In the early days at the Adversarial Sciences Lab (ASL), the pirate flag was more than a symbol for Charles Green who worked there at the time—it was a bold declaration of an unconventional approach to solving challenges. When Green reflects on the decision to establish AIS in 2001, incorporating the pirate flag into the AIS culture was a top priority.
“When we made the decision to start AIS, we adopted the pirate flag symbol because it represents the idea of always aiming to do things differently,” said Green, CEO of AIS. “This was and continues to be a huge aspect of our culture.”
Eric Thayer, Chief Engineer, who worked alongside Green in the ASL, recalls the significance of the flag as they worked on groundbreaking cyber research, which defied the norms at that time.
“The flag signifies ‘the hacker,’ and we had that mentality from the beginning,” said Thayer. To AIS, being ‘different’ means more than just standing out from the competition. Having a fun and collaborative company culture was one of ways the ASL, and later AIS, stood out from the rest.”
Dan Kalil, Chief Commercial Officer, was working close by in the Forensics Lab at the time. Since the labs were right next door to each other at the Air Force Research Laboratory, they both adopted the idea of breaking the mold of a traditional work environment.
