A Professional and Personal Q&A With William Cromarty
William Cromarty is pretty up front about it. He wants any job he takes to work towards the betterment of the United States. And he started on that path at a very young age, pursuing Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies as a teenager because of a desire to make an impact in the War on Terror.
Since those initial baby steps, Cromarty has taken much bigger leaps including a start to his career with an internship at the New York Police Department’s Manhattan North Homicide Squad. We sat down with him to learn more.
Q. You have some pretty serious professional commitments as well as some pretty big fitness goals. How do you manage to balance the two?
A: Typically, I try to train at least an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. I try to go at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. every day. I can’t always hit that every day based on travel and work. But I think one of the biggest things that I found is when it comes to athletic training, and balancing that with work, is that if you don’t schedule around it, it won’t happen. And so, you have to schedule your work around your training versus scheduling your training around your work.
Q. How many languages do you speak?
A: I’m really bad at a bunch of languages—I’ve taken little bits and pieces of a handful. One of my undergraduate majors was in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies. My other major was Political Science and my minors were psychology and physics. I did a couple of years of Arabic. When I was a teenager, I learned Japanese and lived in Japan. My best language right now, other than English, is probably Russian because I spent a couple of years studying that at the agency.
A lot of my work at the agency was focused on counter-Russian operations, counter-proliferation. So in order to understand what they were doing, and how they might be testing our systems, there’s a lot of value in getting up to speed with the language.
Q. What did your career path look like once you were done with school?
A: My early internships were with the NYPD’s Manhattan North Homicide Squad and then with some Silicon Valley tech companies as well as the Office of Emergency Management in New York City. And all of that was kind of gearing up for future work in the federal sector and the national security sector. I started at the CIA in 2015. I was there for five years, almost all of which was undercover and then I made the decision in 2020 that I wanted to try the private sector. So, I started working for a CubeSat manufacturer that was focused on government payloads for NASA, national security customers, and scientific payloads. I was there for a few years and then ended up coming out to North Dakota a lot as a guest speaker at the UAS Summit. I’ve been a guest speaker there for the last three years on different security and aviation and satellite-related topics. I ended up with a great opportunity to move out here to North Dakota, which is where I knew I wanted to settle down once I got out of the agency. When I was coming here prior to moving, I absolutely loved it. When I finished up that time undercover, I knew I wanted to settle down here. So, I started up this past year as director of business development for Airial Robotics. And that’s been really rewarding as well.
Q. What do you like about North Dakota?
A: I had spent a lot of time in the state over the years and remain convinced it captures the spirit of America better than anywhere else in the country. As it turned out, the timing of my planned move coincided with multiple unexpected family and professional challenges that made it the most challenging year of my life. North Dakota and the Fargo community were more welcoming than I possibly could have asked for, and turned what began as the hardest year of my life into the best year of my life. Since then, I’ve sought out every opportunity I can to give back to this community across the aerospace sector in private industry, the arts sector through my museum initiatives, my faith community at First Presbyterian Church, and through my volunteer work at the Micah’s Mission homeless shelter.
Q. Is it difficult being undercover?
A: Yeah, I think you get used to it after a while, but it can be mentally taxing. You have to think very cautiously about what you say before you say it and who you’re saying it to. It makes foreign travel complicated for vacations. So, you don’t necessarily do a lot of vacations abroad. And I think it can be challenging sometimes with relationships with family and friends as well.
Q. What drives you professionally?
A: I think one of the big things that I’ve always focused on is advancing the American aerospace sector, especially in light of Chinese and Russian advancements. They’ve started catching up to us in some ways, and I think there’s a big concern about them passing us in some regards. So, when I look at what I find rewarding in a job and what I look for, it’s really two big things. No. 1 The job has to be good for America. No. 2 I have to feel like I’m learning something new every day. So for me, advancing the American aerospace sector, fixing a lot of the problems that I used to be briefed on when I was working at the agency, has been really rewarding for me and that’s something I want to keep focusing on.
Q. You told me you are working on a startup, correct?
A: I founded a startup in 2022 that’s currently in stealth mode. It’s focused on cybersecurity. We’re going to have some big announcements over the next year on that topic. Right now, there’s only so much that I can say, but we definitely will have some exciting announcements coming up on that.
Q. Is there anything else you have going on that we haven’t walked about yet?
A: What I’m trying to do right now is work my way through a 365-day Bible reading plan. I’m Presbyterian and I’ve always wanted to do one of those full read-throughs. I decided this was going to be the year that I would do it.
That’s something I would say has become increasingly important to me over time. It’s something that I found motivational too, especially during difficult times in life. I think it’s something that also ties in well to extreme athletics and other major life goals.
3 Days With William Cromarty
Morning routine (All 3 days)
• 4 a.m. Alarm
I’m naturally a night owl, so early mornings have been a conscious choice to ensure I can balance athletic training, professional pursuits, and over a dozen roles on Boards of Directors, councils, and committees.
• 4 a.m. – 4:15 a.m. Meditation
I’m a big fan of starting off each morning with at least 10 minutes of meditation—it’s a habit I picked up as a teenager while living in Japan for a summer, and it helps me start off the day with a clear and relaxed mindset.
• 4:15 a.m.- 5 a.m. Gym prep and drive to gym
I start my morning gym prep by assembling my boxing gloves and hand wraps, taking my Pre-Workout powder, eating a small amount of something protein-rich, and scraping the ice off my windshield before starting the drive to my boxing gym.
• 5 a.m. – 6 a.m. Muay Thai training
I like to get in an hour of training in the mornings as often as I can, and like to rotate between punch technique and power work on the heavy bag, kick conditioning, kettlebell work, lunges, and running for my ultramarathon training and cardio conditioning. By planning it into my schedule and getting a workout in early before the day gets busy, it’s infinitely more likely to happen.
• 6:30 a.m. – 6:45 a.m. Freezing shower and drink kombucha/take daily rhodiola & ashwagandha supplements
Rhodiola and ashwagandha have both been game-changers for me in burnout prevention and stress reduction, and there’s a growing body of research documenting the link between gut health supported by probiotics and fermented foods like Kombucha and mental well-being. I’m also a big advocate for the Wim Hof Method practice of extreme cold exposure via ice baths and freezing showers and have seen a big difference in my energy levels since incorporating Wim Hof breathing techniques and cold exposure into my daily routine.
• 6:45 a.m. – 7 a.m. Coffee and daily scripture reading
I’m currently working through a 365-day whole-Bible reading plan, and starting my day with coffee and the daily scripture reading helps me start each day with my priorities in order.
• 7 a.m. – 7:30 a.m. Plan day ahead, review daily/weekly/monthly schedule
Lately, I’ve been making an effort to start off each day with some time to review the day, week, and month ahead—this helped me transition from a more reactive mindset of “putting out fires” with a 48-72 hour outlook into a more proactive mindset of consciously planning the weeks ahead.
February 6th
• 8 a.m. – 9 a.m. Coffee meeting with Airial Robotics partner organization to discuss agricultural drone collaboration
As an extreme extrovert and coffee enthusiast, I would do all of my meetings in person over coffee if I could. I’m a huge advocate for face-to-face meetings, which is one of the reasons I cut all social media out of my life a decade ago and never looked back. The quality of interactions is always far higher in-person rather than electronically/
• 9 a.m. – noon Airial Robotics client calls and meetings
As a multinational aerospace company spread across five countries and numerous time zones, collaboration calls between our teams, partners, and prospective clients span all hours of the day. We’ve had a few recent major partnership announcements that have driven a lot of customer excitement, and that has been keeping me busy this month.
• noon – 1:00 p.m. Lunch & Learn session with gBeta/Gener8tor Team
Fargo has an amazing network of support for entrepreneurs and small businesses, ranging from Emerging Prairie’s StartupBREW to the lunch sessions held by the Gener8tor team—I get a lot of value out of attending as many of these events as possible to keep a pulse on new opportunities and programs designed to help North Dakota businesses expand.
• 1 p.m. – 2 p.m. Call with Department of Commerce
The North Dakota Department of Commerce is an extremely valuable resource for businesses, and I like to keep in contact with them on a recurring basis to track state programs that can be leveraged for manufacturing expansion in state.
• 2 p.m. – 4 p.m. Airial Robotics client calls and meetings
• 4 p.m. – 5 p.m. Legislative district strategy session
As the elected Vice Chair of the District 44 Republicans, I’ve been increasingly involved in fundraising, legislative relations, voter and donor outreach campaigns, and strategic planning looking forward to 2024.
• 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. Muay Thai training
I head back over to the gym for the day’s Muay Thai class with my coach. On days when there’s no class, I’ll train on my own and drill the techniques from my last class. I recently started taking my first fights, and have one marathon and a 56-mile ultramarathon that I’m training for later this year.
• 7:30 p.m. – 7:45 p.m. Freezing shower
Especially on double-workout days, I find that the freezing showers help keep my energy levels high and assist with muscle recovery and reducing soreness.
• 7 :45 p.m. – 9 p.m. Work on Museum Incubator planning and buildout
Since founding The Museum Incubator in 2022 as part of the Builders + Backers program in partnership with Emerging Prairie, I’ve been building out our schedule for future exhibits and pop-up museum nights, working towards securing a physical space, and authoring grant proposals now that we’ve secured our 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. Our first big event was a hit, and I’m currently having some exciting discussions about our second and third events of the year as well as the potential for a permanent space downtown.
• 9 p.m. Bed
I don’t always make it to bed early enough to get 8 hours every night, but between the workouts, meditation, Rhodiola and Ashwaganda, and extreme cold exposure I’ve managed to get my sleep quality to a really great level.
What is the Museum Incubator?
“I started to get the ball rolling on the museum incubator when some of my friends made me aware of the Builders and Backers program which offered $5,000 seed grants to organizations looking to better the community. Essentially, The Museum Incubator is providing a way for people in the community to start their own museums. I have had a large collection of Russian space race artifacts on display at the Fargo Air Museum since October 2022. I had been looking at setting up a standalone space to focus on the space race because there’s a lot of really interesting history in North Dakota that ties back to that. I had this giant collection of artifacts that could fill up a museum overnight. I started to think about how you could start a museum with the lowest possible overhead. I’ve seen a 10-foot by 10-foot museum that was in an elevator shaft. I began thinking from there and we launched our first pop-up museum night at Fargo Brewing Company in January. We will have two more events like it in 2023 which will showcase a rotating group of micro museums.”
February 7th
• 8 a.m. – 10 a.m. Airial Robotics client calls and meetings
• 10 a.m. – 11 a.m. Coffee meeting with a potential collaborator for Museum Incubator exhibit
One of my favorite parts of my role as Executive Director of The Museum Incubator is meeting with potential exhibit collaborators and learning about their unusual historical collections that they’re passionate about. You never know what kind of interesting collections are out there, and I love bridging the gap that allows community members to enjoy never-before-seen collections at exhibits.
• 11 a.m. 12:15 p.m. Airial Robotics client calls and meetings
• 12:15 p.m. – 1 p.m.
Committee meeting for First Presbyterian Church Support & Endowment
Committee to discuss church investments/finance strategy
One of the ways I give back to my church is through my role on our Support & Endowment committee, leveraging my professional and academic background to review the church’s financial investments in light of changing economic conditions.
• 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. Airial Robotics client calls and meetings
• 3 p.m. – 4 p.m. Coffee meeting with Fargo-Moorhead EDC to discuss economic incentive packages
Similar to the Department of Commerce, The Fargo-Moorhead EDC is a great resource for both companies and nonprofits to understand what state and local inventive programs are available to leverage for expansion. I keep in touch with the EDC on a regular basis for Airial Robotics, The Museum Incubator, my family’s electronics manufacturing firm (Heath Company), and a few other projects I have in the works including one startup currently in stealth mode.
• 4 p.m. – 5 p.m. Airial Robotics client calls and meetings
• 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. Muay Thai training
• 7:30 p.m. – 7:45 p.m. Freezing shower
• 7:45 p.m. – 9 p.m. Work on Museum Incubator planning and buildout
• 9 p.m. Bed
February 8th
• 7:30 a.m. – 9 a.m.
Fargo-Moorhead Chamber of Commerce Economic Outlook Summit – Attend as guest of NDSU leadership
I had the opportunity to attend this year’s Economic Outlook Summit as a guest of NDSU’s leadership and got a lot out of the experience. NDSU does some incredible research work and is a key member of the entrepreneurial community in North Dakota. I have multiple exciting partnerships with NDSU in the works right now on a wide range of topics.
• 9 a.m. – Noon Airial Robotics client calls and meetings
• Noon – 1 p.m.
Artificial Intelligence discussion session lunch at The Executives’ Club of Fargo-Moorhead
As part of our weekly lunch discussion series, I’ve had the opportunity to visit with and learn from a wide range of fellow business leaders at The Executives Club—this week’s discussion was on how each of our firms expect Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to change our respective industries. The ability to have these kinds of high-level discussions with fellow executives and industry leaders is critical.
• 1 p.m. – 5 p.m. Airial Robotics client calls and meetings
• 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. Muay Thai training
• 7:30 p.m. – 7:45 p.m. Freezing shower
• 7:45 p.m. – 9 p.m. Work on Museum Incubator planning and buildout
• 9 p.m. Bed
Wiliam Cromarty’s Tips for Time Management
Take Time To Recharge.
This isn’t directly a tip for time management, but in a roundabout way, I believe it is. Taking time to recharge isn’t a sign of weakness, and can often lead to your most creative business ideas. I’ve often caught myself attempting to sprint the marathon, and this year after some introspection at the Emerging Prairie Founders Retreat, I put a renewed focus on scheduling nights off to recharge. Since then, I’ve been re-energized to pursue new initiatives and have found creative thinking comes more naturally.
- Know Thyself; start by understanding your own motivations.
- Set aside time each morning to review the week and month ahead.
- Prioritize meetings that tie in to multiple goals and pursuits simultaneously. Prioritize events that introduce you to the maximum number of new people.
Airial Robotics
Website: airialrobotics.com
Facebook: /airialrobotics
Linkedin: /company/airial-robotics
Instagram: @airial_robotics
JSK Muay Thai
Facebook: /jskmuaythai
Instagram: jskmuaythaiacademy
Connect With William Cromarty on LinkedIn
