From Pulpit To FBI

He went looking for less stress and ended up in the FBI. Retired agent Eric Robinson joins us to tell the true story behind a career jump that sounds impossible on paper: Baptist pastor one Sunday, FBI Academy in Quantico the next, then years spent investigating drug cartels, gangs, public corruption, organized crime, crimes against children, financial crimes, and national security. If you have ever wondered whether you can outgrow a calling and still serve people with integrity, this conversation is for you.

We talk candidly about burnout and compassion fatigue, including why carrying other people’s pain in ministry triggered daily headaches and why those symptoms vanished the day Eric got accepted as an FBI agent. From there we get into the reality of FBI SWAT life, the adrenaline and the aftermath, plus what it is like to face the darkest cases without losing yourself. Eric also shares what sex trafficking stings looked like on the ground, how trauma shapes the choices of vulnerable teens, and why rapport-building and simple kindness can make the difference between silence and a conviction.

You will also hear what the FBI hiring process demands, from education and background checks to the nerve-racking polygraph, and why Eric believes justice can be part of faithful service. We close on a challenge that applies to every job, every community, and every relationship: stay curious, treat people like humans, and choose compassion in the small moments.

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Transcript

Welcome And A Wild Tease

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to ice cream everyone. Today was live and no man. He has a unique story. But I'm not gonna give it away. I'm gonna take it away and share his story. But I'll go up, everyone, because this is a wild long. I'm excited. So welcome Eric. I'm glad that you took it away.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Yeah, thanks one. I appreciate your your glowing introduction. So I am recently retired from 24 years in the FBI. During my time there, I investigated drug cartels, gangs, public corruption, organized crime, crimes against children, financial crimes, and national security. I was a SWOT operator for 15 years, a tactical instructor, and a firearms instructor. But if that sounds kind of cool, the crazy thing about it all is before that, I was

Pastor To FBI And The Why

SPEAKER_01 1:04

a Baptist pastor. I preached my last sermon on Easter Sunday, 2002, in Western New York in my Baptist church. The next Sunday I was in Quantico, Virginia to go to the FBI Academy. And then the Sunday after that I was preaching at the chapel in the FBI Academy because they didn't have a chaplain and they needed somebody to fill in, so they asked me. So they kind of eased me into the work.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

And my first question after that wild introduction is why? Why did you leave the company of priesthood to go to the demands of the FBI? Were you bored or were you crazy or what?

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Uh I I can't answer if I was crazy. You'll have to talk to a doctor about that. But I can tell you this, I I left the ministry because I needed to find a job with less stress. And if you think that sounds odd, it it was absolutely true. I I had stress-related headaches every single day for two years, my last two years in the ministry, because I just took on other people's problems and I wasn't wise enough to know how to separate myself from them.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

And the day I got accepted in the FBI, the headaches went away. So that was a cue that I was doing the right thing. But even beyond that, the the time I spent in the FBI early on felt very natural for me. I felt like this is a a good fit where I don't have to be perfect in front of people. I just had to be a good agent and do my work. So it felt much more comfortable for me.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Yeah, well, you try one thing if it doesn't fit, you try another thing.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yeah, and this one was a big try. So when they said to come on board, I was a little surprised. Didn't understand what was wrong with the FBI that they would bring me on. But my back my background was in studying Islam and working with Muslim people, and my application was in process when 9-11 struck, so I think they probably figured I could help them with an al-Qaeda problem.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Oh boy. Oh boy. Application in process when 9-11 struck. Yeah. Oh boy.

SWAT Life And Hardest Cases

SPEAKER_00 3:38

So what was the coolest part of the FCI?

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Well, uh, the coolest part was working on SWAT. I mean, that's where I got excellent training, learned how to uh break down doors, uh, got to encounter some bad guys, got in a few fights and tussles, um, a few deadly force encounters that were difficult. So while at the same time that was exciting, now that I'm out of it, I realize it's kind of nice not to have to go through that uh stress or you know that fret much. But working with the people, the people who were fantastic, so professional, intelligent, competent, creative, and really dedicated to trying to bring something good to the community.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Yeah. It's so funny. I have a friend whose son is now in the FBI, so Oh great. It goes full, told, yeah. So um what was the most craziest thing of all this that you saw witness?

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Well, I saw a lot of crazy things. The craziest thing I probably won't tell you because it's it's very, very disgusting, so I'll I'll leave that out. But I I worked for a time with uh crimes against children in Toledo, Ohio, and at that time the FBI's mandate was to find uh men who had been uh manipulating teenage girls into prostitution. So that's gonna be sex trafficking, and so we'd we'd set up stings where we would target um girls who looked young on the websites, or we would get information from juvenile detention or social workers saying, hey, here's some indicators that this 15, 16-year-old girl who's in foster care might be uh engaged in sex work. And that was an eye-opening world because while I worked with teens through the years, I don't think any of them were engaged in prostitution. So I remember one time we had a 15-year-old girl, my partner and I were trying to convince her to help help us help her. And part of that would be to drive her around the neighborhoods to show us where she had engaged with men, like which houses she had gone to. And she was reluctant, so I was trying to build rapport with her. And she just said out of the blue that she really needed a cigarette, and so I told her, I don't have any cigarettes, but I have uh some cigars. And that's when I was sitting in a parking lot with a 15-year-old prostitute smoking cigars while my partner was giving me the side eye, and I told her later, I said, Look, she's doing worse things. This is okay, and we ended up winning her over and getting some convictions out of that, so it turned out well.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Wow. The facts at 15. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Well we'll go that far, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Well, and you have to think of what it takes for someone that young or even any person to step across a threshold where they're gonna engage engage in that behavior. And so they were very, very desperate and they were already broken from past uh traumatic experiences.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

So I bet I bet they were.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Yeah. I had uh one she was young, maybe in her early twenties, but sit down with me as we were trying to find a younger uh girl who was working with her previous, and the pimp had taken her to Chicago. And trying to win her over, I bought her a Subway sandwich, and we sat down and just started making small talk, and she opened up to me and told me that her father had abused her since she was a child, and asked if I thought that was why she did what she did. So you know, there there's sometimes her eyes are open, but it also they they didn't have any valuable skills, so this was the one way they could make money to survive.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Yeah. Exactly.

Getting In The FBI And Polygraph

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Now, if anyone was going to go both directions into the priesthood or into the FBI, let's start with the FBI. What would you tell them as a retired FBI?

SPEAKER_01 8:44

I would tell them definitely do it. Um the FBI has the best people I've ever met. Um they have very talented people. The process to become an agent is quite difficult. You have to have a bachelor's degree, at least three years' experience out in the world, uh got to have a clean record, very limited drug use, can't have a bad reputation, or that'll come in the background. And then the worst part of it all is the final stage is the polygraph. And even as a former pastor, when I went through that, it it was a struggle. It's tough. And I remember going through, and it took about two hours until the polygrapher finally told me, Oh, we're having trouble on this one question on whether you are working as an agent for foreign governments. And then I thought, okay, well, if that's your problem, uh that's you know, no issue. I can ease up, and then I got through it all.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Wow. So because and I have as a clergyman in my life too, and they they say the same thing, taking on other people's problems is difficult on and I know it is a loop-in-made to go a totally different clear path and go to from one extreme in a sense to the other. And looking back on like would

Faith, Justice, And Everyday Kindness

SPEAKER_00 10:24

you do the same thing today if you asked?

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Well, I I felt that working in the FBI, obviously when I was in the church, I was doing God's work because that well, that's what you do. Yeah. And I didn't think it was too much of a stretch to see that my work in the in the FBI was also doing God's work too, because part of one thing that I think that God values for people is having justice.

unknown 10:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

And while the chur church can do good things for you, if if you're harmed or if somebody has hurt your family, there's limited things that the church can do for you. Yes. Support supports you, raise money, but ultimately there needs to be some type of entity that brings justice. So I felt glad that I could be a part of that too. So it was I got to do some noble things in both careers.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Yeah, because there's only so much that the church can do being a good citizen, you learn a lot more than in the the uh behind the pulpit. I mean, I uh know that clergy uh that I'm uh talking to tells me stuff uh now that they would never tell me the uh as they were working. And so it's like do I be a good citizen and do God's work behind the pulpit? Or do I get out there and also be a good citizen, but yet help people help themselves?

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Well, uh what's what I thought was useful for me to to your question is uh you can do God's work, you don't have to be a pastor, you can do that in so many ways. I I felt like you know, just showing kindness to people in moments, interacting with victims, or trying to help out witnesses in situations to make them feel comfortable. There's so many little things that we can all do that just shows that we care for humanity. And I got to do big things too, but just doing the big things, but bypassing and the kindnesses you can show along the way. You're not doing your full job, I think.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

I agree with you in that sense. But uh humanity needs to be kinder to those who are the underdog. What I'm noticing that humans are not kind. What I'm noticing in my life is I have some humans in my life who say that could care less, that I have a disability, and they could care less. And that's fine. That's why I beat my own. That's why I do what I do, because I'm like I will teach you uh about my disability day in and day out. If you want to sit down and listen, that's great. But if you don't, then you don't.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Yeah, and I think you're doing something great with that on my end, for me, I found that obviously as a pastor, I had to listen to people and not be judgmental. I had to be curious to want to know what they're what's going on with them. If somebody came to me and said they're having problems and I just gave them Bible verses, that's probably the last time they're talking to me. Yeah. But if I can sit down and understand where you're coming from, now you feel safer. And I think everybody benefits from that. I benefited from that personally, and then even in working with gang members trying to understand where they come from, that they're not just out there creating violence, they are. They're not just selling drugs, they are, but they belong to a gang because they need support. Everybody needs that. They maybe need it for safety, they're selling drugs because their choices are limited and they don't have that many options. Here's a way to make money, so yeah, we're gonna arrest them, but also it helps to understand them too.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Yes, it helps to understand humanity. But at the same time you gotta do what you gotta do. But you can make small talk before doing what you gotta do, because as someone told me, we never know the causes that people may have behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Right. And again, I may ultimately still be arresting them and they're gonna face justice, but there's no harm in me just being open and curious. I never I never re looked back and regretted, like, oh, it's too bad that I listened to that guy. I wish I hadn't sat down with him and found out what his life is about. Like that was never a regret. It always benefited in some way.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Yeah.

Where To Find Eric And Closing

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Now, if people want to get a hold of you, where can people get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_01 16:14

People can get a hold of me. They can find me on Instagram. I'm at underscore Eric underscore Robinson. Uh on LinkedIn, if you put in my name and FBI, I think I'll probably show up. Or if they want to go to my website, which is preacher to breacher.com.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

How cool. Okay, and I hope you guys enjoyed another episode of Ask Win, and I will have more information about looking in the show notes. And I hope that you learn from this story how to be comparison to humans. I mean, it doesn't take a big thing to be comparison. It doesn't take the small little things to be compassionate.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Amen to that. And as I said, I hope you guys enjoyed the episode that's really good. And I will catch you guys next week. Thanks. See you guys. Bye you guys.