A former US Army Medical Specialist and Counterintelligence (CI) Special Agent, Jeff “Doc” Larson knows how the bad guys think. According to him, thinking like the enemy is how you mitigate their power and effectiveness.
For the past 5 years, Doc has applied this very mindset to cybersecurity. Only now, it’s not just him doing the “thinking” – it’s an artificial intelligence.
More specifically, it’s multidimensional malware detecting deep learning core engine that looks at potential threats at the binary level. Nothing against Doc’s intelligence, but revolutionary deep machine learning is the genius behind Quantum Star’s cybersecurity technology.
But “Doc”? He’s the genius behind Quantum Star’s team.
Who is “Doc”?
Born and raised in Canada, Jeff Larson couldn’t have predicted the intriguing life ahead of him. At 18 years old, after getting his green card, he joined the US Army in San Antonio, Texas. His first job was a combat medic in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where mediocre combat medics were referred to as “The Medic,” but the good ones were called, “Doc”.
It goes without saying, he was one of the good ones!
Doc continued his military career, garnering experience as a preventative medicine specialist, a lab tech, an ER medic, and, eventually, a counterintelligence special agent.
What may seem like a somewhat drastic career change was actually a discovery of a lifelong passion for safety and security. After becoming a US citizen in 2001, Doc appreciated this change of pace. (Although the humor of the US Army choosing a former Canadian as a counterintelligence agent was not lost on him!)
While on active duty, Doc had 4 overseas tours spanning Germany, Iraq, and Korea. After getting out of the military he had 3 overseas tours as a civilian contractor in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He worked as an intelligence advisor to the Joint Intelligence Operations Command (JIOC) and as a senior CI Support Specialist to the Special Operations Command (SOC), assisting with full spectrum intelligence operations.
On any given day, Doc was performing threat and vulnerability assessments, conducting source operations to collect intelligence, or interviewing local nationals for force protection in a deployed environment. While not in a deployed environment, Doc usually wound up back at the Counterintelligence Special Agent Course (CISAC) as an instructor teaching the next generation of Special Agents.
He coordinated counter-insurgency operations inside a theater internment facility in Iraq, moved to Arizona, then Germany, then back to Arizona again. And as if he was competing with the Dos Equis Guy, Doc enrolled in an Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine School in Tucson, Arizona. After all, being the “Most Interesting Man In The World” isn’t easy.
There, he met his wife and decided to take one last tour in Afghanistan working with the Special Forces in various locations throughout the country. One last overseas hoorah, you might say.
Putting Down Some Roots
In 2015, Doc’s stepdad fell ill and he knew it was time to settle down in Coeur d’Alene to help care for him. Doc and his wife, Shannon, moved to the area in January 2016 and Doc began seeking his next career move. Surprisingly, there wasn’t a large demand for CI special agents in North Idaho!
Doc knew he eventually wanted to start his own security company, and that, in our times, cybersecurity would be a necessary component to it. Someone told him about the Innovation Collective’s “Coffee & Concepts” – a bi-monthly networking meeting to connect local entrepreneurs in Coeur d’Alene. It was there that Doc met Garrett Oetken, who shared the prototype for a ransomware detection software with Doc and IT specialist, Paul Swaim. They collectively agreed that it was time to formalize these efforts. They formed an LLC, sought the necessary patents, and the rest is history.
Building A Values-Driven Company
Doc’s time in the military proved invaluable when it came to starting up Quantum Star Technologies. His leadership experience put him in a position to orchestrate, delegate, and help others grow.
As the CEO of Quantum Star, Doc’s primary functions are strategic vision of the company, maintaining company culture, and networking with potential customers and alliances. His role includes engaged awareness of the company’s financial, staffing, and operational situations.
Most of all, he appreciates the connections he builds with his team and each person they come in contact with. Doc has a gift for relationship building, and plans to spend his retirement helping to develop other start-ups. Well, that and some world traveling with his wife, of course!
The Starpoint Difference
Although funded now by their investment partners at Kingdom Capital, Quantum Star turned down some initial funding in the early stages. This is an atypical move for most startups, but Quantum Star knew that a solid relationship had to be the perfect fit for the future, long term, success of the company.
“We knew that what we had was very powerful and we needed the right partners to get it in front of the right people.”
-Jeff “Doc” Larson
Today, Quantum Star Technologies is poised to improve the cyber security posture of any company with it’s very novel technology.
For decades, the cybersecurity industry has detected network threats using hashing, signatures, artifacts, and strings. Quantum Star Technologies does it differently. Utilizing AI/Deep Learning, Doc and his team have pioneered a new cybersecurity technology that will be the bleeding edge of new cybersecurity postures, and it’s called Starpoint.
Starpoint is designed to detect zero day threats and polymorphic ransomware utilizing Deep Learning. Starpoint can augment existing cyber security postures, or be a stand alone detection platform, reducing the time to detection of unknown and known malware from months & weeks to hours & minutes.
To learn more about this unique, bleeding edge technology, click here.