CSI to CEO: What the Dead Can Teach Us About Life and Leadership
By Stephen J. Lu
Edited by Eve Porinchak
Introduction by Pat Wertheim
By Stephen J. Lu
Edited by Eve Porinchak
Introduction by Pat Wertheim
Stephen Lu knew what it was like to fight for his life—literally. During the worst months of a mysterious illness, his body and mind were under siege, bringing him to the point of almost giving up. He eventually clawed his way back to health with the help of doctors, coaches, friends, and their life-saving practices.
But this wasn't the first or last battle Stephen would fight. Throughout the development of his career as a Crime Scene Investigator, he experienced several defining moments under brutal and demeaning leadership. Stephen fought to overcome the barriers that people threw at him for standing up for science and curiosity: worker abuse, harassment, retaliation, and discrimination.
Armed with a wealth of experience to draw from and his insatiable hunger for personal growth, Stephen's relentless fight to stay curious led him to a role he never expected—the CEO of his own forensic leadership development company.
With a meticulously crafted narrative, Stephen's dark humor and straightforward, no-BS attitude display themselves in one inspiring memoir that combines true crime, forensic how-to, and leadership lessons. His unique journey from the world of forensic investigation to the realm of leadership bestowed upon him a fresh perspective, enabling him to empower individuals and organizations to unlock their true potential for the public good.
"In CSI to CEO, I share my story of overcoming immense personal and professional battles. From facing a life-threatening illness to navigating toxic leadership as a forensic scientist and Crime Scene Investigator, I've encountered some dark moments. But it's also these experiences that drove me to push past barriers and fight for science and integrity.
"Blending dark humor, true crime, forensic know-how, and leadership lessons, CSI to CEO is a candid memoir about the power of resilience, curiosity, and leadership. My hope is that this story empowers readers to find strength in adversity and unlock their own leadership potential for the greater good."
Throughout his varied careers, Stephen has studied everything from mosquitoes and disease biology to bloodstain patterns, bullet trajectories, and digging up clandestine graves.
Today—through innovative, collaborative communication and technology solutions—he works to foster better leadership in the forensics industry and to support and improve the lives of people diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).
With six years as a published research scientist and seventeen years working in forensics, Stephen has experienced and observed a wide variety of leadership styles—coercive to collaborative—noting their effects on himself, his colleagues, and organizational integrity. After retiring from forensics, Stephen went on to earn his Executive MBA with the express goal of helping his clients develop effective leadership skills and strategies.
Stephen has seventeen years of forensic experience, including Forensic Biology, Crime Scene Investigation and Reconstruction, and Firearms Analysis. He has testified as a qualified expert witness in courts in Arizona and California and in front of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. As an active member since 2007, he has served as the Regional Director South and Lead Webmaster for the California Association of Criminalists. In these roles, he increased public visibility by transforming the website and guiding the leadership through the transition to online training during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before his career in forensics, Stephen worked for six years as a published research scientist. Under Dr. Michael Wells at the University of Arizona, he studied protease regulation in the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti. He also completed an internship at the National Institutes of Health/NIDDK, studying neutral lipid trafficking in Niemann-Pick disease type C under Dr. E. Joan Blanchette-Mackie.
Stephen holds an Executive MBA with Honors from Quantic School of Business and Technology and a Bachelor of Science with Honors, magna cum laude, in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Arizona. Stephen is Phi Beta Kappa and a Society for Human Resource Management Certified Professional (SHRM-CP). In addition, Stephen is a graduate of the 2023 FBI San Diego Citizens Academy.
Stephen has intermediate fluency in French, Mandarin Chinese, and American Sign Language (ASL).
In his free time, Stephen enjoys reading and writing, web development, and electronic music composition and production.
Not always. I became interested in science at the end of high school and worked in a research lab during college. After graduation and a considerable amount of deliberation, I realized that I had an interest in combining science with public service and criminal justice. Pursuing that interest led me to a position with the California Department of Justice’s Jan Bashinski Laboratory in the Bay Area. At that lab, I trained as a DNA Analyst and worked in the Databank Unit, which handled and submitted DNA profiles to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).
I had a great desire to perform casework in Forensic Biology, so that brought me back to Arizona, where I worked as a casework DNA analyst with the Arizona Department of Public Safety, first in Phoenix, then in Tucson. During my tenure there, I also worked as a contract assessor with the National Forensic Science Technology Center. With them, I worked as part of an audit team, performing audits of DNA laboratories around the United States. With my work as an auditor, I also helped with teaching a few courses in Forensic Biology topics at several labs.
Back in college, my friends and I used to come to San Diego every Spring Break, and we even took an impromptu trip out here one weekend to see Lifehouse in concert at the House of Blues downtown. That was a wild trip, which included driving late at night down the 8 during a tumbleweed storm and staying at a motel where the shower floors were painted black. So, I have always had the pull to live in California, and I accepted a position with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department in 2012. I first worked in the Forensic Biology Unit, and I had the fortunate opportunity to branch out and become a part of the Crime Scene Investigations Unit. With this team, I responded to numerous crime scenes to assist with death investigations. I performed trajectory analysis, bloodstain pattern analysis, and shooting and crime scene reconstruction. In 2015, I transferred to the Firearms Analysis Unit, where I performed analysis on firearms-related evidence and contributed to the ATF’s National Integrated Ballistic Information Network with their Integrated Ballistics Identification System (IBIS/NIBIN).
One thread in the forensics industry that I kept seeing pop up was a lack of quality leadership and management training for forensic professionals in the United States. I have personally experienced poor leadership in all the labs I worked at, and I heard stories of poor leadership decisions and their effects all the time.
These stories crop up in the news from time to time as well. So, to help make a difference and to help leaders and aspiring leaders in forensics do the best job that they can for the public, whom we serve, I enrolled in an MBA degree program with Quantic and selected a few specializations that focused on leadership, management, and strategy.
During my studies, I founded the Forensic Leaders Training Center on the principle of improving the state of leadership in forensics with engaging and effective courses, resources, and community.
It has not been a smooth or straight path; I don’t believe anything worth fighting for will be a smooth road. For me, a lot of the challenges have been self-doubt, societal pressures, and wondering if I have made the right choices in life.
However, the hardest battles that I had to overcome and must overcome every day are the health issues that I am experiencing. Going through so much loss in such a short period of time has really shifted my perspective on life, and it has made me realize that I need to fight for what I value. Before these challenges, I had essentially hollowed myself out, accepting values that other people found important to them as my own. I learned the hard way that doing so is self-defeating and erodes on you as a person, especially if those values directly conflict with your own. It was a hard lesson, but I am so grateful I went through it; I am who I am today because of those lessons.
A few of these made it into the book, so I'll leave readers to find out about those.
Some others that didn't make it in include a flooded house, where the perpetrators broke open the water hose on the washer before leaving the scene. To add onto that, when we responded, San Diego was experiencing a heavy rain and hail storm. We actually had to take a break during the initial briefing because it was hailing so hard!
That investigation was a very wet and cold night.
I've met a lot of animals at scenes. We've encountered many dogs, some cats, birds, and horses. There was even a teacup pig at one investigation. It was really cute.
The ones that always hit me the hardest, though, are the infants and toddlers. I just can't believe the evil.
Like business, leadership, and courtroom testimony, a lot of it was trial by fire!
I had no idea how to write a book, though I've always been a reader and a writer. Throughout my life, I've documented important events and situations, either through journaling or saving messages. I never imagined that I would use the writing I've kept throughout my life to write a book. It just happened.
In a way, it made writing CSI to CEO pretty easy—I had the main content, I just had to fill in some gaps and add in a bit of creativity and imagery to make it interesting.
Eve, my editor, has been invaluable help on the technical aspects of the writing and publishing industry standards. I don't think this book would exist without her help.
I'm not sure yet. CSI to CEO took a lot of energy, so I'm going to continue promoting and marketing this one for a while.
But—I'm not completely shutting the door on another one sometime down the line!
I'm not really a fiction writer, so I don't think I'm going to try venturing into that realm.