They met in los angeles and moved to san antonio in 1971. My father is africanamerican, my mother is white. They were an interracial couple in south texas in the 70s. Now their youngest son is a member of congress. When they first went to san antonio, they had difficulty buying a home. Now i am representing my hometown. Part of that is because people are no longer voting on the color of your skin. People knew what was going to work hard and get things done. That i was going to work across the aisle. That i have the experience you need. No one here has that. For me, it is about working hard. Whether you are black, brown, or anything, people care about a couple of things. They want food on the table, a roof over their head, and the people that they love to be healthy and happy. When you address those issues, it is going to resonate with people. Host you are different from the president in terms of parties. If you have a sense of his background and what it was like him to grow up in a similar situation . Rep. Hurd i am aware. There are a number of people who have had this experience. It is great using it. You learn to be empathetic, to excel in places where you are the only person looks like you. I learned the skill that was helpful in the cia. It is an honor to represent my hometown. I think it is a great example of how texas has evolved. They are putting people in office because of who they are. Host and a graduate of texas and a m. What does that mean for you . Rep. Hurd we have a code of honor. We do not lie, cheat, or steel. More of that in d. C. Would make it a better place. I am proud to be an aggie. I learned about representing people. I was student Vice President of the student body during the bonfire collapse. It killed 12 kids. In 1999, it was the worst accident on the college campus. To help lead the family through what was the darkest time in our history was an honor. I would give thee experience of if those kids were still alive. But to me, it solidified what it means to be part of the aggie family. I was able to leverage that in my run for congress. It is a great school. It is awesome representing my alma mater. And the system has a school in san antonio in the district. It is cool to represent part of my alma mater. Host explain the circumstances that led to the collapse and how you responded. Rep. Hurd this was what we did to show our desire to be rival university of texas. It is a multi tiered bonfire. It is gigantic. It is all student run and built. When it collapsed, there was a lot of rain. It caused the ground to shift. The center poles that held up the thing cracked. It caused spinning and stress and the thing collapsed. When it collapsed, i was asleep. It happened about 2 00 in the morning. One of my friends call me and said, you should probably get up here. About 11 minutes after the collapse i was on campus and involved in all aspects of it. Helping to rescue the kids and dealing with press. Also making sure loved ones knew where they could go to get information about their sons and daughters, brothers. Host how did the tradition change after the incident . Rep. Hurd it does not happen anymore. The year before that was the last time the bonfire burned. Host why Student Leadership . Why did you decide to become president . Rep. Hurd i was not going to go to texas a m. I wanted to go to stanford. I got accepted to stanford. I got a scholarship to go. I went to texas because i had a counselor at my high school, big aggie, who kept badgering me to go for a visit. I had some friends who lived there. I said if i go for a visit, will you leave me alone . He said yes. So i went to watch a football game. And i fell in love with the opportunities to get involved. There is Something Special at texas. Im excited to run for president because i had been in bold on campus involved on campus. So i decided to run. My buddies decided to help me. Host how did the experience train you for running for congress . Rep. Hurd at the time, it was 45,000 student. That is undergraduate. When you add graduates and professors and administrators youre talking 80,000 people. It taught me how to work with diverse people, ideologically. It taught me the importance of sticking to your principles. And committed individuals can change the world. And so it was a good test run. I never would have thought i would run for congress after that. But it showed how to get a message out. Host how do you approach the job of being a member of congress . What is your routine in congress and at your district . Rep. Hurd iran i ran to be a leader on national security. The district is huge. 50 of the vote comes from san antonio. Some of the other counties because they are so far away they do not get represented. My title is representative. The way we spend a good deal of my time, we are here monday through thursday, then i am back in the district every weekend. I try to fly in and out of san antonio two weekends a month. And deal with that part of the district there. We focus our legislative efforts on the things that resonate in the district. And are key in my background. The fact that i am a chairman of the subcommittee on Information Technology is a great opportunity to leverage my experience and background with a degree in computer science. I did offense of Cyber Operations in the cia. When i left the cia and ran for congress, i was part of a Consulting Firm and started a Cyber Security company. To be able to use that to focus on privacy i. T. Procurement, Cyber Security, and information sharing, and emerging technology. That is where we spend a good deal of time. Host why is will heard a republican . Rep. Hurd i believe in freedom, government, having a Strong National defense. I believe in equal opportunity. These are things that always resonated with me. My dad likes to say he was the first like republican in san antonio. I have not been able to fact check that. My dad was a salesman for 30 years. When he retired, he and my mother started a Beauty Supply school. And i saw what it meant to build something from scratch and be rewarded for your efforts. These were the experiences i had growing up. Host brothers or sisters . Rep. Hurd i am the baby of three. My sister is four years older my brother is five years older. We are really close. Host when you took the old of office, what was your mom and dad thinking . Rep. Hurd my mom was crying and my dad was proud. My dad was 82 years old. He showed up to the capital. He usually walks with a cane. He did not have his cane. I said, do i need to get your cane . He straightens up real stiff and says, i am in the capital. I do not need a cane today. He walked without his cane for the entire day. I know they were super proud. My parents have always believed in me and have always been my biggest supporters. It really hit home when i stood up and raise my hand and was able to see them in the gallery. Host what was your biggest setback growing up or early in your career . Rep. Hurd i think the biggest setback was probably losing the run for congress in 2010. I left the cia to run. I was frustrated with the caliber of our elected leaders. My job was to collect intelligence and brief members of congress. I briefed hundreds of members and was shocked by their lack of understanding of basic issues they were on committees for. I try to run for congress and did not have a plan b. We ran. Won the first round and everybody was excited. Everybody thought we were she wins to win. The other side was re sending out resumes for further jobs. We lost by 700 votes. I felt like i let everyone down. I knew in my head that was not the case. But in my heart, i thought all these people who were never involved in the political process, i felt like i did not pull it out. I did not leave my house for a while. I had to figure out a plan b. I had coffee with about 75 people, all walks of life. And i asked them, if you are 32 what would you do . And their responses were there was no great idea generated from that, but the father of one of my closest friends, a guy i have known since i was 13 said do something meaningful and hard. So simple, but that is kind of how i have lived my life. And i realize most of my life, i was trying to do things meaningful and heart. So i am a better person. Host why did you decide to run again . Rep. Hurd the opportunity was there. Coming that close, realizing that i had significant disagreements with the person in office and thought that person should be representing the district differently, i love my country. I had the honor to serve my country for almost a decade in the cia. I look at this as serving my country in a different way. The opportunity was there. The folks who were part of the team said they were in for one more. So we decided to do it. Host lets talk about the cia. You graduate from texas, get a job at the agency. What was your first position . What was the biggest challenge . What did you learn from your tenure there . Rep. Hurd my first job, i was 22, driving my toyota 4 runner. I stopped at a gas station. The uss cole had just blown up. By al qaeda. And i remember thinking, i wonder if i will know anything that is going on there. After we go through initial orientation, i was the desk officer for yemen. I was at the headquarters in langley supporting the men and women in our station, the headquarters in yemen. That was my first job. One of the Biggest Challenges was fighting bureaucracy. When i was in afghanistan i managed undercover operations and felt there were rules and regulations that we were having to to do our jobs that were preventing us from protecting ourselves and doing the job we were trying to do. Fighting bureaucracy in kabul back in langley, was an incredible challenge. In the end, we won. Because i had the experience and background and support to get that done. It was a great experience. That is what im doing here. Most of my responsibility as a representative is to fight bureaucracy for oaks who need your rocker c bureaucracy fou ght. It was a great lesson and challenge. What i learned in the cia is it is filled with redblooded patriotic men and women who are trying to do the right thing to make sure you and i can sleep well at night and our families are safe. That commitment to saying, we have a tasking. We never said, we cannot do that. The cando attitude is something that permeated everything we did. It is something that i learned that texas. Refined further in the cia. And something that i always use now. Host if a future president says they want you to be the cia director, is it a job he would undertake . How would you approach the position . Rep. Hurd good question. It would be an honor to serve. And how i would approach the position is go back to the basics. The cia are the collectors of last resort. If you cannot get a piece of information, you call on the cia to do that. And, you have to have very clear goals on what you are trying to collect and how you have a perspective. Right now, as the number of threats to our country are increasing, we have to have more intelligence. One of the problems with the fight against isis in syria and iraq, we do not have enough on the ground human intelligence. Part of that is because we do not have enough people in the region. That is something where my good friends, ambassador ryan crocker , i think he is one of the test things the Foreign Service has produced. Now he is running the bush school. He says you need wingtips on the ground to prevent boots on the ground. I would be aggressive, in hard places. We would have clear collection priorities. Host having spent time in yemen, afghanistan langley what worries you the most as a member of congress . What should americans be concerned about . Rep. Hurd the micro actors having macro impact. This is where one person can have a huge impact. Who would have thought 11 people would have had the impact it did on 9 11 . Those are what we have to worry about. If you look at isis right now isis is the talent they are attracting from around the world is significant. Higher levels in afghanistan than the original war in iraq ever were. Their ability to leverage social media to get their message out is unprecedented. When i was in afghanistan and pakistan chasing taliban, they would do night letters. They would write a letter and leave it on doorsteps. You can only hit a couple hundred people in one night that way. What isis is doing is hitting tens of millions of people every day. They are getting their message out in a way that is unprecedented. Their ability to grow is pretty scary. When you look at the Cyber Threats we are facing around the world, it is just unbelievable. It is no longer about preventing someone from getting in. Did you give me enough time, i am getting into your digital network. The question becomes, how do you detect it . How can you kick people out . The number of people able to get into our sophisticated Digital Infrastructure is increasing exponentially as well. The great thing is we have smart , hardworking americans at our intelligence agencies and Law Enforcement agencies, military and civilian agencies, keeping us from these threats. Host i have to ask you about the ki knife. Where did that come from . Rep. Hurd pakistan. It was kind of the award for good service. It is an adaptation of a gurka knife. Gurkas were fierce warriors. The saying goes, if you pulled your knife, you cannot pull it back in the sheath without drawing blood. This is a variant of that knife. Host as all your career and work made it difficult to have a relationship . [laughter] rep. Hurd it has. I was engaged to a girl from north texas. When you come home and say guess what . I work for the cia and we are moving to pakistan, that has a Chilling Effect on the relationship. But it was the right choice for her. And i just have not found the right person just yet. I do travel a lot, move around a lot. I am young enough. My parents have grandkids. Host the members of congress you used to brief, do they view you differently as a colleague . Rep. Hurd some of the ones i had caused me to run, no longer exist. I will say that i have been shocked at how warm member to member relationships are. And the fact that people who have been here and have experience have sought me out for my perspective. Host what is the biggest learning curve for a freshman member of congress . Rep. Hurd the biggest learning curve is how you manage your legislative team. Your district team, and your political team. Those are three separate organizations that have to be managed that way. For me, i realize a lot of my work up here is about responding to constituents. If one person is having a problem in the district, i guarantee you hundreds of people across the country are. How do you take those ones and twos and fix the problem on a macro scale . That is how i think we can be more effective in representing our district and making sure we are fighting bureaucracy. Host finally our you where you expected to be at your age of 37 . Rep. Hurd i do not know. Like i said before i have learned through doing things that are meaningful and hard. It is about having a positive mental attitude. Being honest people. Treating people with respect. I was taught that at a young age and continue to do that now. It is an exciting place to be in order to represent my country. People that need to be fought for. Host anything else that would interest you politically . Rep. Hurd i am interested in running a business again. For me, the next objective is getting reelected. There are a lot of folks that are doubting im ready to do that. They have doubted me plenty already. We know what we are doing. We will prove everyone wrong once again. Host all his week we have been bringing you conversation with members of congress. Tomorrow, a conversation with norma torres, who represents the 35th congressional district. It is incredibly hard to get here. The money involved in politics it makes it almost impossible for someone like me. I am a 911 dispatcher by trade. It is incredible that i made it this far, but here i am. And why did you decide to seek elective office. I answered a call as a 911 dispatcher of a little girl, an 11yearold girl, who died at the hands of her uncle. It really pushed me into a political world that i, frankly, didnt know it existed. You can watch this entire profile tomorrow at 9 p. M. Eastern time here on cspan. Next, a former venture capitalist talks about an Entrepreneurial Program she created for convicted felons. She founded the nonprofit, defined defy ventures will stop the event was held at the computer history knees in Computer History Museum in mountain view, california. In 2010, she founded the group to do the work. It is challenging work but the concept is simple. Men and women who have been incarcerated do not lack talent or skill. Simply because they have been in prison. To the contrary, given the right help, coaching and investment, they can succeed as entrepreneurs as well as anyone who has the entrepreneurial spirit. Defy ventures seems aptly named. Catherine is going to be joined tonight by two very important people. One is jaime florez, and entrepreneur in training. The other is nprs laura sydell. She is a great friend to the museum. This is lauras sixth appearance here. Were delighted to have her back. I should add that in 2015, we will be launching an app, a audio guide to the revolution experience downstairs. If you come and download the app, you will hear laura sydells voice because she is the official voice of the app. I hope you will come and take advantage of that. She is nprs Digital Culture correspondent. She is adding a little Digital Culture to the museum and we can use all that we can get. Please join me welcoming our guests. [applause] laura great to be here on this rainy night. I think we got a little bit from the videos. What if you could just start out what is defy doing right now . How do you define this amazing venture . Catherine there are 100 million americans with criminal histories. Many of them developed amazing hustling skills in their former drug dealing and gang leadership days. We recruit formerly incarcerated people and transform their hustle from illegal ventures into legal entrepreneurship. We recruit people after they are released from prison. We recruit people like yourselves, Business People, as mentors and coaches. We have Online Training courses. We bring them together for events where we teach them entrepreneurship training. We host shark tank style Business