some additional perspective to look back and kind of address, hey, where do we need to go from here? So it's very valuable. So I can, I could see that happening with this particular, this particular issue, as well, but now we'll definitely keep it on the docket for sure. Mark Dupont, from your perspective, any final thoughts?

Unknown: 43:27

Well, I kind of said it in my last little diatribe there for a minute, but I think it's about thinking and moving outside the box. I think what made this successful is, again, the approach to it and having a discussion from the beginning all the way to the end. And people really valued that discussion. I hope that the discussion continues at the leadership level, and I hope it continues into the years ahead, because we've got to do this together. Nobody is going to do this on their own.

Jim Cardoso: 43:58

Yeah, and it's in you said at the beginning too. It's about action. What you said, it's not see something, say something, and see something, do something. And that's what we got, the mandate we got as well from state leadership. So we'll, we'll pick up that, pick up that gauntlet ahead with it. Brian Langley, over to you any final thoughts,

Unknown: 44:16

yeah. Well, one, thank you so much for hosting, and congratulations on a great event, all of you, but two, I think we've created a movement. I mean, I think that we've got the synergy now. We've got the team, we've got the people, we got the know how. We've got the Moxie, we've got the ports, we got the diversity. We can make the business case. I think there's a lot of opportunities here that we've already identified, but more that we probably haven't talked about. So I think we just got to keep that movement going. And I think that the state's given us as support, thanks to support thanks to the Lieutenant Governor's remarks, and we'll make that front and center. So very thankful to be a part of this. Quite frankly, agree.

Jim Cardoso: 44:50

Mark, yep. Mark Luther, Mark Dupont, Brian Langley, thank you very much for your time today. Really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you for the opportunity. You. Special thanks to our guests today, Mark Luther, director of the USF center of maritime and port studies, Mark Dupont, Executive Director of the National Maritime Law Enforcement Academy, and Brian Langley, senior executive advisor to cyber Florida, all videos from our panels and fireside chats from the Florida security forum will soon be available on our YouTube channel. We also had the opportunity to sit down with a few of our speakers at the forum. We'll look for those interviews as well in the coming weeks and months before we end the podcast today, a couple things I want to tell you about GNSI Senior Research Fellow, Dr Rob Burrell, no stranger to our audience here on at the boundary was featured on Tampa Bay's CBS affiliated news this past week. Rob focuses on resilience and resistance under the broader umbrella of irregular warfare, and one of his focus areas is Venezuela. He talked with WTSP TV about the escalating crisis in that country, particularly the possibility of the existing government being overthrown. It's a quick watch, but insightful and important. We'll drop a link to the story in the show notes. Additionally, even as winter descends on much of the country, not as much in Florida, though I did have to wear long pants last weekend, it's not too early for you to start making spring plans. Be sure to include some time from one of the most consequential national security events of 2026 the sixth GNSI Tampa Summit is set from March 24 to the 25th here on the Tampa campus at USF. The Summit's theme is nuclear weapons and modern warfare, while the use of nuclear weapons seems unthinkable in the minds of many in the west and around the globe. That viewpoint is not necessarily shared by our peers and adversaries, that reality drives the need for clear eyed policy discussions and candid recommendations to our national leaders. Tampa summit six will bring together industry experts, scholars, government representatives and students representing our future national security leaders to provide that insight and explore the evolving role of nuclear technology in Modern Warfare and geopolitics. You can find more information on our website. Thanks for joining us today on at the boundary. Next week on the podcast, we'll be talking with GNSI Research Fellow, Dr Linda noan about her upcoming research article addressing critical minerals and resources, specifically cobalt. She's in the middle of researching that article, but is dropping by to give us a preview. You don't want to miss that episode or any other Be sure to rate subscribe and let your friends and colleagues. Know if you're watching on YouTube, hit that like button, subscribe and turn on alerts. Follow along with GNSI on our LinkedIn. Next accounts at USF, underscore GNSI And check out our website as well at usf.edu/gnsi, while you're there, subscribe to our monthly newsletter to keep up with all the GNSI latest that's going to wrap up this episode of at the boundary. Each new episode will feature global and national security issues we found to be insightful, intriguing, maybe controversial, but overall, just worth talking about. I'm Jim Cardoso, and we'll see you at the boundary. You.