From Spy Novels to FBI: Gina L. Osborn's Maverick Moves
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Cathy:Welcome to late boomers, our podcast guide to creating your third act with style, power, and impact. Hi. I'm Cathy Worthington.
Merry:And I'm Merry Elkins. Join us as we bring you conversations with successful entrepreneurs, entertainers, and people with vision who are making a difference in the world.
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Cathy:Hi. I'm Cathy Worthington welcoming you to the late boomers podcast. I'm here with my cohost, Mary Elkins, and we're going to be talking with Gina Osborne, army veteran, former safe chief safety and security officer at LA Metro, and retired FBI assistant special agent in charge of fighting cyber terrorism and safeguarding national security.
Merry:And I'm Mary Elkins. Gina is also a TEDx speaker and the host of Making Maverick Moves podcast. We're looking forward to talking to her about her work leading the FBI's cybercrime and counterterrorism operations in Los Angeles and hearing more about her podcast. Welcome, Gina.
Gina L. Osborn:Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here.
Merry:Great to have you.
Cathy:Yes. How do you think your upbringing and your career and life journey led you to where you are today?
Gina L. Osborn:Gosh. That is a great question. Well, when I was young, my dream was to be an international woman of intrigue. I think I've read lots and lots of spy novels and I was fascinated with the CIA and the FBI and all I knew was I needed to have a four year degree to do go into the CIA and I was in my second year of high school and a young man sat next I'm sorry, my second year of college and I was broke. I didn't know how I was gonna make it to a four year university and a young man sat next to me and started telling me about the army's counter intelligence program and how I could chase spies across Europe.
Gina L. Osborn:And so the next day, I went down to the army recruiters office and I was wearing a black and white polka dotted dress and a fuchsia hat because it was the eighties. Remember that ladies back then?
Merry:Oh, wow.
Gina L. Osborn:And and I signed up. And then eight months later, I was at Fort Jackson, South Carolina at basic training eating dirt for a living.
Merry:Oh, And you were chasing spies across Europe.
Gina L. Osborn:You know, six years or six months after that, I was assigned in to Germany and then I wound up arriving in Germany. They sent me to Belgium because I had taken three years of French in high school. So whenever your parents tell you that you'll never use your French, I am a example, I'm an example as to how you can And, yeah. And so, I wound up I did two years in Belgium at the supreme headquarters Allied Powers Europe and then I transferred to Frankfurt, Germany where I was on a specialized team that, investigated the highest profile espionage cases across the European theater. And, that was at the end of the cold war and, yeah.
Gina L. Osborn:So I was there when the wall came down and I'll tell you, went from a cocktail waitress at a comedy club before I left California to, like six months later, I was, in Europe chasing spies. So it was really a fascinating time.
Cathy:Oh. It's interesting how you wanted to do that and then ended up being able to do it in a very short time frame.
Gina L. Osborn:I was very I was very excited and that's why I always tell people the military is the way to go because they will train you to do your dream job. And especially since I eventually got into cyber and computer forensics, the the military, the air force, the army, you know, they have amazing, they're doing amazing things in the cyber world and they'll give you a whole bunch of training for free. Well, you have to give them a little bit of time. It's not completely for free. But, yeah, I it it changed my life.
Gina L. Osborn:Being in the military for six years changed my life.
Merry:I'm really glad to hear that because we really need training in cyber terrorism, especially now. I wanna get to all of that, but I I'd love to know about your podcast, making maverick moves. Tell us what inspired you to do that and also talk about the title. What's the reason for it?
Gina L. Osborn:Sure. So, I started out with a podcast a few years ago and it was called Lead Like a Lady. And when I created that title, I thought about Margaret Thatcher being the iron lady and so that was kind of the inspiration for that title. And then, I went, I spent two years as the Chief Safety and Security Officer at LA Metro, wound up becoming a whistleblower and that ended last year. And what I really learned from that experience because I'm a big believer that everything happens for a reason and that we are exactly where we are supposed to be and you know, there were a lot of things that happened after I was terminated for the very first time in my life.
Gina L. Osborn:And I wound up going on the media and talking about things, that needed to change. And one thing that came to mind was this whole maverick move and what it what did that mean to me? And that means when you go and you're afraid of something and you do it anyway, that to me is a maverick move. It could be a huge maverick move, it could be a little maverick move, but that's the thing. That's the only way that you're gonna find breakthrough success is if you, you know, find that threshold and you move forward anyway.
Merry:You hope it's the right maverick move.
Gina L. Osborn:That's true. But I think if you have the training and the experience, you know, I I'd liken it to when I was in the FBI and we would go to do an arrest warrant at somebody's house. So, you know, we would do all of the work, we knew who our subject was And, you know, at 06:00 in the morning, you'd be stacked up, you know, going up to the door and there was a point where there was no turning back. You had to rely on your training, you had to rely on your expertise, You had to you don't know is the person asleep in bed or are they laying in wait for you to come through the door. But you need to go forward anyway because, you know, you're at a point where you can't turn back.
Gina L. Osborn:So that's what I talk about when I do public speaking, you know, talking about making that breakthrough success that going out and doing an arrest warrant, you can be an entrepreneur doing the same thing or a CEO or or a mid level manager. It's just a matter of not letting that fear hold you back by pushing forward anyway. And that's what your maverick move is.
Cathy:That's such a good message.
Merry:Weren't you it is a great message, but weren't you nervous or scared every time you stood at someone's door not knowing if they were standing there with a gun?
Gina L. Osborn:So, yeah. I mean, it definitely had you you think about a lot of different things before, you know, before you walk up the night before. However, you know, we're trained, that's what we learned at Quantico, we've done it many many times before. There have been times where agents were shot and killed. In fact, there was an incident where two, agents who were, going to do a search warrant on a child predator and he wound up shooting them and they both died.
Gina L. Osborn:So it can happen, but again, you know, you're trained, you're with your people, you're completely briefed on what's going on and what you're doing and you've done a lot of homework ahead of time. So that's what gives you the confidence to move forward.
Cathy:Yeah. And FBI came before working at the LA Metro then. Right?
Gina L. Osborn:Correct. Mhmm. Yeah. I was with the FBI for twenty two years.
Cathy:Each thing kind of leads to the next thing. Right?
Gina L. Osborn:Correct.
Cathy:Yes. You would just hear about an opportunity or how do you decide to make such a big move leaving the FBI like that?
Gina L. Osborn:Well, I retired and so you get to a point where you're eligible to retire and I really wanted to do something creative. And so, I actually back then I had a true crime true crime podcast and again, I did public speaking. I've always wanted to be a writer. In fact, when I was 16 years old, I was fascinated with the show MASH and I loved Alan Alda. And, so I would go and I would buy some flowers and I would take them to twentieth Century Fox and tell the gate guard that I had flowers for Alan Alda and he would let me on to the set.
Gina L. Osborn:Okay? Now, don't do that now, ladies and gentlemen, because that's called stalking. We didn't have that word back then. But again, I I always wanted to create, you know, be a creator of television. I'm always loving telling stories.
Gina L. Osborn:And so that's something that I wanted to do, but then, someone had called me and asked me if I was interested in the LA Metro job and I said that I wasn't. And then a few months later, they called me back and said, hey, can you just speak with the CEO? And I said, okay, I'll speak with the CEO. And she told me that the bus operators were afraid to come to work. And that just tugged on my heart.
Gina L. Osborn:And, it was a fascinating experience because I don't think that there, you know, I I call it the FBI a calling, but working there at LA Metro was really a calling for me as well because it was an opportunity for me to serve not only the riders, but the frontline employees and make a system safe for them to go to work every day. So it was a really meaningful position.
Merry:And you made a big difference because it's a lot safer now.
Gina L. Osborn:Yeah. And and yeah. In 2023, my team and I were able to decrease violent crime by 35%. So
Merry:That's a lot.
Gina L. Osborn:We we were able to do a lot of great things while I was there.
Cathy:Wow. I always love hearing about everybody's steps in their life, what the the challenges they took. And tell us a little bit about the importance of female leadership in the workplace and what steps women can take to stand out in a male dominated workspace like the FBI must have been very male dominated. Right?
Gina L. Osborn:Yeah. When I went into well, I went I went into the army, I think fewer than 10% of the soldiers were women and and that was in 1987. So I'm gonna date myself a little bit. And then when I went into the FBI, about 14% of the agents were women. And so and even when I left twenty two years later, only it only got up to about 19 or 20%.
Gina L. Osborn:So it really didn't rise that significantly. But what I tell the young women who are coming behind me is you really have to lead authentically. You have to be an authentic leader. You can't take anybody else's leadership style and say, okay, this is how I'm going to lead. Yeah.
Gina L. Osborn:And a lot of times, you know, we if someone asks you what is your superpower? You think, okay, well, I don't have a superpower, you know, I may be really really good at communications or maybe I'm really good at problem solving but everybody's good at communication. So I think we sometimes discount our superpowers and we don't really give ourselves credit. But what I've learned when I'm really bad at, I'm not a patient person no matter how much effort that I'm gonna put in to becoming patient is not really going to make a dent. But if I spent more time working on my superpowers, my problem solving skills and my communication skills, that's gonna make me a much better leader.
Gina L. Osborn:So I always tell people to figure out
Cathy:what your
Gina L. Osborn:superpowers are and improve on those because that's gonna be a lot better and easier to make yourself the best than it is to try and be something that you're not.
Cathy:You find that men in the workplace sometimes respond to that when you do that?
Gina L. Osborn:Well, I think it got to a point it's it's funny because my mother, back in the seventies, became a single mom of two young girls. My dad left when I was probably like six or seven years old. And she had to, you know, take care of these two little girls. And she had been a hairdresser before she got married to my dad. And she decided she's gonna go into real estate.
Gina L. Osborn:And when you think of something like that, you know, I mean, what a risk that was for her because here she's going into a commission only field. Mhmm. And, she worked so hard in the first year. She was selling these houses for like $35,000 a piece and she made it into the million dollar club her first year.
Merry:Wow. That's quite impressive. Woah.
Gina L. Osborn:Yes. Yes. And so that was my role model and I remember in basic training, I got pulled out of bed in the middle of the night to go and paint the first sergeant's office. And one of the women who was with me painting, she started talking about this glass ceiling and I had never heard of a glass ceiling. That wasn't part of my culture where I came from.
Gina L. Osborn:So I think I spent a lot of my career not buying into, okay, well, I'm a woman so I have to act this way or I have to do something this way or I have to appease, you know, different egos or anything like that. So I think if you don't allow that into your universe and you just do it the way you wanna do it, you're gonna be a lot more successful at it than having to worry about what other people are going to think.
Merry:Mhmm. Well, was actually I was actually going to ask you about the maverick moves or certain power plays that men and women should draw on to succeed in life and business. You sort of answered it, but I think there's has to be more. And also, how your work as a counterterrorism expert applies to all of that.
Gina L. Osborn:Gosh. Yeah. That's I'm not sure how to answer that question. You know? I think I've always been someone who I mean, I I have a lot of vision and I have big ideas and I'm willing to risk certain things in order to see if a big payoff is going to come.
Gina L. Osborn:So, you know, I don't I and I think I get that from my mom or my dad. I'm not sure which, but, know, that whole maverick move thing again is, you know, we can talk ourselves out of anything. But if you don't listen to that negative talk and if you just push through, you'd be surprised at what you can accomplish.
Merry:Well, and I guess you had to do that every time you were sent out in as an agent in the field.
Gina L. Osborn:Yeah. And in the in the beginning, you know, because you don't really know what you're doing. My very first case was Thai girls being brought into The United States and forced into prostitution. So it was an involuntary servitude case. Mhmm.
Gina L. Osborn:And I was reading the case file and there was an article where a detective from the Westminster Police Department and that's in the little Saigon district of, Orange County, California. He had just rescued two of these Thai girls. So I'm figuring this is the guy. So long story, he and I start working together and I was the only female with a gun in that task force of, know, all of these men. And it was so funny because I remember going in there and I kept thinking, you know, these guys don't like me.
Gina L. Osborn:And so one time I told Tommy, I'm like, I don't think these guys like me. And he goes, no, no, no. They like you. They just don't like the FBI. And it was like a whole thing that I didn't even think of that local law enforcement didn't like the FBI, so they were treating me in a certain way.
Gina L. Osborn:Right? So again, it's that thought process that, you know, we can hold ourselves back really, really easily, but do you we have to kinda see the bigger picture in order to be able to move forward.
Cathy:And you have that female thing going on. So you're thinking, they must not like me because I'm female. And yet, it was really your organization they couldn't stand. They didn't want people stepping on their toes.
Merry:Exactly.
Cathy:This sounds stupid kind of to say this, but I've watched all these shows on TV, and that was happens all the time. You know, the FBI shows up, and then the the NYPD on law and order hates it. Like, why is the FBI here? They're still taking our case. This is our case.
Cathy:Yes. So I think a lot of people relate to this because we understand it on a very simplistic level with the television that we watch. Tell us more about your experiences in fighting crime and cyber terrorism in Little Saigon and maybe some other places.
Gina L. Osborn:Yeah. So so we worked everything from loan sharking to, you know, the involuntary servitude. Back then, the Microsoft CDs were being, counterfeited and there was a multimillion dollar operation that we wound up taking down, on that, murder for hire cases. So there was a lot of violent crime going on back then and it was an interesting time in Little Saigon because a lot of the criminals were targeting their own community because they knew that there was a distrust by the Vietnamese community for law enforcement. So it was really an interesting time and having, you know, being a big blonde walking around Little Saigon, you know, the criminals knew who I was automatically.
Merry:You stood out.
Gina L. Osborn:Exactly. And so, so yeah. So that was a really interesting time. And then nine eleven happened and pretty much everybody in the FBI was working terrorism after that. And the day before nine eleven, terrorism was not a priority for the FBI.
Gina L. Osborn:But then nine eleven happens, it becomes a priority. And that's when I wound up promoting and I became the, counter terrorism program coordinator for the Los Angeles field office. And, we I think within probably a year and a half period, we stood up about 15 squads to work counterterrorism and really address the threat, in the Los Angeles territory.
Merry:Mhmm. What about other places besides Little Saigon? Talk about some of the other, what do you call them? Events that you worked on?
Gina L. Osborn:Yeah. So So in order for us to promote to the executive level in the FBI, we have to go back to headquarters for for about eighteen months. And I wound up going on to the inspection staff and that's where the FBI will come and inspect itself every three years, all the different field offices get inspected and so I was a team leader on that staff and they were looking for someone to inspect the cyber program in Chicago. Well, none of the team leaders had any technical expertise or cyber expertise whatsoever. I had been married to a cyber geek at one time and so I figure, okay, at least I speak the language.
Gina L. Osborn:And so I volunteered and, wound up becoming the subject matter expert even though I could barely turn on a computer. At least I knew what the priorities were and all of those things. So about a year later, the Los Angeles office created the first assistant special agent in charge position for cyber and computer forensics and I wound up getting that job. And when I talk about leading authentically, you know, I had learned from my mentors, my male mentors that leading from the front is the only way to go. But when I got to Los Angeles to work with all these cyber geniuses, I was leading from the front, but then I would look around and nobody was following me because I didn't have those tech skills.
Gina L. Osborn:So that's really when I had to figure out, okay, you know, what are my strengths? And like I said, communication, problem solving. I had just come from headquarters so I knew where all the money trees were so I can buy my people equipment. And so, I wound up in that position for eleven years. And I think, you know, there are a lot of favorite things that we did, but, I was in charge of crimes against children investigations for about seven years.
Gina L. Osborn:And so When did that go on? So there were a lot of online predators and so there were a lot of undercover cases that were going on to identify people who were who were targeting children. And I remember one case, there was a gentleman in Arizona and I think one of my undercover agents had maybe a couple of chats with him and maybe a text and the next thing you know, he drove all the way to Los Angeles just to get arrested for the FBI to have sex with a child. So, so yeah. So when we talk about, heroes, those agents who were working those cases and had to look at those photos of those crime scenes with those children, my hats off.
Gina L. Osborn:I have a tremendous amount of respect for those folks.
Merry:Oh. Oh. Oh. It takes a moment to pause on that one. Oh.
Cathy:Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Merry:Yeah. Yeah. Well, talking about older people now, there's so much fraud and scamming going on today that targets older people. Can you tell our boomer audience, what types of fraud should they be looking out for and and about the maverick moves they can take to prevent and protect that and protect themselves against scammers. Yes.
Gina L. Osborn:And that is a multibillion dollar problem and it's heartbreaking. So I know we all have heard about the, you know, the these folks in different countries who are reaching out to women and men, you know, pretending that they're an engineer working on a, you know, an oil rig in a different country and, you know, they're looking to have a relationship and all of that. And you really have to make sure that the people that you're speaking to online, the people that you're chatting with are who they say they are.
Merry:Do you find that out? You know, they they can use AI. They can create driver's licenses. They can create passports. How do you know?
Gina L. Osborn:So a lot of times, you know, if they say that they're, you know, John Jones from somewhere in Indiana and they're working on this oil rig somewhere off the coast of who knows where, then, you know, that person should have some sort of online presence that says who they are, where they live, you know, you have to be a really good investigator because the minute somebody, and this is a big red flag for everybody, they're gonna come up with a lot of reasons on why it is that you should send them money. And if anybody is asking you to send them money, that is a problem. And you see it on Doctor. Phil and all of the other shows where these poor women who are so in love because these scammers are going on chat GBT coming up with these beautiful poetic things that they wanna tell you and make you feel like you are the most beautiful person in the world, but that's all part of it. You know, when they want you to send them, gift cards, when they want you to share your bank account information.
Merry:Oh, yeah.
Gina L. Osborn:Never if if somebody wants to give you a million dollars, but all you have to do is give them $3,000 to open up some sort of bank account and pay an attorney or this, that, or the other, that's where we have a lot of elderly people and a lot of younger people, you know, falling for that.
Merry:Yeah. Or get rich quick schemes.
Gina L. Osborn:Exactly. So if it seems too good to be true, it is too good to be true. And if you meet somebody that you really really like, you know, FaceTime them and and get them on video to see what they look like. If they have an accent, but they're claiming that they're American, that's that's a clue too. So I think we all kinda know that there is something not right, but sometimes it's easier to stay in the situation because it makes us feel good, but we just have to be really careful.
Gina L. Osborn:But the number one thing, do not send money to anybody that you've never met or you don't know.
Merry:I got a good one today on my cell phone. I got a text, and it said something like, you have an outstanding traffic ticket, and we're going to press charges against you. And I'm looking at it. I thought, I don't have a traffic ticket. It had on the on the text a 63, area code, wherever that is in the word world.
Merry:So I I went over to the auto club, and I thought, where is this? I know it's fraud, but the lady there said, yeah. A lot of people have been coming in and asking about this. And she said, that's in The Philippines. I thought, oh, interesting.
Merry:How did they get my cell phone information? So Yeah. You know? Yep. And what Yeah.
Gina L. Osborn:But what I usually do that if I get an email say it's and you know what? Almost gets me and gosh, I'm telling my secret here. For whatever reason, packages. Right? UPS.
Gina L. Osborn:And you think that UPS is legitimate. We've all heard of UPS. But if you go to the email address on the email that's sent to you, don't click on anything else. But if you click on the email address to see what the full email address is, If it's from UPS, it's not gonna say, you know, somethingsomething@Gmail.com. So that's a way for people to kinda look and see, you know, upfront.
Gina L. Osborn:Okay. Is this legitimate? Is it not legitimate? If, you know, if if you still think it's legitimate, don't click on any of the links, you know, make a phone call and say, hey. Is this it?
Gina L. Osborn:But they'll put a phone number on there too. And then when you call into this call center, that's where you're going to have the opportunity to speak to a scammer who's gonna try and tell you a story. So I ignore 99.9% of the emails that just don't seem right because if they don't seem right, just ignore it and believe me, if you're gonna get arrested, someone else is gonna contact you and give you some information.
Merry:You know, lately, I've heard of another one too, huge gold scams going on around the world that's a multibillion dollar, industry and diamond scams. I mean Mhmm. How do you outsmart these guys?
Gina L. Osborn:Yeah. You just have to ignore Yeah. You just have to ignore it because these people are probably sitting in a warehouse. There's a whole bunch of them. This is what they do eight to ten hours a day and that's their job.
Gina L. Osborn:So you just have to really just be mindful that, you know, that to think, okay. This is a scam. Okay. And then prove that it's not before you do anything.
Cathy:Mhmm. Yeah. And then there's
Merry:What do you FBI people do though? Do you play along with them at all? How do you catch them?
Gina L. Osborn:So so there if if you are if you've been scammed, there's ic3.gov, and that's where you can go online and you can report it to the FBI or you can call your local, field office, but it's gonna be a lot easier just to go to ic3.gov.
Merry:That's icapitali,capitalc?
Gina L. Osborn:Yep. Iasinindia,casincharlie,3.gov. And that's where you can report it. But, unfortunately, in order for the United States Attorney's Office to take a case, there's gotta be a huge loss. So if you don't have a loss or you have a maybe a $10,000 loss or a $50,000 loss, it may not get investigated.
Gina L. Osborn:So that's why we need to prevent these things from happening in advance by, being suspicious and making sure that before you send any money or before you interact with people, you know that that's exactly who it is.
Merry:Good advice. Thank you.
Cathy:Very difficult to do that. And, you know, people just need to be on guard and realize not to reply to texts that come on your phone because somebody got your number.
Gina L. Osborn:No. That's why I'm here.
Cathy:It's hard.
Merry:There's that old one where I got a call from someone saying, your grand oh, I'm your grands granddaughter. I'm hell I'm stuck in a country. Please help me. I have no money. And I thought, I don't have a granddaughter.
Merry:But I've listened and, you know, I thought that was pretty interesting. That's a real old one.
Gina L. Osborn:Oh, yeah. And it's and it's still going on. In fact, something that's new news that I'm getting is that people are pretending like they're texting someone else and then I'll say wrong number and then they'll try and start a conversation with me. So, you know, it that they're that's what they're trying to do. They're just trying to find somebody that they can be friends with and then the next thing you know, they're gonna ask for money because that's, you know, that's how they get paid on their job.
Merry:They're very clever.
Cathy:And these guys that work in these factory warehouse, whatever they're using all day long, they maybe only get one bite all day. Right?
Merry:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Cathy:Because they I know when I've accidentally picked up a number. I don't answer numbers if I don't know what they are. And thank you to iPhone, they now say spam risk on them, and I never pick them up. But once in a while, I'm expecting an appointment to call, and I don't know what their number is, so I pick it up. Always the person on the other end is so shocked you picked up.
Cathy:They don't they go, and then they don't answer you right away. They don't they don't even say I I picked up one the other day. The guy was so flabbergasted that I picked up. I just hung up on him right away. Yeah.
Cathy:But it was really pretty weird. So tell us about this. The LA Olympics are coming up in 2028. And with your professional experience, what steps can be taken to keep the public safe? Where are we with that?
Cathy:Do you know?
Gina L. Osborn:Well, I think, it it's interesting because mayor Bass says that it's going to be a car free Olympics, and that means that you're not gonna be able to drive your car to any of the venues and there's probably over like 20 or 30 different venues in in the entire area. Think from Temecula all the way out to the valley. So there it's a it's a very, very large area. So my recommendation and I've written an article on this, on my link on LinkedIn is that we really need to make sure that we have collaborative interaction with all of the agencies. And when you think about it, you know, how many different law enforcement agencies are within that huge territory that, you know, the Olympics are going to be at.
Gina L. Osborn:So there's got to be a lot of collaboration, a lot of coordination, and everything about public transportation needs to be safe and secure. And if you think back to the Paris Olympics on the very first day on opening games, you know, there was an incident on the train system. But, you know, it's gonna be different for LA because they're gonna be busing people. So if one thing happens to a bus, it's gonna be hard pressed to, you know, get tourists and and locals onto the buses to go to these venues. So they really, really need to be coordinating, and they need to make security the number one priority.
Cathy:So you think even the far away venues like the Equestrian are gonna have to have buses? Like, to Temecula and to to the Santa Racetrack in Pasadena.
Gina L. Osborn:All all I know is yeah. All I know is what the mayor is saying that it's gonna be a car free Olympics. And so how that's gonna work exactly, but I do know that that Metro is going to be having probably twice as many buses as they normally do in any given day, which I think is close to 2,500 a day to, come in here to be able to get people to where they need to go. So it's gonna be a huge logistical operation that they're gonna need to put a lot of effort into.
Cathy:Well, they have to train a lot more bus drivers. Oh, yeah. Who's gonna drive those buses? Buses aren't easy. I had a brother driving a bus and it's not easy to learn how.
Gina L. Osborn:It's not I drove a bus
Cathy:both once.
Gina L. Osborn:I was in the bus bus rodeo that they had at LA Metro. So one year I had, I got to drive the bus and it's it's hard because it's a long vehicle. It is. Yeah.
Cathy:Yes. What he told me was when you're doing your training, you have these big mirrors on the side. When you pull up to the bus stop, like, some of the bus stops have a station to sit in, if you hit the mirror on that, you're immediately fired before you even start working. That's during the training. Wow.
Cathy:Hit it during the training, you're out.
Merry:Oh. Yeah.
Cathy:So you really have to be good with your depth perception, and it's not like 3,000 more buses can start working, right, tomorrow.
Gina L. Osborn:Yeah. They're gonna have to coordinate it. That's for sure. But I love bus operators. They're they're one of my favorite groups of people because they are the captains of their ship.
Gina L. Osborn:So if you want to see what leadership is all about, get on a bus with an experienced bus driver, and you'll see how they command. Their their command presence takes over.
Cathy:My brother loved it.
Merry:He loved anything the public themselves, people, individuals can do to protect themselves at all?
Gina L. Osborn:Well, again, if you see something unusual, you need to say something and report it right away. And, you know, being part of safety and security for the second largest transportation, you know, agency in the country that I mean, it is everybody's responsibility. Safety and security is everybody responsibility, not just the safety and security people. So everybody needs to to put their phones down and be aware of of their surroundings, and that's how they're gonna stay safe.
Merry:So tell us a little bit more about your podcast, Making Maverick Moves, and also what new ventures are you working on today?
Gina L. Osborn:Gosh. Well, my first episode after the rebrand, in fact, my very good friend introduced me to the LA City fire chief last year and I wound up interviewing her, think it was either in November or December before the fires. And so I interview her, I'm getting ready for my launch and then the fires happen and she goes on television and she spoke her truth to power. And so two days before I launched that episode, she was fired from her job. So I think she kind of epitomizes the the people that I want to showcase on my show are the people who do, you know, they they know what the right thing is.
Gina L. Osborn:When I spoke to her in November or December whenever it was, you know, she talked about I asked her what tell me about a maverick move that you've made and she told me, Gina, I'm I'm making a maverick move right now because I don't have the resources to do my job. My people don't have the equipment to do their jobs. And so she told me well before the fires that that was an issue that she was fighting at that time. So that really showed, you know, that level of of grit and that level of passion and commitment and dedication to the people in our community. So she was she's one of my guests.
Gina L. Osborn:I've had coaches, experts, other people I just had. We just recorded this week mother, I call her the maverick mom whose son was being bullied and she wound up writing an open letter on her social media to all of the parents of the kids who were bullying her son to talk about what her experience was. And it was it wound up being a beautiful story because a MMA boxing coach, she had a studio in her town and reached out to her and gave her son free lessons, free boxing lessons. And so, you know, when you think about the pain that she was going through to watch her son go through that, you know, and then for her to take a stand. So, so I'm I'm showing maverick moves in a in a variety of different lights and so that to me, really, you know, makes me feel like I'm serving, our community to inspire people to to do great things.
Gina L. Osborn:And I'm also a pup oh, go ahead.
Cathy:Yeah. I was just gonna say What's so interesting to me too is how early on you got into podcasting. You said you had a true crime one, and then you had the other one.
Gina L. Osborn:Yeah. Like in 2020, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So and then yeah.
Gina L. Osborn:So not not choose. Before I think I mean, it's really, really saturated now, but, yeah, I did it back in 2020.
Cathy:We started in 2020 also.
Gina L. Osborn:Oh, good. Okay. So you are new too.
Merry:And I'm sorry. Stepped on something. Pandemic. Mhmm.
Cathy:Yeah. I stepped on something you were about to say.
Gina L. Osborn:Yes. I'm I'm also a public speaker and a keynote speaker in addition to being a TEDx speaker. And I talk about everything from rising to the top in male dominated fields, leading through chaos, crisis, and change and making your maverick move. So that's something that I really enjoy doing to inspire people.
Merry:Just one question about chaos and dealing with that. Any any advice for us dealing with chaos in our lives or in the world?
Gina L. Osborn:Yes. The number one thing you need to do is eliminate what you tolerate because you are what you tolerate. So, that's how chaos comes in. If you have so many things you're tolerating, bad behavior from a from a a family member or even just your neighbor wanting to talk to you right on your way to work and you're making you late every day to work, you know, all of the little things add up and that takes away the space that we have in order and the energy to go out and have that breakthrough success. So I tell the people that, I work with, write down all of the things that could be the boxes in your garage that are driving you nuts every time you get into the garage to the leaky faucet that's been leaking for the last few weeks.
Gina L. Osborn:And imagine how you're gonna feel when you go drive into your garage and the boxes are cleaned up. You know, you feel that extra space to be able to go out and conquer the world. And create. Exactly. And even, you know, you you don't have to, like, address those big relationship things that you may be tolerating right now.
Gina L. Osborn:Start with the easy things and start checking them off the list, and then you're gonna have more space and more energy to be able to address the bigger matters.
Cathy:And I was just gonna ask you what you'd like our audience to have as a takeaway today. So do you wanna, like, add to that a little bit more, a little bit more advice for us?
Gina L. Osborn:Gosh. Let's see. Gosh. With regard to chaos, you know what? I think one thing that I learned when I first started working at LA Metro because it was in, 2022, two years of the pandemic, no fair enforcement, no code of conduct enforcement.
Gina L. Osborn:So it was kind of like a Mad Max in the Thunderdome scenario going on on our metro system. If you read the newspaper, you would see it. And one thing that I would tell my people because there were so many priorities, so many things to do, but I told them, the first thing we need to do is get the water out of the boat. And they would come to me and they would have all these grand ideas of how we can paint the boat, how we can put accessories on the boat, how we can do all of these other things. But when you're dealing with crisis on a daily basis, the number one thing you have to do is just get the water out of the boat.
Gina L. Osborn:Exactly. And then once the water is out of the boat, then you can fix the holes, then you can paint it, and then you can go on and make it into a yacht. But, but, yeah, you have to start from the beginning or you're just gonna be overwhelmed and you're not gonna be able to deal with any of it.
Merry:I love that. Thank you. That's that's great advice for me because, I have a lot of boxes sitting around that are making me crazy. So
Gina L. Osborn:Okay. So this tomorrow is Saturday. This is what your homework is, Mary Elkins. I want you to clean up those boxes. Do whatever it takes.
Gina L. Osborn:Get your family. Get everybody. Hire the kid down the street. Come in. Get those boxes cleaned up.
Gina L. Osborn:And on Sunday, I want you to text me and tell me how you feel.
Merry:I don't know that I'll get all of them out, but I will get some. I promise you. Thank you. Thank you for your
Cathy:personal But I love that she wants advice. She ex and I love that she expects a follow-up from you, Mary. But I'm gonna take the same advice because I'm decluttering like crazy in order to kinda start fresh and open up the house and be more open and get the clutter out. So I have that same issue.
Merry:Declutter. Good. Thanks a Declutter. Yeah. Thank you, Gina.
Merry:Thank you for the personal advice, and thank you for I'm sure our audience thanks you for this great podcast. Our guest today in late boomers has been Gina Osborne, former arm former chief safety and security officer at LA Metro, retired FBI special agent in charge, podcast host of Making Maverick Moves, and, of course, former army vet or just army vet. And you can reach Gina if you need more advice at her website, Gina l Osborn, that's g I n a l o s b o r n dot com. Thank you again, Gina. That's great.
Gina L. Osborn:Thank you, ladies.
Cathy:This is wonderful. And thank you for listening to our late boomers podcast, everybody, and subscribing to our late boomers podcast channel on YouTube where you can see this beautiful guest we have today. Please go to our new website, lateboomers.us. That's like late boomers are us. I love our new website title.
Cathy:For info on all our episodes and links to everything. Listen in next week when you'll meet another exciting guest, talent agent, Albert Bramonte. You can listen to Lake Boomers on any podcast platform, and we do appreciate you so much. Please follow us on Instagram. And thanks again, Gino Osborne.
Gina L. Osborn:Thank you.
Cathy:Thank you for joining us on late boomers, the podcast that is your guide to creating a third act with style, power, and impact. Please visit our website and get in touch with us at lateboomers.biz. If you would like to listen to or download other episodes of late boomers, go to ewnpodcastnetwork.com.
Merry:This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and most other major podcast sites. We hope you make use of the wisdom you've gained here and that you enjoy a successful third act with your own style, power, and impact.
