Spring Break
CIA talks job opportunity with students
Recruiter discusses available career paths, U.S. intelligence
Trevor Simonton
Issue date: 2/21/08 Section: News
CSU alum and Central Intelligence Agency recruiter David Burris came to the Lory Student Center Wednesday afternoon to discuss career opportunities in the CIA with students.
The small meeting room on the second floor of the LSC was packed with students as Burris began his speech. About half of the 60 or so students who came to hear Burris speak were criminal justice majors. The rest of the crowd included students from a variety of majors; many had received word of the visit from the Student FYI e-mail system.
Burris graduated from CSU with a bachelor's degree in history in 1975 "back in the days when it was still called 'Moo U,'" he said.
He received his master's degree in history in 1976. About a year later, he was approached by a CIA recruiter and hired as an undercover counter-intelligence operative.
"I was hired because I had the ability to write, think, present myself and understand things with a historical context," Burris said.
After working undercover for 20 years, Burris now serves as the southwest region recruitment representative for the CIA, a job he has been fulfilling the past 11 years.
He recruits for all four hiring divisions in the CIA, "from spooks to spies to accountants," Burris said.
Shortly after introducing himself, Burris spoke about the purpose of the agency.
"In essence, the CIA recruits spies and steals secrets," Burris said. "But it takes a lot of analysis. At the core of the CIA is human intelligence, but it's not intelligence until it's analyzed."
Burris said that the largest source of this intelligence is the media.
"When I was hired, you couldn't Google a thing. I was amazed with what the Corona project let us do; we could look at pictures taken from satellites. Now you can do that on Google Earth," Burris said. "That was 30-plus years ago; you can imagine what we can do now."
He went on to explain that the mission of the CIA is to be the keystone of US intelligence, and that it was established to bring objective truth to the US policy makers. "We want to know what the intentions of our enemies are," Burris said.
The small meeting room on the second floor of the LSC was packed with students as Burris began his speech. About half of the 60 or so students who came to hear Burris speak were criminal justice majors. The rest of the crowd included students from a variety of majors; many had received word of the visit from the Student FYI e-mail system.
Burris graduated from CSU with a bachelor's degree in history in 1975 "back in the days when it was still called 'Moo U,'" he said.
He received his master's degree in history in 1976. About a year later, he was approached by a CIA recruiter and hired as an undercover counter-intelligence operative.
"I was hired because I had the ability to write, think, present myself and understand things with a historical context," Burris said.
After working undercover for 20 years, Burris now serves as the southwest region recruitment representative for the CIA, a job he has been fulfilling the past 11 years.
He recruits for all four hiring divisions in the CIA, "from spooks to spies to accountants," Burris said.
Shortly after introducing himself, Burris spoke about the purpose of the agency.
"In essence, the CIA recruits spies and steals secrets," Burris said. "But it takes a lot of analysis. At the core of the CIA is human intelligence, but it's not intelligence until it's analyzed."
Burris said that the largest source of this intelligence is the media.
"When I was hired, you couldn't Google a thing. I was amazed with what the Corona project let us do; we could look at pictures taken from satellites. Now you can do that on Google Earth," Burris said. "That was 30-plus years ago; you can imagine what we can do now."
He went on to explain that the mission of the CIA is to be the keystone of US intelligence, and that it was established to bring objective truth to the US policy makers. "We want to know what the intentions of our enemies are," Burris said.
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