Outspoken with Shana Cosgrove · 2026-04-27 · 43 min
Send us Fan Mail Still Here: Make Yourself Valuable with Ross O’Rourke, CEO of Crimson Phoenix Host Shana Cosgrove interviews Ross O’Rourke, CEO of Crimson Phoenix, on the critical topics of recruiting cleared engineers and driving authenticity in the competitive world of government contracting technology businesses. Ross shares his powerful journey: from an underprivileged Ohio upbringing and service as a Marine infantryman to founding iC-1 and scaling it to nearly 250 employees specializing in full-scope polygraph engineers. Discover his candid strategies for recruiter evaluation, metrics, and quick performance decisions. Ross also details the challenges and lessons learned from building and selling an in-house SaaS startup (Agile ATS) to ClearanceJobs, and offers non-negotiable leadership advice on building disciplined routines, visualizing goals, and balancing high-level travel with family priorities Quotes [04:08] "You just gotta be yourself and some people are gonna hate your flavor and some people are gonna love your flavor, but at the end of the day, you get to be authentic.." - Ross O’Rourke [23:55] "Recruiting is frankly a numbers game. It really is a numbers game like.
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