WHO WE ARE

Kim: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Life at Travelers podcast. I have a very interesting guest for you here today. This is Michael Kunkel. He is the Director of Emerging Technologies here at Travelers and from a U.S. Marine military background all the way to working in AI, and crazy new levels of technology that we’re going to bring in here to Travelers he’s here to tell his story. So, Michael, let’s start all the way from the beginning with you because I’m interested in what you were like even as a kid. What were you interested in? Where’d you grow up? Kind of, what got you excited?

Michael: Yeah. I was quiet.

Kim: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah.

Kim: Still are.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah, I do get that a lot. You know, it’s really funny because I could, like, wrap up this whole podcast with, like, just saying, like, one story that basically was, like, the story of, like, everything

Kim: Do it.

Michael: It’s all about, like, one time there was a commercial where it showed, it was, like, ‘87, ‘88, where it’s, like, you know, a knight was riding a horse and it slayed a dragon and then got off the horse and held up a sword and then the knight armor turned into this beautiful United States Marine dress blues. And I was like, wow.

Kim: You’re like, that’s me.

Michael: The few, the proud, the Marines. And then Quantum Leap came on. And then that’s it.

Kim: And that’s it.

Michael: And now, that was it. Like, Quantum Leap and the whole do, you know, righting what once was, you know, what, what went wrong. Making it right. You know, setting the world straight and doing good using science. That’s, like, that was it.

Kim: That was your life story.

Michael: That was it. Like, that was, from that I’d just been playing that commercial and that, you know, that show in my head over again.

Kim: Well, thanks everybody for joining us.

Michael: Yeah, bye.

Kim: No, I’m just kidding. I love it. Okay so, was that, kind of, the, the birth point of you being interested in being in the military or, you know, did that change throughout your upbringing?

Michael: My grandfathers were veterans of World War Two. My, my maternal grandfather was actually an evader who wasn’t a prisoner of war because when he was shot down over enemy lines, they could never find him. They couldn’t capture him. He was able to evade the enemy long enough to make it back to the allies and back home to my grandmother, which had my, obviously, my mother and then my mother met my father and, you know, and being able to, like, he never talked about it, but just been fascinated with the fact of how smart that individual was to be able to do that. I was always wondering, like, did I get that? Am I like that, too?

Kim: Right.

Michael: You know?

Kim: Yeah. You want to put yourself in those shoes and see if…

Michael: Yeah.

Kim: Yeah.

Michael: And that got me, like, really curious to know, like, what could I do, like, could I follow in those footsteps? Now, my paternal grandfather, he was also a, you know, World War Two Veteran, and then my step-grandfather was also a World War Two veteran. and they would always tell me these stories about, you know, the camaraderie and their experiences. Right? And it just, it was always great. Like, listening to them, listening to the stories.

Kim: Yep. And, yeah, I mean that was basically where it was all birthed from…

Michael: …was from the fact that my grandparents were you know, veterans of World War Two.

Kim: Yup. And so, at what age did you enlist?

Michael: I think it was, like, nine days after high school…

Kim: Wow.

Michael: …I went and yeah, it was June 16th, 1998. And then I got out August 16th, 2003.

Kim: Okay. Yeah.

Michael: So, if you do the math correctly, September 11th happened in the middle of my enlistment.

Kim: Sure did. Wow.

Michael: So, I got to see the difference between peacetime Marines and wartime Marines.

Kim: Right.

Michael: And there’s a newsflash in there. There’s no difference.

Kim: Yeah. Yeah.

Michael: They trained you nicely. It was…

Kim: You were prepared.

Michael: Yeah, we were. Like, it was a really good feat of, like, you know, what boot camp and training was really about.

Kim: And what were you doing during your time there? What was your role?

Michael: I was an AH-1W and UH-1N. Those are the helicopters. One is a light attack helicopter called the Cobra.

Kim: Okay.

Michael: And the other is a utility helicopter called the Huey. You probably seen those from, like, those really old, like, you know, movies. And so, I was a mechanic on both of them. And so, for five years I, you know, worked up to the ranks through that, you know, being, becoming an expert on those, machines. I actually was lucky enough to work in a shop that we had about 35 of 50 of them were just, like me, very highly motivated, highly technical. I would probably just say, just, you know, highly skilled at their jobs.

Kim: Yeah.

Michael: And so, we were able to set records, you know, on, like, having, like, aircraft readiness and we actually set records in being able to find a flaw in the manufacturer design that allowed the aircrafts to actually go down for, like, nine months and give us, like, a nine month, like, vacation.

Kim: Oh, my goodness.

Michael: It was pretty cool. It was a good thing it happened, like, in 2000, because when 2001 came about, like, it was all fixed and we were, like, ready to go, but, like, we all got medals for it. Like, it was, like, to find, like, save, like, 7,000 lives because it was spread all across the, this very particular type of, like, defects.

Kim: Yeah.

Michael: It was, like, really cool.

Kim: Ok, so you would say you’re a problem solver.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely.

Kim: Big time.

Michael: I find them, too. I don’t, I don’t just solve them. You don’t just come to me with the problem. I’m actually, like…

Kim: I’m going to bring the problem to you.

Michael: …it’s kind of, like, yeah, exactly. It’s kind of, like, you know, for, for this one that we just spoke about, it was just, like, happenstance that somebody painted the blade on the helicopter improperly, okay?

Kim: Okay.

Michael: And you don’t really notice at first you painted improperly. There’s a way you have to go, like, left and right and not up and down. Okay? And a few months later, when I was looking and inspecting the aircraft, making sure that it was safe for flight, I look, now, I knew something wasn’t right. Like, I knew what condensation under paint looks like, and I knew what the bubbles look like, but this looked very, like, particular to, like, a rash. I’m like, blades don’t get rashes.

Kim: Right.

Michael: You know, they get a little spot here and there and stuff like that. And so, I did something I shouldn’t have done, which I did get in trouble for. I removed a little bit of the paint.

Kim: Yeah.

Michael: You’re not supposed to do that. And I looked and I saw under the paint I was like, that’s a crack. I’m like, there’s a crack in the blade. Like if that blade would, you know, fall apart and when we went out there, we did all these little, like, technical little, like, inspections on it, like, using, like, ultrasonic rays and stuff like that, sound, it comes back and it was a crack.

Kim: Yeah.

Michael: And then the next day, I found another one. And a week later, I found another one. And I trained the entire shop on how to find them. And all up and down the flight line, people are finding them left and right.

Kim: Wow.

Michael: And the manufacturer of the blades had no idea how to fix it. And we solved that, too.

Kim: That is cool stuff. It’s just so interesting because I, I hear your story, right? About the helicopters, about you finding problems, solving problems and now knowing where you are today here at Travelers in emerging technologies. Right? That is a problem-solving field. I can see the direct, kind of, correlation here. So, I want to continue to take our audience through that journey.

Michael: Excellent.

Kim: So, after you serve in the Marines…

Michael: Yeah.

Kim: …in the Marine Corps, and, and thank you for your service…

Michael: It was my honor.

Kim: …very much appreciated, you had quite an extensive education.

Michael: Yeah.

Kim: So, you got out of the military, you earn your bachelor’s in physics and professional aeronautics.

Michael: Space physics and professional aeronautics.

Kim: Okay, okay.

Michael: Different type of physics.

Kim: Okay. Space physics and professional aeronautics, and then your master’s in nuclear and particle physics.

Michael: Correct.

Kim: And then your PhD in nuclear and particle physics.

Michael: Correct.

Kim: Oh, my goodness. Okay. So, take me through that. How did it start? You leave the Marine Corps, and what gets you, you know, initially into space physics and professional aeronautics?

Michael: I’m going to say this, and it is going to sound so incredibly conceited, okay?

Kim: Okay.

Michael: But, and I don’t mean it to be, okay?

Kim: Okay.

Michael: So, I actually started my undergraduate, I wanted to be an aerospace engineer. I mean, given my background working on the Cobras, on the Hueys we were always yelling about, all these engineers don’t know how, what it’s like to work on these aircraft. How am I supposed to get my hands in here and fix this thing?

Kim: I mean, hence the crack.

Michael: Right. Like, if I could, you know, if I could design these aircrafts, I could do 100 times better.

Kim: Right.

Michael: But it was too easy. And I wanted something harder.

Kim: Okay.

Michael: I’m a Marine, I need something hard to do. So, my physics professor for the, you know, some of the classes I was taking to get my, aeronautical engineer, aerospace engineering degree said, why don’t you take a crack at physics if that’s easy to you? And I took a crack at it and it wasn’t easy.

Kim: Yeah. So, of course you had to do it.

Michael: Of course, I had to do it. That was it. I had to do it. And then I started reaching out, like, how do I make this make sense to me? And then, that’s when I learned about, like, Richard Feynman and Feynman lectures and all the books he’s, you know, written and all the lectures he’s given. And then, all of a sudden it just started making sense. I’m like, oh, now it makes all sense.

Kim: And, and, obviously, you didn’t just stop at a bachelor’s, you know, you went all the way through a PhD. Was it the love for learning that kept you going, or did you have an end goal for a career? What kept you on that path?

Michael: I wanted to make a quantum accelerator and go to the past and right what was wrong. No Quantum Leap? No. No. I love learning. It’s a part of my brain that I, I have to satisfy no matter, like, what I’m doing, whether it’s, like, an academic thing, like, recently, you know, reeducating myself in quantum computing or, you know, figuring out how to build a set of steps in my house. Right? I have to learn, like, I want to do something, I have to learn how to do it. You know the old saying if you want something done right you should do it yourself kind of thing. And so, I’m just, I consider myself a lifelong learner. And I don’t want to be ever an expert in one thing.

Kim: Yep. Okay. And then, you don’t stop at the PhD.

Michael: I don’t.

Kim: No. Then you go to Germany.

Michael: I do.

Kim: And you do, you are doing research as a postdoctoral research associate. What were you doing research on there?

Michael: Yeah. So, when I was a graduate student, the physics laboratory I worked at down in Newport News, Virginia, Jefferson Laboratory, Jefferson, they had a very specific type of data that they would collect in one of the, the accelerators down there. And just so happened that no one looked at one flavor of physics. And I was very interested in this flavor of physics because it allowed you to peek into what we call the standard model. And this, this standard model is basically, just a few variables we kind of, like, threw together and it explains the universe.

Kim: Yeah, no big deal.

Michael: No big deal. Right? Is it perfect? No. Does it explain like 99.999 of everything? Close.

Kim: Okay.

Michael: But there’s this one aspect in the standard model that we can, we can measure. And we can measure it out to 127 decimal points. That’s how good this model is, the standard model.

Kim: Okay.

Michael: And the question is, why are we breaking down at 128th decimal? What’s there? I mean, we shouldn’t. Is it, like, precision on our equipment? We kind of, like, ruled that out a couple of years ago, well, a couple decades ago. And so, it was kind of, like, with this new field of this data that I found down there, allowed us to have insights into that small, little deviation between theory and experiment. And so, I worked on it and I made this great dissertation and created this great physics program as a grad student that, when I started advertising what we were doing, the physicists in Germany were like, man, that’s, that’s our type of physics. Why don’t you come be our postdoc?

Kim: Yeah.

Michael: And I’m all like, yeah.

Kim: Sounds good to me. I mean, the epicenter of Europe, and I get to travel, right? And I get to go, like, you know, it’s basically, like, cost free to me because €50 is actually round trip anywhere….

Kim: Yeah.

Michael: …there. And, you know, it was great. And I get to solve, you know, one of the greatest mysteries that, that’s out there or at least try to, you know, it’s…

Kim: You get to do what you love.

Michael: Yeah. And I got to learn more and more and more as I did it. I got to learn AI when I was doing this, and I started embedding AI into, like, particle detectors and saying, like, if you run this, you know, this can do this at this efficiencies and, yeah so that’s where I got to learn all that.

Kim: So, what excited you about that field of research? Was it anything in particular? Or was it just the, like, the mystery of the unknown?

Michael: It was the mystery of the unknown. And people were saying it was probably one of the hardest problems to solve.

Kim: Okay.

Michael: Right? And it’s kind of like, well, if I can solve it, it’s probably not that hard.

Kim: You just felt like you were up for the challenge.

Michael: Yeah. Exactly.

Kim: Now all of this, and it’s nothing to laugh at, but, it leads you to Travelers eventually.

Michael: Yeah.

Kim: Here we are in this room.

Michael: Yeah, yeah.

Kim: Can you talk to me about, you know, how does the work that you did leading up to getting to Travelers and do now, how is that embedded into the insurance industry?

Michael: Yeah, so, for all you academics out there that are going to listen to this and say, well, you know, your career sounded awesome as an academic. Why did you? We all know the statistic of, like, what it takes to become a tenure track on anything. And I never was under any delusion that I was as special or more special to anyone else to get into that deposition. So, the odds are just extremely low. And then I have my spouse, who is also an academic, get into, in the same area. It’s just that 127 places I was telling you about, this is, like, more like, you know, 138, you know, 139.

Kim: Sure.

Michael: You know, it’s very improbable so, I started to look around for corporate jobs. And also, in Germany at the time. And I really wanted, I really wanted something that I knew could, like, impact people’s lives, but I didn’t want it to be, like, a sole, like, cash cow. Like, give me your money and I’ll give you this.

Kim: Right.

Michael: Yeah. You know, and then they, this is back when we had something called the, Travelers had something called the Travelers Innovation Center. It’s called the TIC. And I interviewed there, and I saw exactly what I wanted in, like, a career. And that was you had this, this space of scientists who were out trying to solve how to use AI, to not only better the, the customer’s experience and the customers’ lives and, and apply it to them. Right? But also, for the people who work here and using AI to facilitate, you know, better productivity and happiness. I mean, when you have high productivity, you’re very happy. When you have low productivity, you’re not so happy. So, using AI to make people happy, right? And building out these tools was, like, really right in my wheelhouse because all we wanted to do was, like, stick AI in particle detectors and say, I can see the universe now.

Kim: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah, tell me about it. Right? So, whether it’s particles or people, right? You know, AI just makes it, you know, all that more palatable to be around.

Kim: Yeah. And AI now, you know, to someone who’s not deep in technology, right? Using myself as an example, AI is becoming more popular to the average folks now, right?

Michael: It’s wonderful.

Kim: Yeah. It’s being embedded in, like, things we use on our phone or at work or, you know, other products that we might use, but you’ve been working with it for a while.

Michael: Yeah.

Kim: Yeah. Let’s talk about quantum computing. You know, what is that? And, and how are you bringing that into your work?

Michael: Yeah so, quantum computing is a new compute paradigm where, instead of having your traditional bits of, like, either on or off, like, up or down like a light switch, like, that’s how a traditional transistor works. And if I stack a lot of transistors next to one another, they can only be a sequence of ones and zeros. Right? And when I make that measurement, it can only ever be that.

Kim: Sure.

Michael: But quantum comes around and says, well, I have a new way of doing things for you. It’s not really new because ever since the Big Bang happened not that long ago. Right? The universe has been actually computing everyday reality at the quantum level. And what this allows it to do is in quantum mechanics, you have this thing called, like, superposition, which means that you can be in multiple things at one time. Right? So, you’re not only a 0 or 1 but you’re anything in between, like, a 0 and 1. Right? And it all depends on the probability amplitude of either being in a 1 or a 0 state. So, what’s the most probable one. Right? And then there’s this really other spooky thing about quantum mechanics where it’s, like, entanglements where I can take two objects, quantum objects and I can entangle them, right, such that when I measure one, I instantaneously affect the other one regardless of the distance.

Michael: Right? And so, we are now able to build these types of computers that exhibit these properties and we can control them. Right? And this allows us to, instead of going back to an analogy of having a series of transistors and it can only be, let’s say, one states. So, if I have four transistor bits, it’s ever going to be those four. If I have four qubits, I have 16 possible answers, all computing at the exact same time. I put another qubit in there, right? I get 32 possible, I get another one, 64, another one. 128. And you can see as you start, you know, adding in just a qubit, you start exponentially making your compute space super large, something we can never do with a classical computer.

Kim: That’s great. No, it’s really helpful because, it’s just, what’s interesting to me, though, is I hear quantum computing, I hear your explanation, I think, like, rocket ships. Okay? How does it, how does it build into insurance?

Michael: Yeah. So, there’s three things about quantum technologies that we’re actually on the precipice with and I say quantum technologies because quantum compute is one of them. Right? And quantum compute allows us to just look at data and compute data in ways vastly more efficient than we’ve ever looked at before. There’s, like, this paradigm where we’re going to be able to solve problems that we are not even aware of today that we even have. Right? Because we’ve never been able to think about there ever possibly being a solution. Like, if you were to ask me a couple years ago, when would quantum be available commercially, I might have said, like, 15 years. If you asked me that last year, I would say in five years, because technology has just boomed in this space. Right? And then we have things called quantum sensors, which are your normal, like, everyday sensors, you would think, but they use quantum principles instead, and they give you, like, sense and, like, a hundred times better. So, you can imagine, like, you know, there’s this, you know, company in Colorado and they’re trying to build a quantum sensor that you can put onto a car.

Michael: Right? And, you know, do this principle of general relativity. I know it’s a car in front of me. I know how far the car is in front of me, and I know how fast the car is going in front of me. Right? And it’s not, like, a two-way system. It’s my sensor sensing the gravitational field that’s going in front of me. Right? And so, it can instantaneously start adapting and start sending you signals for any possible, like, risk that might be coming. Like, this is highly, you know, you know, advantageous to an insurance company and knowing how these kind of technologies are going to affect our everyday lives. And then the third part is, like, quantum communications, right? Because, remember I told you about that entanglement part?

Kim: Yeah.

Michael: Well, one of the cool things about this is I can give you my entangled particle and I can say, you know what, Kimberly? Just. Just hold it. Just hold it. And when I need to tell you something, I’ll tell you. Right? And then I’ll say, okay, I’m going to tell you something, and I do something to my qubits. Right? And then I say, I applied this gate to it. I don’t tell you what I said. I don’t tell you if it’s a 1 or 0. I just tell you what I did to it. And then you look on your thing, you apply that same operation.

Kim: Yep.

Michael: And you say, oh, that’s what you wanted to send me. You know exactly what I wanted to send you. And so, because of the fact that quantum computing itself, once it gets very large, it will break today’s cryptography. Right? You need a second form of communication.

Kim: Right.

Michael: So, quantum comes as a sword and shield. Right? You get, I will break today’s, classical cryptography because classical cryptography relies on the fact that it’s mathematically impossible on a classical computer to break some of these asymmetric keys. A quantum computer comes along and says, that’s a grilled cheese sandwich to me on a Sunday. Right?

Kim: Michael, this all goes back to the commercial.

Michael: It does exactly. You know?

Kim: The sword and shield of the Marines. Now it’s the sword and shield of quantum communication.

Michael: Exactly. Full circle.

Kim: That’s amazing. So, one thing we haven’t talked about yet is InJam. I know you’re pretty involved in that. Right?

Michael: So, InJam sold me for this place. If it wasn’t, if, like, you know, if TIC was the icing, if like, emerging tech and that TIC, kind of, mindset was, like, the cake, InJam was the icing.

Kim: All right.

Michael: Now, for those listeners out there who don’t know what InJam is, it is a hackathon. We get 24 hours to work on anything that we want, you know, and then we pitch it. And, you know, sometimes you get a winner and it’s just, it’s a hackathon where you just get to have fun, right? And that was the icing on the cake. I was like, you do what? And when? And like, okay, like…

Kim: I’m in.

Michael: I’m there, like, this is wonderful.

Kim: That’s great. Michael, are you involved in the Military/Veterans & Allies Diversity Network?

Michael: I do participate in some of the events they do. We do a Toys for Tots donation, usually in emerging tech. Yeah, we’ll do a donation, you know, to the Marine Corps Toys for Tots. It’s a good organization. They do look out for veterans here. They really, for an organization that does say they take care of veterans and value veterans, like, Travelers really does, like, I would be hard pressed to have somebody else tell me that somebody, another organization, does it better because of how well… They might do it as well as we do it, but I don’t think there’s anyone that does it better than Travelers does when it comes to understanding and, you know, and valuing veterans.

Kim: Yep, yep. And, and on that same side of the coin, when I know you had a gap between leaving the Marine Corps and making it to Travelers. You had that large, kind of, educational journey.

Michael: Yeah.

Kim: As far as, you know, if you were speaking with somebody who’s coming out of the Marine Corps, education aside, heading into Travelers, right? A transitioning military member who’s heading into the civilian world, here at Travelers, what advice would you give to them as a veteran moving into a corporate space?

Michael: Yeah. Like, don’t fret. Like, you, you’re going to come out, you’re going to transition out, and you’re going to have this mentality where you’re going to think that no one’s going to be there for you, no one’s going to understand you. You’ve left your comrades, you know, you’ve left you know, your brothers and sisters, you know, back in the service and you’re not going to form those relationships or partnerships. Don’t be that way. Not, not with Travelers.

Kim: Yep. Yep. No, that’s great. Before we wrap up Michael, what keeps you at Travelers today?

Michael: So, I would say, to answer your question, it’s this constant pursuit of learning here at Travelers. I believe one of our SVP’s once said that he wants to make us all very marketable, whether it’s in Travelers or elsewhere. I mean, that is a really like, noble thing for an organization to go out and say, like, we want you to be upskilled and we want you to be so skilled that you will be successful whether it’s here or anywhere else. Like, for an organization to do that and to put the time and the money and to put the, you know, the money where their mouth is, right? For anyone who out there who is always curious and is a constant learner, you’re not going to find a better place than this place for that.

Kim: Yep, yep. I appreciate you coming in here. And, I don’t know, sharing just such an interesting background and I do feel like you’re a diamond in the rough. I’ve not met anybody like you, so, I think that our listeners will probably feel similarly. So, thank you for coming in here and sharing your experience and also simplifying it a smidge for some of us out here.

Michael: And if anyone is curious to know more, if they need to know more, I’m available on the LinkedIn socials or if you’re inside of the organization, please reach out. You know, I’m an open door. I’m an open book.

Kim: Awesome. Well, we’ll tag you out on social media and, for all of our listeners out there, thank you once again for joining us. We’ll have another episode for you soon. And until then, take care.