Jim Detjen’s story starts in 1980s Seattle—back when grunge wasn’t a Spotify playlist and asking tough questions didn’t get you instantly ratioed.

Youngest of five. Only boy. Product of the GI Bill. He attended the University of Utah after active duty military service — trading parade grounds for classrooms and Army jump boots for campus sneakers.

Jim served in the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Regiment — “The Old Guard.” Handpicked soldiers. Zero margin for error. Selected for the Continental Color Guard and trusted with high-level ceremonial and discreet special assignments — the kind that don’t make the tour brochures, he spent years in D.C. honoring fallen heroes at Arlington, conducting ceremonies at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and standing so still at the White House that the president once asked if he was CGI — back when CGI was more rumor than reality (and probably still a DARPA side hustle).

After 9/11, he pulled counter-terror duty at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Everyone got home safely. Except the Canadians, who left with medals and our national pride in figure skating.

Now he hosts Think First — a podcast for people who like their media with fewer scripts and more spine.

After trading a rifle and parachute for a whiteboard, Jim dove headfirst into brand strategy — and never came up for air:

• $5B+ in client growth

• $150M in direct e-commerce revenue

• Campaigns for brands that rhyme with Pike, Snapple, and a few NDA-cloaked household names

• Trusted by Fortune 100 execs, Ivy League programs, and nonprofits that actually get sh*t done

He’s the guy leadership calls when the slide deck’s on fire — and no one remembers why the logo’s purple.

Jim helped turn tiny Mt. Pleasant’s Wasatch Academy Basketball into a national powerhouse:

• 4× GEICO/Chipotle National Championship appearances

• Multiple McDonald’s All-Americans

• Recruits picked up by Duke, Gonzaga, Kansas, Kentucky, BYU, and a few other obscure liberal arts schools you might’ve heard of

He also co-founded the largest youth basketball camp in the country — powered mostly by caffeine and chaos — and still backs elite Nike grassroots programs without missing a swoosh.

• Host of Think First — a daily podcast serving up gaslighting, poetic truth, and media madness in bite-sized brain snacks.

• Host of Uncharted — where the map ends and the questions actually get interesting.

• Founder of Gaslight 360 — a post-2024 media platform built for cognitive clarity (and the occasional meme that makes legacy outlets visibly uncomfortable).

Jim splits his time between the Utah mountains, Colorado Springs, and (yes) Cambridge — mostly to keep up with three unreasonably accomplished offspring:

• A Division I swimmer and cadet at the U.S. Air Force Academy

• A Harvard student who recently returned from two years in Ethiopia and is now quietly leading a critical thinking revival on campus — bringing back the old adage of the Harvard Man (minus the tweed and tobacco pipe)

• An award-winning drummer juggling Harvard, MIT, and Berklee — because sleep is apparently optional

He and his wife of almost 30 years share a kitchen where his cooking lands somewhere between “almost Michelin” and “definitely not a Pinterest fail.” When not on the mic, he’s attending social hour at a local Orangetheory Fitness, hiking ridgelines, or casually reading quantum mechanics — because someone has to figure out brand strategy for the multiverse.

Jim’s worked in rooms where culture gets its marching orders — with pro athletes, music legends, tech founders, and political insiders. But the moments that matter most still happen off-camera: mentoring talent, building community, and passing down the kind of wisdom that doesn’t trend — it lasts.

He won’t tell you what to think.

He’ll just make sure you Think First — and maybe get you to laugh once or twice along the way.