Marine veteran turns side gig into security company
Casey Holliday used the GI Bill to earn a degree in computer network security. There was only one problem with that plan.
“I quickly realized I had no interest working in the IT field,” he said.
With his career plans in flux, Holliday opened a CrossFit gym and sold it after five years. While wondering what would come next, his mother asked him to work at a music festival as a bartender, an opportunity to make a little side cash.
Upon hearing about Holliday’s background in the Marine Corps, where Holliday served two combat tours in Iraq before leaving the military in 2009, the festival manager wanted to pick Holliday’s brain about — of all things — security. But of the boots-on-the-ground event kind.
“The owner of the property came up to me and said, ‘Hey, you’re a Marine, can you help us with this security plan?’” Holliday said. “I love looking at battlefields and how am I gonna plan out an operation. And I drove through the property kind of like a post-battle analysis, essentially, of this event space. And I realized there were some major flaws, and let the guy know there are some things you could do pretty quickly to drastically improve the experience of your guests.”
Apparently the owner was impressed with what he heard.
“He was like, dude, you’re the guy you’re in charge now,” Holliday said. “I’ll pay you X dollars to go ahead and run this. And I’m like, oh, crap, OK.”
Holliday called about 15 friends who he served with who still lived in the Washington, D.C., area to help with the job. The event led to a side gig for Holliday and his crew, who continued doing similar events for about four years before they realized this could be more.
“For three or four years we were developing the platform and didn’t realize what it was, a passion project,” he said.
Hence, the humble beginnings of Battle Tested Security, a veteran-owned and operated company that was created because the founder and CEO accepted a bartending opportunity to make a few extra bucks.
The company became Holliday’s full-time commitment in 2019 and was starting to ramp up operations early in 2020 when the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As…
