National Security and Crisis Preparedness
The companies that own America's power, fuel, ports and data are being asked to defend those assets against a threat the law will not let them touch. A drone costs a few hundred dollars. The substation it flies over is not permitted to stop it. Think Big's National Security and Crisis Preparedness practice helps critical infrastructure owners address this issue.
The Problem
Accountability without authority
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A company that owns a substation, a refinery, a port terminal or a data center is expected to protect it. But the authority keeps moving away from the owner. When a drone crosses the fence line, the operator cannot lawfully bring it down, and its security vendor is barred by federal rule from doing it on the company's behalf. Congress gave that authority to state and local police, and by the government's own count roughly forty-six agencies in the country have a certified officer able to use it.
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This is not a technology problem and it is not a budget problem. The sensors exist and companies have bought them. It is a permission problem, and permission problems are not solved in a procurement cycle. They are won on the federal record, in the trade press, and in coalition with the other companies carrying the same exposure.
The Practice
An owner-first authority model
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Our advisory offering is built for companies with fixed assets and real exposure: utilities and cooperatives, refiners and chemical manufacturers, port and terminal operators, and data center owners. We put their position on the federal record in the proceedings that decide what they may lawfully do, organize them across sectors so the argument is made by more than one company at a time, and build the public case their own advocates carry into Washington. Then we prepare the plan, the spokespeople and the message for the day something happens. The result is an owner who helped write the rules they are operating under, and who can say so.
Leadership
Kirk Lippold commanded a warship that was attacked by a threat nobody in his chain of command saw coming, and he spent the years afterward answering for what he had done to prepare. The Navy's investigation found he had not been given the intelligence, the training or the equipment that would have prevented it, and that no punitive action was warranted.
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He advises Think Big clients on threat assessment, executive and board engagement, crisis leadership, and the public case for changing what infrastructure owners are permitted to do. Every executive running critical infrastructure in this country is now in the position he was in. A fixed target of obvious value, an adversary who needs almost nothing to reach it, and protective measures that stop where the law says they stop. There is no shortage of retired officers available to lend a name to a security firm. There is nobody else who has commanded through the exact problem at the center of this practice.
Cdr. Kirk S. Lippold, USN (Ret.)
Kirk Lippold is the former commanding officer of USS Cole (DDG 67), which he commanded when al Qaeda attacked the ship in the harbor at Aden on October 12, 2000, killing seventeen sailors and wounding thirty-seven. He kept the ship afloat and brought her home. Over a Navy career spanning more than two decades he served on the Joint Staff and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and he has testified before Congress on national security. He is the author of Front Burner, his account of the attack, and he advises Fortune 500 companies, financial institutions and government agencies on national security and decision-making under pressure. He speaks regularly to corporate boards and to utility, cooperative and banking associations across the country.
Where we work
Power and nuclear generation.
Utilities, generation and transmission cooperatives, public power, and a nuclear fleet whose security forces have no authority to interdict an aircraft over their own plants.
Fuels, refining and chemicals.
Refineries, petrochemical plants, gas processing and pipelines, operating under a federal chemical facility security authority that lapsed in July 2023 and has not been restored.
Ports, maritime and rail.
Terminal operators and port authorities carrying federal security plans, and the rail facilities federal law requires to maintain secure areas.
Data centers and digital infrastructure.
Colocation and hyperscale operators building at unprecedented speed in communities that are watching closely, with a security posture that has not caught up to the capital.
On the record
We do not describe this problem from the outside. Our position is filed, published and public.
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Comment to the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security on the counter-UAS interim final rule. Docket FBI-2026-0001, September 2026.
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Companies Are Forbidden to Stop Drones. Opinion, September 2026.
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Forty-six agencies. An analysis of federal counter-drone certification against the number of American facilities eligible for airspace protection. September 2026.