How Sam Eckholm Turned Military Secrets into a Storytelling Empire

Picture a former Air Force officer, still young enough to remember the sting of Academy, experiencing some of the most extreme maneuvers possible in a fighter jet. Whatever occurs, whether good or bad, the camera keeps rolling. In a few short months, he might sleep inside a nuclear submarine under Arctic ice or stand on the open ramp of a Royal Air Force transport as it threads the Mach Loop. This is Sam Eckholm. His job is to bridge the gap between the public and technology that civilians would never experience through creative filmmaking.

Sam Eckholm did not set out to build a company. He set out to fix a frustration. As an eighteen-year-old staring at the Air Force Academy application, he searched for honest footage of what the life actually looked like and found almost nothing. So after graduating in 2018, commissioning as a public-affairs officer, and spending two relentless years documenting the F-22 Raptor Demonstration Team, and growing its audience from 10,000 to 250,000 in the process, he made a decision. In 2023 he left active duty, moved to San Francisco, and turned that old frustration into SE Media.

The company is lean by design. A handful of trained filmmakers embed with units, and film on flight lines, inside hangars, aboard ships, and in facilities most journalists never see. Sam Eckholm is the host, who interviews experts and experiences the technology for viewers to see. The flagship series, Access Granted, has delivered more than three dozen episodes, as of 2026, hundreds of millions of views, and partnerships that include the Air Force, Space Force, NATO, the Secret Service, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and RTX. In 2026 the work earned Eckholm a Forbes 30 Under 30 nod and representation from CAA. The numbers are impressive, but the method is rarer, as he refuses to make himself the hero. He is the guide who gets airsick so the audience can finally appreciate what the professionals endure without drama.

That honesty is the entrepreneurial heart of the project. In an attention economy addicted to personality, Eckholm built a business on institutional trust. Every frame still passes through multiple security reviews. Some videos sit for months, however the payoff is access that traditional agencies, with their large crews and slower processes, cannot match. SE Media turns complex missions into stories that feel alive and impressive, and present the facts in an unbiased way. The result is content that recruiters use, that congressional staffers watch, and that teenagers cite when they decide to apply.

Why does any of this matter beyond the metrics? Because the civil-military gap is huge, as about 6% of Americans have served. Most citizens support the military in theory while knowing almost no one in it. When an institution becomes abstract, it becomes easy to romanticize, vilify, or ignore. Eckholm’s work collapses that abstraction by placing the viewer beside people doing extraordinary work.

A few lessons travel beyond defense content. First, the best markets or audiences form around unmet needs rather than viral trends. Eckholm started by making the videos he once needed; the market followed. Second, specialized knowledge paired with small production crews creates an advantage that generalist agencies struggle to cope with. Third, honesty wins in the long run. Viewers are more likely to appreciate both the professionals Eckholm works with and Eckholm himself when they see him struggle physically or mentally rather than presenting himself as flawless. This kind of quality and authenticity brings both repeat viewers, and more value.

Sam Eckholm did not invent military storytelling. He simply refused to accept that one of the most consequential institutions in American life should remain invisible to the people it serves. The result is a media company that creates impactful films that larger companies would struggle to create. Access, once granted, turns out to be more powerful.