Rarely in the spotlight but always operating in the wings and behind the scenes, the United States Secret Service, under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security since 2003, has been a fixture of federal law enforcement across 159 years and 30 presidencies. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century and into the modern day, Bucknellians have played an important role in helping the agency anticipate and meet the challenges of an ever-changing world.

“I’d been in the private sector for 14 years, essentially behind a desk and in front of a computer,” says Canestrari, who wanted to do more to support his country after the Sept. 11 attacks. “I bumped into Carl Agnelli ’89 in an airport. He was carrying a bag, and when I asked, he opened it and showed me an M4 carbine assault rifle. That’s when he said he was in the Secret Service. Here I was in the software business, feeling like I have to do something different to contribute.”

So, just before his 37th birthday, Canestrari started the first phase of his new career. “In the Secret Service, we tend to talk about phases,” says Canestrari, who was hired as a special agent, a position so competitive that less than 1% of applicants are accepted. “You do phase one in the field, then you do phase two on a protective detail.”

Jim Cawley ’82, P’17, who graduated from Bucknell with an economics degree, received his first assignment at the New York field office in the mid-1980s, right around the time that William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. was released in theaters. Starring William Petersen and Willem Dafoe, the gritty thriller follows two Secret Service agents who will stop at nothing to arrest an elusive counterfeiter. It’s a fictional portrayal, though Cawley says the job is “not unlike the movies.”

“You had to be street smart. You had to be able to work cases, do surveillance and work with confidential informants,” he says. Surveillance and late-night stakeouts could be regular parts of the job, and counterfeit schemes led him to people who were printing money in garages and basements. “It was not your typical nine-to-five job, that’s for sure.”

Even though Secret Service careers can be split into two phases — investigation and protection — there is not necessarily a hard line between the two. Cawley says that when hundreds of foreign dignitaries and their spouses converge on New York City for the United Nations General Assembly, “Everybody drops their cases and goes to work protection.”

Agnelli, who spent his first seven years in the New York field office, describes the U.N. General Assembly as a kind of informal reunion for agents from all over the country. “You’d see your buddies whom you haven’t seen for a year or two meandering around town with their protectees,” he says. After being assigned to protect the prime minister of Norway three years in a row, Agnelli even developed a close friendship with the Norwegian security team, often exchanging holiday cards and invites to each other’s home country.

The skills that an agent acquires through their investigative work, such as being able to build partnerships with outside agencies, foreign dignitaries and their families, are foundational to the next phase of protective duty.

On the surface, protection might look like standing near a head of state with an air of hypervigilance, but behind the scenes, agents must cultivate a network of strong relationships. “I always say the Secret Service is a contact sport, and the more contacts you make, the better,” says Canestrari. “Because as an agency, the Secret Service is constantly putting together small teams of agents to go support protective movements all over the world.”

Advance work typically requires agents to arrive at a location roughly two weeks before the president. That time is spent hashing out all of the operational concerns of a visit, including organizing a motorcade, conducting site visits, reviewing intelligence and coordinating with foreign counterparts. Depending on the country, some visits are more logistically complex than others.

“We took the president into Ukraine in the middle of a war zone via train,” says Volpicelli, referring to President Biden’s February 2023 trip to Kyiv — the first time a president visited an active war zone in which U.S. forces were not involved in the fighting. The trip was a success, though most of the details of how it was accomplished remain classified. “Nothing like that’s ever been accomplished,” he says. “It was a surreal experience. I don’t want to do it again, but it was certainly a monumental achievement for my workforce with how we pulled that off along with our support elements.”

Doing advance work for a presidential visit can be daunting, particularly if an agent doesn’t speak the host nation’s language. Amidst all the potential chaos that comes with safeguarding the commander-in-chief, these visits also offer opportunities for cultural exchange and developing a shared understanding of life beyond your own country’s borders.

“When you’re in a country for several weeks doing a protective advance, you’re embedded with locals 16 hours a day,” says Agnelli. “You hang out with them. You have dinner with their families. How can that not have an impact on you? How can that not change you? How can it not make you more intelligent in terms of how the world operates?”

Overseas presidential visits are among the most complex protective tasks, but they represent only a small portion of the protection pie. Agents are responsible for protecting presidents and vice presidents, their immediate families, former presidents and their families, major presidential and vice presidential candidates, and visiting heads of state, 24/7. Agents work in shifts to ensure constant protection.

Agents also serve on the Counter Assault Team, a specialized unit devoted to providing support in the event of an attack. “The training for the Counter Assault Team was different from that for a normal agent,” says Agnelli, who was introduced to Brazilian jiu-jitsu on the job and trained alongside some of the best tactical units in the world to learn the art of close quarters combat and counter-ambush tactics.

Whether an agent is assigned to protective duty, the Counter Assault Team or the Uniformed Division, which protects the White House complex and various government buildings, a key function is assessing the “threat landscape.” “When we say ‘threat landscape,’ we’re talking about what threats are out there and what methodologies people are using to attack,” says Dave Beach ’88, whose career included roles as the special agent in charge of the Washington, D.C., field office and deputy assistant director in the Office of Protective Operations. “The backbone of the Secret Service’s methodology is to be prepared to stop something before it even happens or mitigate it before it gets into an environment.”

By gaming through different counterfactuals and assessing what could or could not happen under various conditions, the Secret Service is able to lay the necessary groundwork for responding to potential scenarios. However, sometimes things happen that even special agents can’t predict.

“I was at my desk when the first plane hit. My cubicle at the time faced the North Tower,” Volpicelli says, recalling the events of Sept. 11, 2001. “I was able to crane my neck up and see a gaping hole in the North Tower. I had no vision of it being an aircraft at that point, but being in my line of work, my mind immediately went to some type of terrorist attack.”

Without a de facto plan, training kicked in, and Volpicelli and his fellow agents grabbed first-aid kits and headed down toward the street to search for the injured. “It made pretty much everybody that was there that day want to complete the mission of the Secret Service with all the effort and gusto possible to make sure that never happens again.”

Serving as a special agent in the Presidential Protective Division might seem like the pinnacle of a Secret Service career. However, the end of phase two is really just another beginning.

“I finished my second phase on Obama, then I went to work in headquarters for a deputy assistant director in the Office of Investigations,” says Canestrari. “I got to see things from a different perspective, sort of behind the scenes, and get a broader perspective of how the agency works, how it’s funded and how large-scale investigations get approved.”

Phase three of an agent’s career can lead to various assignments, including D.C. headquarters, foreign field offices, specialized divisions or other agencies. Currie, who spent three and a half years in a senior role with the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, eventually landed his current role as the deputy director of intelligence for the U.S. Capitol Police. “The U.S. Capitol Police mission closely resembles the Secret Service’s in protection and intelligence.”

Many agents find that the investigative skills and protection experience they acquired in the Secret Service are highly transferable to other government roles. Volpicelli, who started his career in the New York field office in 2000, is now the Secret Service’s deputy assistant director of the Office of Intergovernmental and Legislative Affairs, where he’s responsible for responding to congressional inquiries and overseeing the Freedom of Information Act Office.

Another natural next step for former agents is the private sector. “The funny thing about the Secret Service is that all these guys now work for all these major corporations worldwide. One guy’s at Amazon, another guy’s at Google and another guy is at Facebook or PayPal,” says Agnelli, who runs security for a venture capital firm. After 24 years with the agency, Cawley is the director of security for Hearst.

Canestrari served as the Presidential Protective Division supervisor on the Trump and Biden details. His 20-year career culminated in being the special agent in charge at the Seattle field office — the place he launched his career — and he now runs executive protection for the Fortune 500 company Salesforce.

Even though careers have changed, some things about the post-Secret Service life remain the same. After all, running security for a CEO is not altogether different than protecting a head of state. “Because that’s what security is,” says Cawley. “It’s buildings, it’s people, it’s access, it’s control, it’s reputation, it’s investigations — it’s all the things you’re already familiar with.”

Now, instead of bumping into old friends during the United Nations General Assembly, it’s the World Economic Forum, held in the picturesque, Alpine resort town of Davos, that serves as a hub for former agents. “You’re just meandering down the snowy street of Davos in Switzerland in January, and all of a sudden, there are all your old buddies,” says Agnelli. “It’s the coolest thing ever.” These kinds of encounters lend credence to Canestrari’s maxim that the Secret Service really is a contact sport, though what’s funny now, at least for Beach, is how those contacts were first initiated decades ago on Bucknell’s campus. “Rob, Carl and I all played football together. Carl and I were even roommates. Jim and I were squadmates in the New York field office,” he says. “It’s not really what you envision someone from Bucknell going on to do, so it was always interesting how we all found that line of work.”