Safeguarding SDSU international travelers in a volatile world

After 25 years hunting drug smugglers, suspected terrorists and intellectual property thieves, Tyne Truong retired from a senior leadership position in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, looking for something different.

He found his next challenge at San Diego State University, where he works as the university’s Assistant Director of International Safety, Security and Risk. Hired in 2021, Truong develops the risk mitigation framework and safeguards for foreign travel within the SDSU community, spanning students studying abroad, international interns, cross-border research faculty, and all others.

The position is the first of its kind in the California State University system, and it is a key piece of the infrastructure supporting SDSU’s Global Strategic Plan, which aims to propel the university into a leading cross-border and international higher education institution.

“I saw it involved some of the same things I did at DHS, writing global enterprise policies, new policies, redoing old policies,” said Truong. “I figured this looks interesting. It is important. I understand what the role is calling for — security, safety, risk. I already had done that with the federal government.”

SDSU has ranked among the leaders for student participation in global education programs as part of their college experience, coming in as high as third nationwide for study abroad in 2019/2020, according to the Institute of International Education’s Open Doors database.

This interest in international programs led SDSU’s Global Education Office to seek funding for a new position focused on risk assessment and mitigation, emergency response, and trip preparation, which university leadership supported, said Noah Hansen, senior director of SDSU International Affairs.

“This is due diligence,” he said. “We want to support students going abroad and parents, and there is an expectation that we are doing that. But the other piece we want to support is our faculty and staff who are going abroad. There is research happening all around the world. We don’t just send people out and they fend for themselves. We want to provide the support so those programs can be robust and as safe as possible.”

No SDSU students or faculty are abroad in regions that the U.S. State Department designates as having substantial risk, said Truong, and no university-related travel is planned to those countries. Even so, his team monitors the globe in real time for potential threats — ranging from hurricanes and earthquakes to mass demonstrations and random violence.

“I think anytime we have questions related to the state of the world and study abroad, whether that be a health and safety concern like COVID or a geopolitical security issue, we can always reassure parents and students that we have someone overseeing a team whose sole job is to monitor where our students are going and all the security-related risk around their exact itineraries,” said Chris Kjonaas, assistant director of Global Education.

After graduating from UCLA with a degree in economics/international development, Truong joined the U.S. Customs Service, where he worked in undercover investigations mostly involving narcotics smuggling along the Southern border. Later he worked in Washington, D.C., where he earned a graduate degree from Georgetown. He is a Distinguished Homeland Defense Fellow at the National Defense University, a government-funded higher education institution for the military and security community.

After 9/11, Truong’s Customs Service unit became part of the Department of Homeland Security, and he began creating enterprise policies and protocols for undercover operations worldwide at the new agency, among other duties. By the time he retired, Truong was Assistant Special Agent in Charge for DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) National Security, Counterterrorism and Counterproliferation/Export Control Investigations division.

Since joining SDSU, Truong has established the International Risk Oversight Committee and International Emergency Management Team, which include a cross-section of senior leaders from SDSU’s business units and departments. He provides the committee with risk assessments and travel recommendations, which it can accept or reject before forwarding them to top university decision makers.

He also drafted two fundamental policies to date — the International Safety, Security and Risk Travel Policy and the International Emergency Response Policy. They outline rules for decision making on travel and on managing crises. Both policies are going through the vetting process with university leadership.  

Looking ahead, Truong plans to continue building the foundation for SDSU’s foreign travel risk management efforts.

“I'm proud of my achievements in the federal government and I was fortunate to accomplish what I did, when I did,” he said. “I was lucky enough to transition into this role and still be in a position to make a difference.”