William Briscoe leads an exciting life.
Briscoe is a Special Agent with the FBI-Houston Office, having been with them for about 4.5 years. Before he joined the FBI, he was with the U.S. Secret Service. Plus, he is also a reservist with the U.S. Coast Guard.
Briscoe recently came to the Kiwanis Club of Baytown to talk about his adventures. He spoke about how he came from a small town with dreams of being a baseball player and made it all the way to serving his country by protecting its leaders and citizens.
“I always thought I would be the next Joe Montana or Nolan Ryan,” Briscoe said. “Coming from a small town, I did not have a lot of opportunities. My dad owned a trucking company and mother worked with elderly. Neither one had college degrees. So, I needed to do something with my life.”
Briscoe went to college and played some baseball, but he knew he had to do something else in life. He eventually attended the University of Texas and thought about trying to get into business as a career.
Around 2006, Briscoe took a test to become an FBI agent in San Antonio. He asked an agent how to become one, and they told him to join the military and go into intelligence. He considered becoming a Naval flight officer, but failed the test by three points.
After that, Briscoe spoke to a U.S. Coast Guard recruiter, and told them he wanted to become an officer.
“He said it was easier if you enlist,” Briscoe said.
In 2008, Briscoe enlisted. He spent eight weeks in boot camp.
He said he wanted to be stationed in Galveston and got his wish. He graduated just two months before Hurricane Ike struck the Gulf Coast in September 2008.
“I spent time pulling dead cows and other stuff out of the water, and I learned a whole lot really quick,” Briscoe said.
In 2010, Briscoe said he had the opportunity to go to intelligence training. Since he graduated at the top of his class, he was privileged to choose where he wanted to go. He chose California after consulting with his wife.
After being offered a Secret Service job multiple times, he received a call one night from a “high-level person” asking if he would like to come to Houston and work as an agent.
“Tears started rolling down my eyes. It was like a dream come true,” he said.
When he began working for the U.S. Secret Service in Houston, he would help conduct counterfeit investigations.
Briscoe said that 40% of the Secret Service office rotates on protection service, meaning he helps guard the President of the United States. When Briscoe first came on as an agent, then-President Donald Trump had recently taken office.
Briscoe said he had been to Mar-A-Lago, and served as a limousine driver, taking Donald Trump Jr. on a hunting trip. He added that his family met former Vice President Mike Pence.
“It’s been an amazing career,” he said.
Briscoe said after going back and forth with the Secret Service and the FBI, the FBI sent him an email asking him to update his profile. They kept sending him an email, and one day, he decided to try it.
“Who knows what will happen?” he said.
Briscoe was in North Carolina at the time, and he said he prayed about it.
“I did not know what to do,” he said. “I talked to a lot of people and they said the FBI is good about giving hardships but you do not know where you are going for five weeks.”
In 2019, he took a chance and joined the FBI. He was fortunately able to get to work in Houston.
“It is a blessing,” he said. “I enjoy going to work every day.”
Briscoe said he is a part of the evidence response shooting. He took part in searching Genesse Moreno’s home, the woman involved in the Feb. 11 shooting at Lakewood Church.
Briscoe said that as an FBI agent, he was trained to treat everyone with respect.
“Even with criminals,” he said. “Treat people as you want to be treated and never give up.”
With the U.S. Coast Guard, Briscoe said he also helped with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.
Kiwanis board of director Mike Wilson asked Briscoe what working with the Trumps was like. Briscoe said he was not assigned to Trump’s detail, but had some interactions with the former president when he was with the Secret Service.
“What I tell everybody is that we were apolitical in our position,” he said. “That is the way it works in that organization. And I never had any issues. When it came to the Trump family, they were very respectful people.”
Briscoe described his first time at Mar-A-Lago in March 2018, when then-President Trump came out to the area where the limousines were parked around 8 a.m. by himself.
“Then the agents began scrambling,” he said. “They did not know what was happening, and he did not tell them he was coming. He forgot his hat and had to turn around and go get it. I have also been in the same room with him and at UN Building, where he was taking pics with law enforcement people.”
Briscoe said when someone is working as a Secret Service agent, they generally only speak to the person they are guarding if they ask them a direct question. He said one time when he took Donald Trump Jr. to Austin, he chatted with him briefly when the other agents went inside a sporting goods store he wanted to visit.
At the end of the presentation, Kiwanis President Martha Barnett presented Briscoe with a special luggage tag and a Certificate of Appreciation for coming to the club and sharing his stories.