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Ross, the audio engineer who removes the “uhh’s and umm’s” and bad language from my weekly podcast, said this week’s interview was his favorite so far. I just might agree. Stu Segall has lived a big life in the entertainment business. He began decades ago as a producer in the volleyball industry. That is to say, he made movies of topless women playing volleyball, (probably in slow motion.) From there, he moved on to more mainstream projects like Hunter, Renegade, Silk Stalkings, and too many others to list. He was, in other words, a real force in Hollywood, back in the eighties and nineties. Then, not long after the 11th of September 2001, Stu decided to use his talents for something other than entertainment. He transformed his 20-acre production facility in San Diego into a state-of-the art training facility for soldiers and first responders. Today, that facility – Strategic Operations – provides the most hyper-realistic simulations you can imagine. From the battlefield to the emergency room, this is a training facility like no other.
I met Stu two years ago shooting Dirty Jobs, when he allowed me to remove the spleen from an unfortunate patient under conditions best described as extraordinary. If you saw that episode, (and even if you didn’t,) this is the story behind the story. And it’s a doozy. Listen to our conversation on Apple, or on Spotify. Enjoy.
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