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Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory: The FBI’s mission knows no borders.

That makes it imperative for our personnel to be able to communicate with one another, no matter where on Earth they’re located.

Experts from the Bureau’s Critical Incident Response Group—or CIRG—help make that communication possible.

On this My Mission episode of Inside the FBI, we’ll meet Justin Labrecque, an Air Force veteran and current Air National Guardsman who leverages his military skillset to support Bureau operations across the globe.

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Justin Labrecque: My name is Justin Labrecque. I'm a tactical communicator with the Critical Incident Response Group.

A tactical communicator is an individual who has a great depth of communications experience whether it’s prior, coming from the military or prior within the Bureau.

As a tactical communicator, you would provide communications anytime, anywhere. You’d respond to an incident in the field—say that’d be in an urban environment, we would get our transport services spun up to be able to get connectivity from on-scene through the network to provide dataflow for information that's needed.

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Labrecque: Coming from the military, I've always been wanting to provide service to the nation, and I saw that I was able to continue that joining the Bureau, and I wanted to provide service to a craft that I'm passionate about.

I was with the United States Air Force. I started off as a 2E2 working with cryptographic and network systems, and then I got transitioned into cyber transport.

After my time in the active duty Air Force, I transitioned to the Air National Guard and I was in the Guard for just a few years before applying for the Bureau. It was actually during one of my deployments in the Guard where I started researching federal jobs and jobs within the Bureau. And it was shortly after that I applied, and, a year after that, was able to start a career in the Bureau.

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Labrecque: I started off in the field office in New Haven, and from there I was an electronic technician. I was there for about six years before learning of the tactical communicator role.

The part that interest[ed] me the most was being able to work in an environment where you could be working one day in the office or the next day you'd be out in the field, so having that exposure to different elements and being able to travel and see different parts of the Bureau that most people don't get to see.

Since I've been in this position, I've been able to take part in many exercises and events. One of those that is the most memorable is being able to travel overseas to support an exercise with our mission partners.

My “why” for continuing to serve comes from not knowing the day-to-day, whether it's working a special event or being able to go on a trip that takes you places where you get to do things that no one else in the Bureau gets to do.

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Labrecque: For a tactical communicator, having a technical background is beneficial, along with being able to be mobile, physically fit. [It] helps when you're moving packages and getting things set up. And you can be working in different types of environments--so that could be working in a confined space area or somewhere where you would need to be able to lift boxes into a ship—and a lot of situations that most people that are in this field aren't put in. So, you have to be ready and prepared for that. So, we do a lot of training to get spun up on that. We do some austere-environment training, which could be cold weather or extreme hot weather. We also do some rope climbing, so if you need high access to get into a ship or be able to climb up the side of a building, if needed to, we can do things like that.

We have a fully furnished gym. We also have a trainer that's provided to us that can tailor exercises to your individual needs. We also have other members that can help provide services, like a PT [physical therapist] that can help with any type of injuries and help recovery. We also have yoga sessions, as well.

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Labrecque: A day in the life, as a tactical communicator: testing our equipment—just making sure equipment is updated and working properly as it should, 'cause we'd have to respond immediately if called to. We have the duty team that has response—CONUS [continental United States] and also regional. And we would also be coordinating with other units, whether it's doing trainings or providing services to the bomb techs for trainings that they attend.

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Labrecque: I'd say the most rewarding part is seeing the results of the work after you're done with a training exercise, or even if you're a part of something that's real world that's happening, and you could see how you were able to complete the exercise or what was needed to be done.

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Oprihory: That was Justin Labrecque, a tactical communicator with the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group.

You can visit fbi.gov/tactics to learn more about how CIRG provides rapid assistance to incidents in a crisis.

To hear other FBI personnel reflect on their unique missions within the FBI, visit us at fbi.gov/mymission. And to learn more about careers opportunities at the Bureau, visit fbijobs.gov.

This has been another production of Inside the FBI. You can follow us on your favorite podcast player, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

You can also listen to our show via the the myFBI Dashboard app. Visit fbi.gov/dashboardapp to learn more.

And you can subscribe to email alerts about new episodes at fbi.gov/podcasts.

I’m Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory with the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs. Thanks for listening.

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