![\"\"](\"https:\/\/magazine.alumni.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Prieto-2-1024x681.jpeg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe have a vested interest in all American citizens who are here,\u201d Prieto said in a telephone interview from Doha just days before the tournament begins on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prieto is not sure if he\u2019ll be able to get to a game himself since his responsibilities require him to be at the operations center when the U.S. team is playing, but he says there are security specialists embedded with the team, with friends and families traveling with the team and with the media. \u201cWe have a great relationship with U.S. men\u2019s soccer,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His stint in Qatar is just the latest bit of globetrotting for Prieto since joining the Diplomatic Security Service in 2015 after serving in the U.S. Army\u2019s 82nd Airborne Division and doing two tours in Afghanistan. He\u2019s seen black rhinos outside of Nairobi, Kenya, had a private tour of the Sistine Chapel during a trip to Vatican City, met the Dali Lama, and worked on the security details for Secretaries of State Mike Pompeo, Rex Tillerson and John Kerry. He spent 16 months working in the U.S. embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s neat to see these places, to be there in this role,\u201d Prieto says. \u201cIn the back of your mind, you\u2019re thinking that you get paid to do something like this. It\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But a desire to spend more time at home in northern Virginia with his six-year-old son led Prieto to take a position in the Service\u2019s Major Events Coordination Division in May 2021. \u201cI needed some domestic stability,\u201d he says. That enabled Prieto, for example, to take his son to his first NC State football game earlier this year, a 22-21 Wolfpack win over Virginia Tech in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s neat to see these places, to be there in this role. In the back of your mind, you\u2019re thinking that you get paid to do something like this. It\u2019s amazing.\u201d Prieto admits that he\u2019s a bigger fan of American football than the football that will be played at the World Cup, despite having played soccer in high school and on intramural teams while studying criminology at NC State. \u201cI only know a handful of the players\u2019 names,\u201d he says of the U.S. team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But he\u2019s impressed by what he\u2019s seen so far in Qatar, which built seven new stadiums \u2014 most of them within 30 minutes of each other \u2014 for the 32 countries competing in the World Cup. \u201cThey are very proud of hosting the tournament,\u201d he says, \u201cand put a lot of effort and money toward making it a memorable experience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n As the U.S. men\u2019s national soccer team prepares to take the field at the FIFA World Cup, which begins this weekend in Qatar, the team\u2019s fans will be watching with varying degrees of anticipation and angst. Nick Prieto \u201907 will also be watching, but he will be less concerned about whether offensive star Christian Pulisic is scoring goals and his teammates are playing strong defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prieto, 38, will be watching to make sure the players and coaches \u2014 as well as any U.S. fans or media members who travel to watch the games in person \u2014 stay safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As as special agent with the State Department\u2019s Diplomatic Security Service, Prieto is overseeing an operations center that brings together a grab bag of federal agencies \u2014 from the FBI to the TSA \u2014 in Doha, Qatar, to ensure the safety of the players and staff with the team, corporate sponsors from the U.S., members of the news media covering the team, and other citizens who will be in Qatar for the six-week run of the World Cup. The operations center will also deal with issues ranging from lost passports to American citizens involved in traffic accidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have a vested interest in all American citizens who are here,\u201d Prieto said in a telephone interview from Doha just days before the tournament begins on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prieto is not sure if he\u2019ll be able to get to a game himself since his responsibilities require him to be at the operations center when the U.S. team is playing, but he says there are security specialists embedded with the team, with friends and families traveling with the team and with the media. \u201cWe have a great relationship with U.S. men\u2019s soccer,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His stint in Qatar is just the latest bit of globetrotting for Prieto since joining the Diplomatic Security Service in 2015 after serving in the U.S. Army\u2019s 82nd Airborne Division and doing two tours in Afghanistan. He\u2019s seen black rhinos outside of Nairobi, Kenya, had a private tour of the Sistine Chapel during a trip to Vatican City, met the Dali Lama, and worked on the security details for Secretaries of State Mike Pompeo, Rex Tillerson and John Kerry. He spent 16 months working in the U.S. embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s neat to see these places, to be there in this role,\u201d Prieto says. \u201cIn the back of your mind, you\u2019re thinking that you get paid to do something like this. It\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But a desire to spend more time at home in northern Virginia with his six-year-old son led Prieto to take a position in the Service\u2019s Major Events Coordination Division in May 2021. \u201cI needed some domestic stability,\u201d he says. That enabled Prieto, for example, to take his son to his first NC State football game earlier this year, a 22-21 Wolfpack win over Virginia Tech in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s neat to see these places, to be there in this role. In the back of your mind, you\u2019re thinking that you get paid to do something like this. It\u2019s amazing.\u201d Prieto admits that he\u2019s a bigger fan of American football than the football that will be played at the World Cup, despite having played soccer in high school and on intramural teams while studying criminology at NC State. \u201cI only know a handful of the players\u2019 names,\u201d he says of the U.S. team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But he\u2019s impressed by what he\u2019s seen so far in Qatar, which built seven new stadiums \u2014 most of them within 30 minutes of each other \u2014 for the 32 countries competing in the World Cup. \u201cThey are very proud of hosting the tournament,\u201d he says, \u201cand put a lot of effort and money toward making it a memorable experience.\u201d<\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nick Prieto \u201907 heads the security effort for the U.S. Department of State at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":2584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"views\/single-immersive.blade.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-immersive-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"backgroundColor\":\"indigo_400\",\"subtitle\":\"Nick Prieto \u201907 heads the security effort for the U.S. Department of State at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.\",\"displayCategoryID\":6,\"caption\":\"Photography courtesy of U.S. Department of State.\"}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,10],"tags":[274,889,1062,1078,1198,1283],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"displayCategory":{"term_id":6,"name":"Campus Lens","slug":"campus-lens","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":6,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2576"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=2576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/magazine.alumni.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Prieto-3-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/magazine.alumni.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Prieto-4-1024x681.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n
\u2009\u2014 Nick Prieto \u201907<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n
\u2009\u2014 Nick Prieto \u201907<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n