Private Eye on Campus: DR Cunningham Protects and Mentors You!

A Cool Guest Speaker Was Invited by Marketing Club to Talk to the Students

With his friendly and encouraging attitude, you do not realize how tall DR Cunningham is until you are standing directly in front of him. He is well over 6 feet tall but has a unique ability to make you feel comfortable in his presence. He goes by the name Mr. DR.

DR speaks about being blessed and lucky to have found himself in the situations that have allowed him to pursue his dreams. As an example, he describes how he got his first job interview with the FBI an entire year after filling out his application. They didn’t call him, they just showed up at his job where he worked as a stocking clerk. “I was standing in the stock room and I got a call from the front, I was told a Special Agent from the FBI is here to see me. I leaned out as far as I could to see from the stock room to the parking lot, and there were Agents looking back at me. They opened their jackets to reveal their badges.”

We are often told by others that opportunity favors those whose minds are prepared and that as far as “luck” goes, we make our own luck by being willing to work hard and to go an extra mile. So, I decided to ask Mr. DR if he had a story for us about making his own luck. “No, it is not so much a case of that as much as it is being blessed. As I was coming up I always knew that I wanted to be different than those around me, I wanted to be special and those that I chose as friends were the same way.”

Starting a relationship with a mentor at Suitland High School, Mr. DR was encouraged to develop his business plan, mission, vision, and goals. He participated in an entrepreneurial program where he developed his business-savvy and creative public relations skills.

After graduating in 2006, DR further developed his networking and professional skills resulting in working for the FBI as one of the youngest recruits ever to join. Four years later he came to a crossroads of deciding on either staying with the FBI or entering the private sector as executive protection. After speaking with his mentors he made the decision to enter the private sector and came up with an executive protection idea for clients starting with celebrity artist Trey Songz. Now DR is the owner of the international executive protection services company called Stealth Protection Services, LLC. His company specializes in executive protection, event protection, supplemental protection, and provides armed and unarmed security drivers.

When his company continued to flourish, one of his former mentors challenged him to give back by telling him “be sure to always give back to others from the community you’ve come from.” This challenge has lead DR to develop the Purple Print and the Purple Highlighter Mentorship Programs. Through these programs he aims to help young people to discover their own path to success. DR says, “You have to share in order to get anywhere, share with anyone who is willing to listen. It’s my story and your story that helps someone else to become greater. .. everyone has a blueprint, but at what point does your blueprint charge you to stand out and be distinguished?”

He leans into a fist pump when he has made his point. He is animated, he liked the diverse group of students in the audience he was speaking that day to ask him more questions. The student’s sensing his genuine interest in them responded. The hands began to rise up more frequently and urgently.

A student explains her situation as an international student seeking part-time employment but the requirement for a company to financially sponsor international students is a barrier to her and without prior work experience she cannot market herself.

He asks her, “What is it that you bring to the table?” Well .. .I speak five languages?

He then points out to her that the ability to speak five languages is a very valuable skill and he could put her in touch with the right people. He also advises to find a mentor as soon as possible and “attach yourself at the hip to them.” They will respond when you show an eagerness to learn from them.

Another student asked about how to transition from being a student of business to an actual owner of a business. He mentioned the importance of education but then directly asked, “Have you ever jumped?” “What?’ she responds not knowing how to answer. “You have to jump and at times fall and pick yourself up and try again.” He emphasized to her that risk taking is essential to success and that without it you will not be able to survive in the business world.

There is a message coming through when DR speaks, and the message is that perhaps it is not just about working hard, going the extra mile, or making our own luck. While these are important, there is another perhaps more important realization that DR is telling us, and that is we are all blessed, and to take advantage of our blessings we have to believe we are worthy of the risk taking. We are all special and worth it and we all have something in us that will comes out in the best way possible when we set out with the intention of sharing it with others.

Gary Saucedo,
Student, Poet, Artist, Human Being on behalf of the Marketing Club