With Whitefish as a backdrop, high level national security strategists will analyze geopolitical conflict as it intersects with policy and media influence at a newly established forum next week.  

The strike on Iran, women at the front of U.S. security strategy, cyber threats to the rise of autonomous and advanced military technologies, Hollywood influence as machinery, and the impact of film will be among the topics planned during the private event at the Whitefish Performing Arts Center April 2-3.  

The event is organized by Whitefish residents Eric Oehlerich and Mick Mulroy. The two veterans had careers serving the United States before cofounding The Lobo Institute, the host organization of the inaugural Whitefish Security Summit.  

Oehlerich was a Navy Seal for over 20 years and is the former Commanding Officer of DEVGRU (Squadron 2).  

Mulroy is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, was a CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer and is a United States Marine. 

A Whitefish native, Oehlerich said his combat instincts go back to his ski racing roots on Big Mountain.  

He also ski-raced through his college years at the Naval Academy in Maryland, which added to his training for combat and would come to save his life several times, he said. 

“You’re hucking yourself down a mountain at 80 miles an hour,” he said. “You gotta have focus, vision and full commitment, to make a turn, to go off a blind jump, to be right where you need to.”  

Oehlerich recalled a night in a helicopter along Knife Edge ridge of the Sandia Mountains in Afghanistan.  

“We were trying to land. I was the first guy out, and something caught my eye,” Oehlerich said. 

“‘Chh-chh-chh-chh'— it was sparks, off the metal. The mountain was so steep, the [helicopter] was hitting the rock. I stopped everyone else. I went down the mountain instead of up. Had I gotten out like normal, I would’ve decapitated myself. 

“Even when it happened, I was like, ski racer tricks. Some good lessons learned from growing up here in Whitefish.”  

OEHLERICH AND Mulroy first met briefly in Afghanistan in 2010. Then in 2013 in Kenya, they started working closely together on counterterrorism in Somalia.  

The two connected beyond their roles, sharing respect and vision.  

“We both like to run, so we’d be running trails through the jungle and rainforests, where we hatched the idea of Lobo Institute,” Oehlerich said.  

Oehlerich said they were both all-in on the post-service endeavor, but that he brought forth one requirement: the Lobo Institute had to be based in Whitefish, his hometown.  

Mick and his wife, Mary Beth, are originally from small towns in Georgia — but it was a deal, winter and all.  

The two finished their careers, and both moved to Whitefish in the winter of 2019, where they turned their focus to the Institute and its goal to teach about current and future conflicts.  

“We had careers and unbelievable experiences, at the spear of the global war on terror. We did things that very few people know about or understand,” Oehlerich said. “From sensitive operations that were hard to pull off, to eating meals with tribal people in far reaches of mountains.” 

Those experiences are the basis of their expertise at the Lobo Institute, which they lead in partnership with Scott Canino, the organization’s chief operations officer.  

The Lobo Institute, aided by a vast network of fellow experts, advises government and non-government leaders on national security policy, provides nonpartisan consulting for politicians and thinktanks, and hosts classes and training, all with the goal of creating a diversity in thought to address conflict and prevent its reoccurrence.  

The Institute has a tactical side. Oehlerich just last month conducted special operations training sessions for Navy SEALS near Bozeman, where they trained from the sidecountry of Bridger Bowl and up into the Tobacco Root Mountains.  

Interwoven into the organization’s tactical approaches is a humanitarian aid focus.  

“We’ve taken people who have military special operations skills and applied it to deliver food and critical medicine to places like Gaza and Sudan,” Mulroy said.  

A third focus is media influence as it pertains to policy topics, explained Mulroy, who is also a national security analyst for ABC News. 

The inaugural Whitefish Security Summit is key for the latter two focuses.  

The Lobo Institute looks to make the inaugural Whitefish Summit an annual event. Along with event partner Jeff Caruso, a cyber expert and conference architect, the hope is that the Summit’s influence will, with time, come to rival high-profile conferences like those held in Davos, Munich and Aspen.  

The one thing those three powerful conferences have done is stay in one place, Mulroy said.  

Centering in Whitefish will make the summit a more intimate, American-West experience than preceding international forums. A low attendance of just 170 guests alongside 30 speakers will ensure the event has high quality engagement.  

“It is as much about the place, as it is about talking about the future of warfare and defense policy,” Mulroy said.  

Oehlerich said they will look to have a positive influence on the surrounding community.  

The Summit “could really plant seeds for young people about life beyond 59937,” he said.  

The event will have different themes every year, he said.  

This year’s Summit’s “flavor is spec ops military folks meets the intelligence community, intersecting with influence, and with influence comes media personalities and Hollywood media — that all comes together.” 

Among the speakers is Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a retired U.S. Army general who led Joint Special Operations Command from 2003-08 while they eliminated Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. 

During the three-day event, Laura Thomas and Rachel Grunspan will lead discussions about what’s it like to be a woman working in hard places against hard targets.  

There will also be film screenings including “My Star in the Sky,” which in Acholi language is “Lakalatwe.” The documentary made by both Oehlerich and Mulroy depicts a story of survival and love between two child soldiers, Anthony and Florence Opoka. Both were abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army, an insurgent group against the government of Uganda. 

The film symbolizes the two’s more extensive efforts to end child soldiering. Whitefish will be the much-needed, intimate setting to view films like this, all while, in Oehlerich words, “policy meets practitioner.” 

“What will make our summit different, is that it will always have that special ops flavor,” Mulroy said.  

Mulroy explained that it means people who have spent their whole careers sometimes making bad policy decisions work, will have space to interact with people who implement those decisions.  

“It’s about what actually works and less about theory,” he said.  

The two organizers have relied on the connections they’ve built over their careers to build the event guest list.  

“Half these guys, we’ve known for 30 years, slinging it in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia and stuff like that,” Oehlerich said. “Yea, the Northern’s gonna be busy.”  

Learn more at www.loboinstitute.org and whitefishsecuritysummit.com and endchildsoldiering.com 

    A stillshot from Lobo Institute's documentary "My Star in the Sky."