Ep. 012 - Securing the Food Chain with Systems Thinking with Carl "CJ" Unis
Carl “CJ” Unis
Systems Engineer | U.S. Space Force
Principal at Unis Complexity Solutions
Show Notes:
In this engaging episode of the Bites and Bytes Podcast, we welcome Carl 'CJ' Unis, a Systems Engineer with the U.S. Space Force and Principal at Unis Complexity Solutions. CJ brings over 20 years of expertise in systems engineering and infrastructure logistics to our conversation. He illuminates the critical role of system thinking in enhancing cybersecurity within the food industry. His background includes analyzing cascading infrastructure failures for the Department of Homeland Security at Sandia National Laboratories and serving as a federal agent for the Department of Energy. Not to mention, CJ's experience in the U.S. Marine Corps adds a unique perspective to his insights.
This episode was pre-recorded in January 2024 and predates the current critical infrastructure incidents or challenges highlighted in recent media. CJ's insights offer a proactive perspective and underscore the strategic importance of resilience in system thinking, providing a valuable lens to view and address the evolving cybersecurity landscape.
Episode Key Highlights:
(00:29 - 01:24) System Engineering and Food Cybersecurity
(08:56 - 11:07) Food and Cyber Security Risks
(13:47 - 15:40) Rapid Technological Advancement in 2024
(18:01 - 18:46) Cybersecurity Impact on Food Industry
(23:22 - 25:03) Understanding Natural Cycles and Engineering
(29:06 - 31:12) Systems Thinking in Risk Management
(32:19 - 33:36) Food Industry's Wide-Reaching Impact
(37:48 - 39:37) Universal Industry Problems
(43:16 - 44:02) Unsung Heroes of Everyday Life
(45:38 - 47:06) Insider Threat and Vulnerability Analysis
How to connect with CJ: LinkedIn and Contact Card
Course CJ teaches: “Systems Thinking in Emergency Management.”
Article CJ co-authored: “Rethinking Future Food Chains: Systems Thinking and the Cascading Consequences of System Failure."
Research Paper CJ co-authored: “Building Food System Resilience within a Learning Organization.”
Additional Show notes and guest inquiry information are on the Bites and Bytes Website.
If you want to learn more about AnzenOT, please check the website or reach out on LinkedIn.
Listen to full episode :
Episode Guide:
(00:21) - Systems Thinking in Food Security
(11:08) - Importance of Food System Resilience
(16:28) - Food Resiliency and Ecosystem Interconnects
(30:47) - Complexity of Interconnected Business Models
(35:04) - Cybersecurity and Food Protection Trends
(43:16) - Unsung Heroes
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00:21 - Kristin (Host)
Welcome back to the Bites and Bites Podcast, your go-to source for insightful conversations between the realms of cybersecurity and the food industry. I'm your host, Kristin Demoranville, and I'm thrilled to guide you through today's exploration of system thinking within our food safety and security frameworks. In today's episode, we are joined by Carl CJ Unis he goes by CJ whose expertise in system engineering brings a vital perspective on the indispensable role of system thinking in fortifying our food supply chains. CJ's approach illustrates the nuanced challenges and strategies essential for defending against cyber threats in the food industry. Additionally, as we unfold today's dialogue, it is critical to note that our conversation was recorded in January of 2024. It's a fascinating discussion that touches upon potential vulnerabilities and cyber attack scenarios within our critical infrastructure reminiscent of recent events that have since captured our industry's attention. While today's episode precedes those developments, CJ's insights are more relative than ever, offering a profound understanding of the proactive measures and systematic resilience necessary in our ongoing battle against cybersecurity threats. Let's leap into a world where system thinking isn't just a method but a requirement for our collective safety and well-being.
01:42
I hope you enjoy the episode. Hi everyone, welcome to the Podcast. We've already been laughing, so if you're hearing smiles, that's happening in real time for us. I have a great guest here today. I'm going to start off with the great questions of favorite food and favorite food memory.
02:00 - CJ Unis (Guest)
First, CJ take it away. So let's see. Kristin, favorite food memory is thin crust. Take it away. So let's see. First and favorite food memory is thin crust pizza. In Milwaukee, wisconsin, the Italian community there is absolutely incredible and their thin crust pizza at some of the restaurants is even better. So we have. You know, chicago talks about their deep dish. I mean we can talk about deep dish, but when it comes to thin crust I mean that's, that's a thing, good stuff.
02:22 - Kristin (Host)
Yeah, I'm an East Coast dweller and I know that all my East Coast fans, even the ones that are living in other parts of the country, are going to have it out with me later. But I still really like you know Midwest pizza, sorry, like I really do. It's the square thing for me. I don't know why. And those little burnt crisps that we were talking about before the show started recording those little bits at the beginning, are like a pizza appetizer, like they're so delicious and you could have a plain cheese pizza and it's amazing, it doesn't have to have all the toppings on it as far as I'm concerned with the Midwest, this is true.
02:52 - CJ Unis (Guest)
And then you know you throw some mozzarella sticks in with that little equation and you know oh, always, right.
02:57 - Kristin (Host)
I mean, if you're going to just be gluttonous, go all the way in.
03:00 - CJ Unis (Guest)
Oh yeah, we're all in, Absolutely.
03:03 - Kristin (Host)
So that's your favorite food and so what's connected to that, your favorite food memory. Is it eating it in Milwaukee, or is it a different stuff than else?
03:10 - CJ Unis (Guest)
Eating it in Milwaukee. Yeah, absolutely Growing up there as a kid, you know, the Friday nights or the Saturday nights with the family just going to the local mom and pop pizzeria. Yeah, there was a. There was a place near Mequon, wisconsin, called Millie's really good and crust pizza, you know. Get the Parmesan on it with some pepperoni Game on and some mozzarella sticks or the breadsticks. I mean, we were kids at the time so we were like human vacuum cleaners, so it's you know game on.
03:38 - Kristin (Host)
So that's true, it's totally true. I did live in the Midwest for a little while and I still dwell on the food because it's such a food area really is between the production. A lot of the cities in the area are foodie cities. In my opinion. I kind of got that cheese thing going on too. Oh yeah, I mean, if you're lactose intolerant, sorry you may not want to go to Wisconsin, it's nice to be when it comes to being a lactose intolerant individual.
04:04
And also there's a lot of really great beer there. One of my best friends lives in Wisconsin and he's always raving about the craft beer scene. Shout out to Joe, I know you're listening. Yeah, he's always telling me I got to go just for the beer. Yes, absolutely.
04:16 - CJ Unis (Guest)
Yeah, You're not wrong there. The craft beer scene has gone. Pretty nuts Spotted cow is always a good one. Pretty nuts Spotted cow is always a good one. I cannot drink spotted cow, unfortunately. I mean I could digress into that. Certain hops that my body is not a fan of.
04:31 - Kristin (Host)
Yeah, I feel that I'm not an over hoppy kind of person. I don't really prefer that kind of thing Like a heifer fison or something like that is too much for me. Tastes like soap. Honestly, that's how my palate reads it, and I'm sure it's just because I'm not refined enough in my beer tasting. But I could definitely throw it at the table for wine. So if you want to throw it out on like palate, for that I got you.
04:51 - CJ Unis (Guest)
Wisconsin's got the whole alcohol thing too in the wintertime.
04:55 - Kristin (Host)
That's true. What else are you going to do in the winter, I mean, other than like ice skate, hockey, ice skating curling, like all the ice fishing, you know, all the Midwestern stuff? One of the things that shocked me is I grew up in New England, so I'm surprised, I'm shocked by this, but I really appreciated the ingenuity and the innovation of the Midwest. There'd be any type of water runoff from sewage, little like you know, those little ponds that sit next to developments, things like that. Those would always be hockey rinks. They turn them into hockey rinks every year and I just was like what is this? But then I realized, like how brilliant is that? So you don't have to pay to go to a hockey rink and you're just making it and it's fairly safe because the you know it's not super thick ice, but it's not super thin ice, it's perfect. You know.
05:39 - CJ Unis (Guest)
Yeah, there's definitely a lot of creativeness when it comes to hockey rinks and ice skating and just any winter sport for that matter. So it's it's pretty pretty rock solid.
05:50 - Kristin (Host)
So yeah, I saw my first hockey game, I think actually in the Midwest, like in a proper stadium. Yeah, I mean it was Minnesota, so sorry to anybody, but you know it was fine, I really long, long time.
06:00 - CJ Unis (Guest)
So it was a lot of fun, and now my son plays ice hockey and we're actually headed up to a tournament this weekend Hockey is so crazy and I commend you for being a hockey parent because that's a commitment in itself.
06:13 - Kristin (Host)
I had friends who were hockey cheerleaders which I was very strange to me to think about to this day.
06:22 - CJ Unis (Guest)
But they cheered in the stands, sort of like basketball, and that's a thing I didn't know, that was a thing. Well, I mean, obviously you know this, this sport is not for the faint of heart. Um, it is, it is, it is rather violent, Um, and you know, if if you want to pick a fight on the ice, you can do it, but then you're going to go take a rest for two minutes or or 10, depending on how bad you beat the person up.
06:37 - Kristin (Host)
I think it's the adrenaline come down like the two minute, like Okay, you got it out of your system, here's your juice box, sit in the corner, you're fine, and then we'll put you back in and then you can ramp up again. You know what I mean. It's like toddlers on skates is what I always think Sometimes. It's like have a fit, get a goal, and then we just have a break and then we move on.
06:58 - CJ Unis (Guest)
You can probably beat the living snot out of you. Yes, just yes, just really big toddlers, really big toddlers that have some displaced aggression that they probably need to get rid of.
07:11 - Kristin (Host)
I never thought I'd talk about hockey on this Podcast, but that's great. Anyway, CJ, will you introduce yourself to all of the listeners?
07:22 - CJ Unis (Guest)
Okay, well, hi listeners. My name is CJ Unis. I have a very interesting background and career, as we have discussed Former Special Operations, united States Marine Corps, former federal agent with the National Nuclear Security Administration. I was the critical infrastructure protection program manager for the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security in the Office of Emergency Management. I spent 10 and a half years at Sandia National Laboratories as a systems engineer, doing some very interesting things for some very interesting clients in the United States government, and I am currently employed with the United States Space Force. So that's pretty much me in a nutshell.
07:52 - Kristin (Host)
And I know you usually have a disclaimer CJ when you do types of media, so go ahead and drop that the opinions are of mine and not of the United States government or the United States Space Force.
08:03 - CJ Unis (Guest)
So thank you for that reminder, Krista.
08:04 - Kristin (Host)
Those are a lot of. I'm sure there's crazy acronyms behind a lot of those. Actually, I smiled at one point when you were speaking because I thought, wow, that's a mouthful. There must be an acronym for that.
08:12 - CJ Unis (Guest)
It's the governance, of course there is Absolutely they say well food. How do you get into food with all of that kind of background? Well, a lot of the stuff that we had to do was around food and critical infrastructure and ecosystems, architecture and all of those other fun things, so we can dive into that conversation a little bit more.
08:34 - Kristin (Host)
Absolutely, and as soon as you said critical infrastructure, I smiled too, because I was like yay, there's the connection. Obviously, I know some of the listeners got it quickly as well. There is something really important, though, I want to ask about, because one of the first things that you spoke to me about when we met and you actually sent me was a white paper that you were co-authored on. So I just want you to give us a little brief bit about that, because I think a lot of people that are listening will be interested in it, sure.
08:53 - CJ Unis (Guest)
So that paper we talked about. One of the main reasons that I got introduced to you was food and cyber, and that's not something that's necessarily talked about nor broadly understood, and I think the difficult thing about food and cyber is it's great when it's working. It's not so great when it isn't, and I think the bigger problem here is many of the cyber systems are ultimately responsible for running a lot of these ecosystems within these companies, and cyber posture that they have isn't the strongest in the world, and when a zero day comes in or a Trojan horse comes into the system, it can literally wipe out accounting, distribution, supply chains, day-to-day operations, secret recipes, name it. It will literally impact that entire ecosystem that is that company, and that can be a very big challenge to recover from that. So back up your data, folks, and you know external hard drives are a beautiful thing.
09:56 - Kristin (Host)
That's all I got to say about that I remember the tape drive days, you know, when they'd show up in the armored car and then you'd have to hand over the tapes, like you're some kind of like mafia secret agent or something. But it was one of the best ways to deal with it because it was going off site and that was a bakery company that was moving their tapes off site. It says a lot about how serious they took data security.
10:15 - CJ Unis (Guest)
Well, and you know it's interesting to have that conversation when we talk about the cloud, right, it's another computer ecosystem and another remote location that has vulnerabilities as well, and I don't think a lot of people really think of the cloud like that. But, again, looking at your cloud architecture and your cloud infrastructure is absolutely critical and trying to disseminate how I go about doing some of these things, why they're important, who they ultimately impact, why should we be doing these things and is it going to impact my bottom line? Well, again, it's not a problem until it is one. So and I think a lot of people live by that posture and there needs to be some risk analysis and some categorization of risk and looking at how critical risk is to your organization and why those things are critical and who they ultimately impact.
11:02 - Kristin (Host)
So, a lot of this comes down to people just aren't aware or they think, oh, it's not going to happen to us. Example. There's a bunch of examples I can give, but one of my favorite ones is my folks just came to visit not too long ago and I live just outside of Washington DC. We're driving around and my dad was like what's that building? They all look the same. And I went of, said it like off the cuff and he was like really, the clouds there. And I was like, well, part of it. I said, dad, that's part of the cloud. And I said you can tell which ones probably are covering government because they have armed guards and extra security on the outside and there's cameras everywhere.
11:35
And he kind of looked at me funny and I looked back at him like this is the world we live in now. This is where our data, this is how it is, this is your email, this is everything. It's right here, you know, not specifically at those data centers, but the concept was there. And he just kind of looked at me funny like wait a minute. So where was it before? I said, oh, it was on-prem, like it was at your site of work and a lot of the production factories and things like that critical infrastructure. Still, a lot of it is on-prem and it's a lot of legacy and I know everybody's just going to be like, oh, it's a dead horse, you're beating Kristin with the legacy equipment. Well, it's still a fact. People we're still using, like Windows XP and younger. In some of these places I've seen Windows 95 second edition, which is a fairly stable operating system in itself. You're never going to upgrade it and you're never going to touch it.
12:18 - CJ Unis (Guest)
And there are some government systems that are still running Windows 98.
12:22 - Kristin (Host)
Yeah, and you don't touch the dust on them either, because that dust will throw it off.
12:25 - CJ Unis (Guest)
No, no, no, no, Just stay away.
12:29 - Kristin (Host)
Just leave it alone, leave it in its little box, like just as is.
12:32 - CJ Unis (Guest)
I have seen some tech that is so old, like fiber, fiber, optic stuff that is literally as hard as a rock and if you were to touch it like, don't go near that thing, don't touch it, you will break it and we don't have any replacements or we don't have any spares for this, so don't touch it.
12:47 - Kristin (Host)
Yeah, and that's some of the hard things about the food industry too is to upgrade some of this equipment, whether it's like a zebra or zebra printer, depending where you are, or something to that effect. That of different software that's on these machines would cost millions. So you're going to want to keep it at whatever legacy level you have because you don't want to have to shell it out. Problem is is it becomes that vulnerability that is now an attack factor if you don't drop good security controls around it, and then you're going to be paying out more than you would have just upgraded in the first place, ultimately, depending on what cuts into your system.
13:19 - CJ Unis (Guest)
And, to your point, the level of risk analysis that you need to do around some of those things is really, really critical. So if you get into a battle rhythm in your company of looking at replacing your servers and your operating systems and your UIs on a fairly regular basis, it becomes a battle rhythm. But if you never really considered it, because it's always in the background and always operating as a piece of your infrastructure, it's one of those things that you really need to consider moving forward. Because here's the thing Technology now is exponentially compound, not by the year, by the month. It's 2024 and things are moving really, really fast.
13:56
So our ability to compute and put things on the cloud and the ability for servers to work even faster. And then we're starting to talk about potential quantum computing opportunities and wow, I mean I've seen some systems that are about the size of my coffee table, that literally have a thousand cores and I'm immersed in liquid. I mean that is the next iteration of high-performance computing and being able to understand some of these complexities and why they're important, who they impact and so on and so forth. So these are not trivial things and people need to start thinking about the complexities and the ecosystems and the ecosystems of ecosystems. Architecture, because everything is connected directly and indirectly.
14:38 - Kristin (Host)
It just made me think about how fast innovation happens. Probably the easiest way to give that visually for people who are more visual learners is think about the mobile market, the cell phone market. Right, we came back with the bags with the. You know you pick up the phone was the size of a shoe you know like to put your ear and it had like a battery life of like three minutes or something ridiculous like that. And then it's now we have these like thin little things that fit in our pockets, that are supercomputers, practically right, that can have magnetizing on them, that we can charge magnetically and all these other crazy things, bluetooth, and you know you could record on it. It's got cameras that are better than actual cameras and things like that. If you think about that evolution, think about that on a different scale for innovation when it comes to the food industry, because they are there and they've been there for a long time and I think to your point, Kristin, it's you know, somebody put in perspective for me.
15:26 - CJ Unis (Guest)
So the average smartphone has 190 million lines of code. It's pretty wild to consider the complexity of that statement all by itself because, quite frankly, that's a lot of code, a lot of code.
15:40 - Kristin (Host)
Moving back to your paper CJ yeah, can you define what is food systems or food system resilience within that? So, because people need to have that context and understanding to kind of get what we're going about to talk about, yeah, I mean there's two things within food system there's food safety and then there's food security.
15:59 - CJ Unis (Guest)
So those are two important things, but resiliency in food I mean people talk about food safety and food resilience, but those two other things that we just discussed are really critical as well. But they all tie into each other. So I think it's really important that the food resilience piece is understanding the ecosystems and the infrastructure that support food distribution supply chains day to day operations, communications, the infrastructure, your cloud computing infrastructure, communications, your cloud computing infrastructure. So looking at resiliency in those systems is really critical as well. But not everybody looks at those things, because those things operate seamlessly on a day-to-day basis and that's something that most people don't think of, because when you go to the grocery store, you go and pick up your stuff. Well, how did that stuff get there? Well, there was a logistical distribution supply chain that was critical for getting that food from point A to point Z and all the interconnects in the last mile and so on and so forth. So that distribution supply chain is absolutely critical when it comes to reefers and 18 wheelers who move this stuff all over, move this product all over the country. So again, those are really important things.
17:01
So what happens if we have fuel disruptions in our economy? It's like well, guess what? Or high gas prices? Well, that gets transferred down to the consumer. So, again, all of these things are relative but they're never real. They're like why are my food prices so high? Well, inflation is one, getting your product from point A to point B is another. So, again, these things are always passed on to the customer because the manufacturer or the distributor isn't going to eat those costs, so it gets passed on to the consumer ultimately. So these are all conversations or consideration in food resiliency that need to be considered, because this ecosystem's architecture is absolutely critical and understanding all the intricacies of it are absolutely critical, and that's probably one of the reasons why we're having this conversation.
17:55 - Kristin (Host)
Thank you for tuning into the Bites and Bites Podcast. We're going to take a quick break to remind you that we're always looking for guests who are shaking up things in cybersecurity and the food industry. If you or someone you know has a unique perspective on how cybersecurity impacts the food industry or the industries that support it, we'd love to hear from you. Check out the show notes for a link to our Podcast website and the guest forum. Now back to our conversation with CJ. Yeah, you're just making me thinking, too, about how prices have risen with certain foods, and I think a lot of people have a misunderstanding of what that is because they don't think about the whole supply chain aspect. But it goes beyond that. I know we've talked about this, CJ, but, like environmental issues cause major systems disruptions.
18:37
Think about the bee crisis. We have a real lack of bees. Colony collapse disorder is a big problem in this country. We need bees to pollinate fruit and almonds, avocados, the whole thing right and if we don't have those or have a small amount of them, the price is going to go up. So when people are complaining that their avocados are costing too much, think about it. Do you really need to buy that SUV that's pumping out extra stuff into the environment. It goes full circle. Right, it goes full circle. I mean, are you dumping your trash inappropriately? Are you using water in appropriate ways?
19:08 - CJ Unis (Guest)
Highlight here is COVID kind of was our reset in thinking per se, because when everybody was staying home and everybody nobody was using fuel, carbon emissions went down. Like all of these other things, there's a lot of. There's a lot of ebbs and flows that you can look through. These process flows and being able to visualize those things in a potential canvas or a visualization are absolutely critical because it involves process flow. Well, these distribution supply chains are process flow. It just happens in real time and it's not things that we see because we always assume that it's going to be there until it isn't.
19:42 - Kristin (Host)
Correct and I think I've had this conversation a lot. I'm going to continue bringing it up because I feel like until I feel satisfied that people are educated about it, then I will stop talking about this. But how our food is produced and how it gets to our plate is really important for consumers to know, because we vote with our money right and also we can force companies to fix their digital strategies as well, because we should be concerned about cybersecurity with the food on our plate. What bothers me is still people think that the agricultural industry is so analog and they're probably one of the most digitalized systems we have and it's all over the place and crazy, and they're into big data and they're into the cloud already and they're into all these great little gadgets that are helping out.
20:26
I just find it really funny that people assume that people are hand milking cows, and that just amuses me every time I think about that, because we'd have to hire thousands of people to do that just for a day, and then all that milk isn't from one cow that you get in your carton, it's from multiple cows. It goes in one big vat, essentially, and I really think we need to if we're going to continue to understand the world that we live in. We have to understand this type of supply chain. We have to understand how it intersects with digital and how we can keep things safe, because ultimately I mean CJ you spent the majority of your career and your lifetime protecting in some capacity right, whether it's physically or digitally, or policy, or any of that in between space, or any of that in between space it's a daunting task to re-educate people to understand that their behavior and what they do impacts the whole cycle, the whole circle.
21:22 - CJ Unis (Guest)
Yeah, absolutely. You're not wrong, and I think the interesting thing about this is is these ecosystems are everywhere. We live in a systems-based society and a lot of people don't think of it like that. But your, your roadways, your sewer systems, your communication systems, your traffic lights, those are all powered by some type of SCADA system or computer and, again, they operate seamlessly.
21:45
But what's the one thing that's really driving that narrative? Electricity. And what happens when we don't have electricity? I can't talk to you, uh, via, uh, a web link. Um, we don't have any community. We don't have electricity. I can't talk to you via a web link. We don't have the ability to communicate. If the cell towers go down, we have no cellular communication. Again, these are things that are not thought about because they operate on a fairly seamless basis most times. But when electricity goes out and we have a very vulnerable electrical grid, guess what happens? Bad things start happening and they start cascading out of control, and one of the things that I talk about in the paper that you mentioned is one of those lifeline infrastructures, electricity being one of.
22:25 - Kristin (Host)
implications of that piece of infrastructure are astronomical and most people can't grasp the level of complexity that's involved, I think, as people understand electricity to be like you know the equipment that we're talking on right now or the lights or something to that effect, but people forget that it controls water treatment facilities. But you know it controls so much. I mean, we've all seen the disaster movies. I try to avoid them because they, I feel like I could just hang out in real life for a minute. It's way worse, you know. However, those scenarios are actually very much along the lines of what people prepare for, and it scares me that we're so disassociated with it because we just are so privileged that we have these things that we don't think about it. Too busy worrying about whatever reality TV show or whatever new series to start thinking about what is my impact to that and how can I affect the system? And you and I have spoken about this too, CJ that my first mindset of flipping on to system-based thinking was actually cycle thinking.
23:30
I have a degree in environmental management and when I started to realize that everything was a natural cycle that just repeated itself, it was the water cycle that really kicked it in for me. We don't have no new water. Glaciers are not new water. That's just old water that happens to be frozen. It eventually will hit the cycle Exactly so. It goes up into the atmosphere, comes back down. It just keeps going, keeps going and the world is very much frozen a cycle. You have cycles of everything air, soil, you name it it's. There's something to do with the cycle. Even life, our life, is a cycle.
23:59 - CJ Unis (Guest)
It is, it absolutely is. And I think to your point, which makes this really interesting, because when you're talking about these cycles, you're talking about a lot of engineering. Right, because we have a lot of engineers. But as a human race, we replicate a lot of things that occur in nature and a lot of people don't seem to make the assimilation there, because there's a lot of things that occur in nature.
24:23
If you look at the veins in your body, it looks a lot like the limbs on a tree. It's just microscopically smaller. So, again, these are all things, and we look at some of those networks and we look at some of those ebbs and flows and we look at river systems and they look like gigantic veins that spread out through a state. And once you start doing infrared and you look at these things and you're like holy cow, this is a very complicated and complex network and an ecosystem. So, again, when you start taking things out of nature or putting them back into nature, the ecosystem is going to change. And the same thing could be said in industry, in the private sector, in government. And once you start on how you grew, it, was it GMO?
25:16 - Kristin (Host)
genetically modified, was it not? Is it a new strain of hybrid type plant? What happens to that plant while it's growing? What's going on with the soil? What's going on with the sunlight? What's going on with the weather? All that factors in Insects, if you spray, if you don't spray that kind of thing, and then when it hits the production facility, it changes again. Right, and then it goes out something new that can be ingested, whether by a human or a pet or anything in between medicine, things like that. This is where I think, as professionals you and I, CJ and we both echo this very clearly I take this personally, you know, because we're ingesting food. This is life, this is life, sustaining life, as I've been saying, and to understand that cycle aspect completely changes how you look at risk, completely changes how you look at risk, because everything's interconnected. You're almost humanizing it to a degree, and maybe not at the same time, because you are seeing that whole cycle. So, if someone over in marketing does something on a system, it will affect production on some level.
26:16 - CJ Unis (Guest)
Probably, though, or maybe so, vice versa, and to your point, that's a lot of the reasons why marketing and engineering disagree on a lot of things, because marketing is like, oh, I can do that, and engineering is like, no, no, you can't, that's completely impossible. So they end up they end up butting heads like this, and it's just that's been going on for a very long time, because nobody is considering each other domain space and I think that's really really critical. You know, walk a mile in my shoes and understand where we have to go with this, because if you're making promises that engineering can't keep the impacts of a statement and the attempt at that, execution becomes a very difficult thing and a lot of people don't really understand the impacts that you're talking about.
26:58 - Kristin (Host)
And then like the disinformation and misinformation and the distrust of the brand.
27:02
I mean, there's so many things going on.
27:03
I mean, like we said, we have a lot of misconceptions of the food industry as a whole, anyways, because of the marketing machine, because, you know, the dairy industry is an example to take it back to the Midwest likes to portray happy cows that live, you know, in a beautiful barn and have sunshine and you know grass, and that's not necessarily the case in all farms.
27:19
I mean there's some farms that do. I think the fact that we are so blinded to that in some ways, or just don't want to know, just we go to the grocery store and buy our milk is fine and we move on with our lives, I think we're doing ourselves a disservice to how the system works and we're not trying to be like doomsday people here. We're not trying to be conspirators or anything like that, we're just trying to present a new system of thinking and I feel like a lot of times I'm the crazy one in the room because I'm like well, that's interconnected over there. Why don't you see that? That's very clear to me. I mean, it's one of those things and I know you have the same moment, CJ.
27:57 - CJ Unis (Guest)
Oh yeah, this is a problem. But again, when you you look at a problem like this, you don't necessarily open up the aperture and look at the entire spectrum of the problem. That can be a bit of a.
28:16 - Kristin (Host)
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29:34 - CJ Unis (Guest)
Yeah, looking at systems thinking in food is a really interesting thing, because a lot of people don't necessarily consider how all of these things are connected or how operations or infrastructure or systems or human capital or cyber or integration architecture are really, really critical and that all of those things that I just mentioned are an ecosystem that feeds off of each other. But looking at those things in a singularly is important, but also looking that, looking at them as an ecosystem, are really critical too. So looking at how all of those things behave and how one little, one little hiccup in the system causes a multitude of potential cascading implications the ways in which most people don't really understand are really critical and looking at that entire ecosystem piece and creating resiliency around those things and, you know, risk management in systems thinking is also really critical too, because those are the things that aren't necessarily considered. If you're looking at one angle of the problem, well, there are several other angles of the problem that need to be considered with regard to cyber or human capital or distribution supply chains and so on and so forth Electricity, just basic infrastructure to make an enterprise run. So these are things that are really important.
30:47
But again, I can apply this business model to literally any industry. It doesn't have to be food, I mean. You know, there's shipping that's going to have issues. There's going to be communications that's going to have issues. There's going to be social media, that you can obviously see a gigantic spider web. It's an interconnected spider web, is what it is, and there are pieces and parts of it that have more influence than others do. But again, that perception becomes the reality for most people.
31:12 - Kristin (Host)
I mean so well said, I think, whenever I've done, I call them extended security assessments which fit into the systems aspect, cause you can't really say it's a security assessment unless you kind of put that little bit on there Cause you're thinking it differently. I've had conversations with everybody in the plant. I can talk to HR, marketing, engineering, it security, you name it and they're all like why are you talking to me? Well, you're working a factory, you're here, you're part of the whole. Like you do on your side will affect the other side. So explain to me how you handle you know 5,000 temp workers that come in for the holidays.
31:46
To me that's affecting the whole bottom line, your production, your safety, your security. How are you managing the access for that? You know that kind of thing. Are you deactivating their access when they leave? Who does that? You know there's all these questions and it's so interesting. Beyond that, you know the supply chain aspect which nobody's got figured out. It's all over the place. We're still working through what's priority and what's not. But I think with food it makes more sense. You kind of know where the priority lies keeping the food safe, right, that's. We get that so we can follow that supply chain a little bit differently, absolutely, and I think to your point.
32:19 - CJ Unis (Guest)
There aren't too many industries that have direct reach back to over a hundred million people in less than a week. I mean, that's, everybody's got to eat at some point in the day. So again, there's just a ecosystem beyond comprehension that supports the ability to do that in restaurants, in large establishments, school lunches, like. There's just how many schools you know how many K through 12 schools do we have in the United States and how many people work every day to make sure that that food is being supplied to those youngsters on a daily basis and it's handled safely, and it's absolutely handled safely. So, again, these are really important conversations that you don't get from a traditional education. You have to be a part of some of these industries up and coming to understand how the big picture fits into their particular domain space and why are these things important and who do they impact and why do we need to be considering these things from a quantitative and qualitative risk framework?
33:17 - Kristin (Host)
It's true, and this is why boards need to start making sure that they have not only cybersecurity on their boards, but also people who are these types of system thinkers, these bigger thinkers that can see in the whole aspect and be able to relate it quickly, even from an environmental side, environmental sustainability, governance side, or ESG. I think that it's super important to be able to have that type of person's mindset there too, because that's just going to tie into cybersecurity, it's going to tie into IT, it's going to help your digital transformation, and I think that a lot of these firms that are out there and I know you and I have talked about this CJ they're going through digital transformation so fast that they're not thinking about the compromises that they're making on the backend part of the cycle that we've been talking about and I think to your point what are the two major drivers for any enterprise organization?
34:06 - CJ Unis (Guest)
It's policy and governance and most people don't necessarily consider that when they're executing on that policy and governance or trying to change something, the implications of a minor change in their policy and governance or trying to change something, the implications of a minor change in their policy and governance, is going to have overarching and very widespread impact to the enterprise to which they are trying to set that policy and governance in, and that can be applied to literally any domain space.
34:28 - Kristin (Host)
It's true, I used to write policy, so I completely understand this. It's a lot of responsibility in writing it properly. That will flow over every aspect of your business countries, regions, different governments, things like that. It's really complicated. And then getting it right that fits into your corporate culture, and then being able to articulate that down to your employees so they understand why things are going, and then having them understand how it impacts them and they're part of the spoke of the wheel, if you will, to use a corporate term. And I really I worry a lot about the future because I really feel like if we can't get it right now, I mean we're just going to keep innovating super fast. So how are we going to? We're playing catch up. We're constantly playing catch up. At this point, Within that, for the future trends, do you foresee more intersections between cybersecurity and food protection culture? Do you see how companies are going to start preparing themselves? Do you have any advice?
35:15 - CJ Unis (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, all of the above, those are going to be really important up and coming topics and the way in which information is going to be disseminated, our communication systems, our logistic systems. I believe within the next five to 10 years, we are going to see exponential change in ways that we could have never dreamed about With the insertion of particular technologies, with the insertion of distribution supply chains, the way in which electricity is delivered to us or some type of fuel source that drives, the way in which so it's pretty wild. I think those things are really important and I think it's critically important to consider all of these things and how they impact this ecosystem moving forward, because I see organizations switching to what they call visualization and canvassing and process throughput, because most of the people that we work with in organizations are very visual learners and they learn. You can whiteboard it, you can look at certain things, but I believe that is going to be the next up and coming technology and we are going to have to have a workforce that understands.
36:12
So. So we have these silos that we operate in. I like to call them cylinders of excellence, because a lot of people don't necessarily understand that I'm operating in this domain space. Well, that's great, or I'm operating in this domain space but we're going to need a whole industry of people that operate in those seams, that are able to connect the dots as those outliers, so they are the connective tissue, like a ligament that brings those two things together so they can move and articulate accordingly. So we need a whole new workforce of folks that understand complexity and ecosystems and systems thinking to connect those dots. In government, in the private sector, in industry, you name it. We're going to need those people moving forward and there is no curriculum right now that really shows folks how to do that. And I'm working with some folks right now to help kind of characterize and bound some of those problems, to create that clarity from complexity.
37:10 - Kristin (Host)
I've always been told I'm more of the disruptor. I could go between silos and run across. And, CJ, you're very similar to me in that regard. You've got three different avenues and I've never been able to pinpoint what was the exact moment where I felt like I could understand that. I guess I've always just been a connector and relator by natural personality. But how do you teach that, other than I just see these connections? I don't know how to tell you how I see them, other than I can give you analogies that would work, like we've been speaking in analogies this entire time, because that's how we've started to communicate, how we understand the world around us, and I think a lot of it comes down to curiosity. I mean, CJ, you and I've talked about this too, that we're both in the insatiably curious. We we're like well, why are things like that and why would you think that? And and how come that's over there and not over there?
37:54 - CJ Unis (Guest)
I don't understand that and, to your point, it's an insatiable curiosity of learning, unlearning and relearning and those are really really important things for people who are curious about how things operate and why they're important and who they ultimately impact. Again, that's what drove me down the path that I went down and again I got this systems thinking mindset around it and I finally was able to pinpoint it and connect with other people who have this insatiable curiosity like I do. I don't care what industry you're in, we all have the same problems. They just exist in different domain spaces.
38:28
So, again, these are not new problems. They're certainly. They're very complicated, they're very complex and it's being able to work with people who have been through that same, I would say, potential hell, that we've tried to articulate that message to folks and sometimes it just doesn't get through. But again, when you start, I think society is waking up to some of the complexities that we're dealing with in politics and ecosystems in a lot of different in policy and governance. I mean, we're watching a lot of things unfold in the United States right now that are that are that are finally boiling to a point where we better do something about it, otherwise it is going to get out of control and it's going to take on a life of its own.
39:07 - Kristin (Host)
Yeah, and it will affect the global community very quickly as well. I mean because, as we stated, we're interconnected. So we need you know, you need us, we need you kind of thing. And I think that's another reason why I love working in the food industry too is because it's a global supply chain. It's not just a national supply chain. I mean it is, but it also goes beyond that, because what we do to our soil and our water will affect the greater whole in the long run. How we transfer goods to other parts of the world, you know everybody talks about. You know they go to the fancy restaurants and they want to have certain things that are from different parts of the world and they're flown in that morning. Think about the amount of like fuel and logistics that go into making sure you have the steak that came from some part of the world that you've never been to. And it's fascinating to me that we live in this world where you can almost instantly get that.
39:52 - CJ Unis (Guest)
And I think to your point, the way in which air travel is going to transform here in the next 10 years with regard to I mean, you've got folks that are developing engineers and new airplane companies that are developing potential hypersonic ability and getting from point A to point B is going to blow your mind. So Chicago to New Zealand or Chicago to Hong Kong you're talking a couple hours as far as the ability and getting these things from point A to point B. So the rate at which we connect the world that much quicker is not is no longer science fiction. It is going to be science back here very, very soon and it is going to literally transform the way we do business at every level.
40:34 - Kristin (Host)
Yeah, I just wish we'd upgrade our rail system here in the States to get a little bit more close to the rail system in Japan or something like that, because imagine transporting goods at a higher speed and safely. I'm not picking on the rail industry. We all know that they've got their problems. Again, this is part of the cycle and the system that we're discussing, because the rail system has issues. We have issues moving product, we have issues with a lot of things. We have tampering for cybersecurity. There's a lot of questions there. We haven't even talked about OT or ICS. There's huge implications there. It's a lot. And I know and I bear with everybody for listening to this, because I know that we're talking in a lot of, like, technical speak, because we are talking about terms that aren't necessarily part of your everyday. However, they are part of your everyday. You just don't know.
41:15 - CJ Unis (Guest)
Absolutely, and to your point, I believe rail infrastructure is going to be coming into a renaissance as well. A lot of these designs, a lot of these things, even ocean shipping. I think the interesting thing is, you know, you look at some of these manifests, they're all electronic. And what happens when those manifests disappear or you have a cyber attack, like there are anywhere between 20 and 40,000 shipping containers on the average. So, again, if you have an electronic manifest, that data has to be protected. That data is literally data is the new gold, is the 21st century gold. So being able to protect that data and how critical it is to make sure that that data has some level of resiliency, and that from a risk resiliency model is also critical too. So these all play into the equation.
42:01 - Kristin (Host)
We're just going to keep going. More digital though. I mean, NFTs may not have, you know, weren't the moment they had their moment, they're not the moment now, but I really feel like that will eventually come back around in some capacity. I really do think we'll see things like deeds for houses being moved digitally instead of physically. I think we'll see things like car loans and that kind of stuff will actually be digital. We won't have to deal with it. I do think that eventually, IDs like licenses and things like that will be digital. We won't have them. We won't carry things like that anymore. We're just going to carry one electronic thing, whether it's a phone or something like that. I don't know if we'll see it in our time lifetime CJ, but we'll definitely be seeing the creations of it in our lifetime.
42:40 - CJ Unis (Guest)
Oh yeah, absolutely, and I think, I think within the next 10 to 20 years we are going to see technologies coming into the mainstream that we never potentially thought.
42:48 - Kristin (Host)
Yeah, I mean, I get excited by it and also terrified by it at the same time. It's such a weird complex I have about it Like this is so cool. Oh God, how are we going to secure this? Or please don't let this come into a factory. Or I don't want this touching anything to do with our critical infrastructure. Please do not attach an Alexa to the network. Like, don't do those things. You don't need an IoT tea kettle in your office, that's, you can have that at home. You don't need that in the office. They're too easy to be hacked anyways.
43:16 - CJ Unis (Guest)
I would agree with you on all fronts. I mean, these are not easy things for folks to get their heads around, because everything in their day-to-day lives operates very, very seamlessly Traffic lights, cell phones, electricity. We all overlook those things because they're operating seamlessly until they're not, and then chaos ensues.
43:35 - Kristin (Host)
You know and I think that that just goes back to the unsung heroes you know the people that are keeping us safe, while we can just blissfully be ignorant about the things that go on. And this is one of the reasons why I love talking to the food professionals on the Podcast is because they're able to showcase what they do and let people know that they're doing everything they can to keep food safe and keep families together, and it is really one of those things. That's just the same deal with cybersecurity. We're also unsung. You know protecting and saving people, and we don't say a word about it.
44:03
I think that you have to come into this in this industry or industries, in a different way. Obviously, I have said this before I come from a long line of firefighters. I think it just kind of goes without saying how I ended up here I'm sure you have a similar story with that too, CJ that you just kind of ended up into a position that you are affecting and helping to better people's lives because of your actions. But anyways, as we're wrapping up here, CJ, I would like you to just mention to people what you're kind of working on next, how they can find you if they want to continue these conversations and also the really big question I want to ask is how do people start to have system thinking and I know that we said it's in sensual curiosity, which is, yes, I would agree to that, but like what is kind of like the steps that they can?
44:44 - CJ Unis (Guest)
start taking Sure. So I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me at CJ Eunice. I've got a pretty solid following around systems and ecosystems and there's a systems thinking alliance that was created and if you want to learn, there's some there's some one on one classes that you can look at as how you get going around systems thinking and they actually they teach this. I'm coming out with some curriculum around international emergency and crisis management, around systems thinking, or some very interesting communities around the world. Yeah, so I think the biggest advice is, if you're interested in this type of thing, there is a systems thinking alliance. Take a look at my profile and some of the work that I've done and who I've associated with in the defense space. Those folks are really the up and comers for the systems thinking there's just there's a lot of very interesting organizations that are starting to get their head around some of these complexities and I think that was and I think that is really important.
45:38
But again, if you are curious about your industry, go to the people who are responsible for operating your day-to-day operation. So, one of the things that you and I were talking about earlier vulnerability analysis. When I was doing vulnerability analysis for military bases, I would go find the guy with the biggest key ring. He literally had all of the keys and he had all of the institutional knowledge about that particular entity or place. And I said, if you wanted to shut this place down abruptly, what would you do? I'd go over and turn off that valve and turn off this switch and shut down this breaker and go from there. And it really gives you some very, very interesting insight as to how somebody in an operations domain would potentially attack your system.
46:19
So, again, if you're interested in being a bad guy, there's wargaming activities that take place for red on blue activities. I take great pride in scaring the hell out of people because it wakes them up, so it's a lot of fun, Kristin. So there are entire communities. I mean, I'm part of cyber games a lot, so it's a lot of fun, Kristin. So there are entire communities.
46:37 - Kristin (Host)
I mean, I'm part of cyber games a lot, so and I find them to be terrifying and also very entertaining because just knowing that they could just do something in a snap of a finger to get in and it's and it's funny that you say that you went for the biggest key ring. I always went for the oldest employee, like not chronological age, but like how long they've been with the company.
46:56 - CJ Unis (Guest)
We had the biggest key ring. Like I mean, that's a rock solid.
46:59 - Kristin (Host)
And they would tell you, because they're definitely the type that were like get off my lawn, I don't want you here. So they would just tell you to make you go away. Yeah, yeah, thanks for your thanks for your time, CJ. I really appreciate it, and we'll probably definitely have you back on the Podcast at some point, because there'll be more to come with this conversation, I'm quite sure by the end of the year. Yeah, but anyways, I really do appreciate your time and we'll talk soon.
47:21 - CJ Unis (Guest)
All right, Kristin, thanks a bunch.
47:26 - Kristin (Host)
And that brings us to the end of another episode of Bites of Bites Podcast. A big thank you to our listeners for joining us today. An enormous thank you to CJ for sharing his invaluable insight and expertise. Conversations like these help us stay informed, inspired and ahead of the curve in the ever intersecting world of food and cybersecurity. And remember stay safe, stay curious and we'll see you on the next one. Bye for now.
