Next Gen Midweek Motivation
Date and Time
Wednesday Apr 1, 2015
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EDT
12:00=1:00pm
Location
Renato's
William St.
22401
Fees/Admission
$18 NG members
$24 All others
Description
Presentation by Kurt Muse and Fred Kleibacker
Immersive Media Tactical Solutions, LLC
See below for more about the speakers
RSVP online here, or to whitney@fredericksburgchamber.org
$18 NG member
$24 All others
$2 additional fee for paying at the door
Speaker Info:
Kurt Muse: Kurt Muse is an American citizen born and raised in Panama City, Panama. He lived in Panama until 1989. Kurt spent eight years in the United States Army reserves in the 1970’s. In 1987, he grew frustrated with the brutal regime of Panama’s then dictator, General Manuel Noriega. Not content to sit on the sidelines, Kurt along with close Panamanian friends began using radio scanning and transmitting equipment to broadcast anti-Noriega and pro-democracy messages to the Panamanian people – an action that placed him on the most wanted list. After being on the air for almost two years, Kurt was betrayed and arrested. He was placed in the notorious Carcel Modelo prison (http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/06/world/with-a-bang-panama-is-erasing-house-of-horrors.html), where he survived torture and inhumane conditions for more than nine months. On December 20, 1989, on the orders of President H. W. Bush, Operation Acid Gambit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Acid_Gambit) was launched minutes before the Just Cause invasion kicked off. The purpose was to rescue Kurt from the prison before they could execute him. In one of the most dramatic hostage rescue missions in modern U.S. military history, Mr. Muse was rescued by operators from the U.S. Army’s elite Delta Force. It was the first successful US hostage rescue of an America held by a foreign government. Kurt captured the events of those nine months in his acclaimed book “Six Minutes to Freedom.” His life has also been the subject of numerous documentaries (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSyFuLokgKE). After his rescue, Kurt insisted on meeting the men who had saved his life, whom he remains in close contact with to this day. Kurt is the loving husband to Anne and their two children and four grandchildren. Kurt routinely is asked to be a guest speaker to tell his incredible story of courage and sacrifice. Currently, Kurt is the President of IMTS, LLC, with a focus on expanding the company’s South American operations.
Fred Kleibacker: Fred served for 20 years in the U.S Army (1974 – 1994). He enlisted into the Rangers and was an original member of the then, newly formed, 2d Ranger Bn. He joined Special Forces in 1978 and served with the 10th Special Forces Group (1978 – 1983) the 7th Special Forces Group in the Republic of Panama from 1984 – 1988, during the same period Kurt Muse was attempting to overthrow the government. They did not know each other then. In late 1988, Fred was selected to join the 1st Special Forces Detachment- Delta (The Delta Force) where he did two tours (1988 – 1990 and 1992 - 1994). During his first tour, he helped plan Operation Acid Gambit and played a key support role in Kurt’s rescue. In-between his tours at Delta, Fred taught ROTC at Bucknell University, retiring from the Army in October 1994. He worked for the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) (1997 – 2005) as the Director of their Personal Recovery Education and Training Center (PRETC) located in Fredericksburg, VA. In 2003, Kurt and Fred reconnected when Fred received a call from Kurt out of the blue to thank him for participating in his rescue. Fred contracted Kurt to give the keynote speech during graduations at the Center, which Kurt still does to this day. Fred left government service in late 2005 to pursue his entrepreneurial business interests; first as an independent contractor for an intelligence agency from 2005 – 2009, spending two years in Iraq. During this same period, he and Kurt started IMTS in 2006 when the Army needed to rapidly field commercial off the shelf technologies to counter the devastating effects of Improvised Explosive Demolitions (IEDs). Their team designed, developed and successfully deployed, in just 90 days, a lifesaving Mobile Surveillance System (Passive HunterTM) to support the IED hunters for US Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Their systems remained there until the end of the war and are now in use in Afghanistan by US Forces and by the Defense Intelligence Agency. In 2009, Fred left Baghdad to come on board and run IMTS full time. Apart from being the CEO of IMTS, he is a devoted husband to his second wife Erica (whom he met in Baghdad), his three children and three grandchildren. Fred gives generously of his time to help Special Operations warriors make the difficult transition to civilian life after years in combat. Fred received his Bachelor of Science in Business Management from Indiana Wesleyan University in 2005.
Company Info:
IMTS specializes in providing situational awareness and management products and services. These include integrated security, communication, tracking and command and control systems for personnel, their facilities and their associated vehicles, vessels and aircraft. IMTS was founded by Fred and Kurt as a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) in 2006 and has been a prime contractor to the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan since that time. IMTS has a number of proprietary products, systems and software including their Passive Hunter™ mobile surveillance product line that collects, federates and disseminates multi-spectral threat information in real-time with date stamps and geo-location, Persistent WitnessTM situational management solution and several command and control software packages. In the past eight years, IMTS has developed and implemented and provided over $35M in custom security products and services for the U.S. Government, including mapping 10,000 miles of roads in Iraq using the same technology as Google Street View. Today they still support the US Government and have expanded their offerings globally, as well as the private sector, with a specific focus on the transportation, oil and gas, and utilities industries.
IMTS is headquartered in Fredericksburg, Virginia, with operations in Pittsburgh, PA, Binghamton, NY, Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan, Mexico City, Mexico and Panama City, RP.