Wall Teen Provides Security Groups
with Complex Answers, Analysis

By Louis C. Hochman

The Coast Star

Ryan Mauro The Coast Star

At 18 years old, Wall Township resident Ryan Mauro [left] is a professional geopolitical analyst, author and web site producer.

Most 11-year-old boys have a variety of interests. They enjoy sports, hanging out with friends and watching television. Some play musical instruments. Some collect comics and baseball cards. At that age, some boys even discover girls.

When Ryan Mauro of Wall Township was 11, he discovered geopolitical analysis.

Yes. Geopolitical analysis.

“I just found some book. I don’t even remember what it was,” Ryan vaguely recalled.

Now, at 18, Ryan works for a security company that specializes in terrorism analysis. He has appeared on several radio shows, runs the security web site worldthreats.com, and has a book coming out.

It’s all quite a lot for a Wall High School senior.

“You just have to take it day-by-day,” he said.

With a heavy workload and responsibilities typically assigned to someone much older, Ryan concedes his grades have slipped from time to time.

“The job comes first,” Ryan said. “With school I do the best I can.”

Ryan began his work in security analysis informally. He wrote free-lance news analysis articles in his early and mid-teens, and submitted them to several web sites.

There was a trick to convincing the sites’ owners to take articles from someone so young.

“I told them I was 16 afterward,” he said. “They said, ‘You really know your stuff.’”

At the time, Ryan pursued the interest only as a hobby. Even so, he began to build a network of contacts—security experts, journalists, analysts and others with interests in global threats.

“I didn’t think of it as a career until I was 16,” Ryan said.

It was at that point when one contact offered him a job with Tactical Defense Concepts, a maritime-associated security company.

“It was a big risk on his part,” he said of his boss’ choice to hire someone so young.

Ryan performed tasks for the company once every few weeks, he said. He’d be asked to research a security topic, and would comb through mounds of news articles, commentaries, and other sources before presenting an analysis.

Often, Ryan said, that work would be passed along to U.S. intelligence agencies. Much of Ryan’s work was also published through the company’s web site, as well.

In the time since, Ryan has started working with the Northeast Intelligence Network, a private company that specializes in tracking and assessing terrorist threats, and makes reports to government agencies and the public. His work there is similar to what he did at Tactical Defense Concepts. Ryan doesn’t have any formal access to classified materials, but even the information in the public domain can be extremely valuable, he said.

Government intelligence agencies alone can’t always sift through the massive amount of information available, he said. Ryan attributed the problem to administrative roadblocks, procedures that hinder inter-agency communication, and lacking resources—issues he said companies like his can help overcome.

This week, he said, he was investigating one civic activist group’s potential ties to terrorist organizations.

Ryan said his job is most difficult when his organization receives information that seems urgent, but is too vague to act upon. He said the Northeast Intelligence Network had received some information that suggested a kidnapping and killing in Iraq, but didn’t have enough details to prevent it from happening.

“That’s really difficult to handle,” Ryan said.

It was because of his work with the security companies that Ryan began making appearances on radio shows.

Ryan said the companies he works for don’t mind his status as a somewhat public figure. He said it brings them notoriety and credibility.

It was also an employer who suggested he create worldthreats.com.

On the site, Ryan discusses topics such as the war in Iraq, the impact of rogue nations, and terrorism around the world.

During an appearance on an ABC affiliate, he caught the attention of a William Morris Agency representative. It was through that contact that he arranged his book deal, and expects it to be published in the next few months.

In Ryan’s book, he offers an analysis on weapons programs in Iraq.

He concludes Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in recent years, but moved them to Syria starting in 2002. Ryan bases that conclusion on reports of Israeli satellites observing trucks heading out of Iraq, then burying materials in Syria.

Those working with the shipped goods also reportedly wore special suits and used equipment for handling hazardous materials.

“It’s a chronological guide to everything Saddam had been doing,” Ryan said.

His book also ties Saddam Hussein to terrorist groups.

Ryan said the information he presents is known among intelligence agencies, but various factions with varying political agendas work within the organizations. That pushes other theories to the forefront, Ryan said, but he added that he’s very confident in his own analysis.

“I think it fits together quite nicely,” Ryan said.

He said he works to remain impartial by looking into his sources’ motives and political slants.

“I get criticized from the left, and from the right, so I know I’m doing something right,” Ryan said.

Ryan said he’s critical not of the decision to go to war with Iraq, but of what he said was the administration’s muddling of its message on the war.

He said the administration didn’t clearly articulate to the public the threat that Saddam’s regime would pose with unchecked weapons of mass destruction.

Ryan said he’s most astounded in his research by the power of democracy, as a goal and ideal.

“Democracy and freedom just spread like wildfire,” he said.

For the immediate future, Ryan expects to attend Brookdale Community College. He said he doesn’t want to pursue another full-time job to pay for a more expensive four-year school quite yet.

But Ryan said he’s likely to eventually achieve a doctorate, possibly in political science or international relations. He envisioned joining a geopolitical think tank later in life.

And Ryan said his family has proved invaluable as he reaches for his ambitious goals.

“If anything, they tell me to chill out once in a while,” he said. “But they’ve been very, very supportive.”

At school Ryan tries to balance the silly and wisecracking teenager he becomes around his friends with the mature analyst e must be around adults.

“It’s hard, because those are both true sides of me,” he said. “But I just have to be who I am.”