The man who's been in charge of the Albany FBI field office is retiring this month. Our Steve Ference spoke with Special Agent in Charge John Pikus about the big cases resulting from the FBI's work. That includes the so-called Albany Terrorism Trial, and we got his take on the threats still facing this country, in the first of two stories sharing Pikus' perspective.

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ALBANY, N.Y. -- "I'm very proud of the 20 years I've been in the FBI and the people I've served with," said FBI Albany Special Agent in Charge John Pikus. It's the first day of the rest of his life as he prepares to retire.

Did Pikus ever see himself heading an FBI Field Office?

"No, not at all," he said.

At 55, he'd be forced to retire by 57 anyway - FBI rules. And it's an FBI that changed suddenly while he worked in D.C.

"I was down in FBI headquarters," described Pikus. "I remember one of my employees coming in saying they hit the Pentagon. Looked out the window and saw smoke emanating out over the Potomac area. At headquarters, I remember being told there's a fourth aircraft, you have to evacuate the floor of an FBI building."

Pikus - who said a 1960s FBI movie inspired him as a kid to consider the FBI - later led a team investigating the so-called lead hijacker, Mohammed Atta. Since then, he moved to Albany with an office of 50 to 100 agents, 180 personnel who cover 32 counties in New York and 14 in Vermont. Stopping terrorism has been the main focus.

"Right now there are agent and personnel out there conducting surveillance on individuals that are potentially in Northern New York in terrorism. We also have individuals that we're looking at for spy versus spy, our counter intelligence side of the house out there," said Pikus.

And even though some have criticized the FBI's case against Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain - the two Albany men convicted in 2006 in an FBI terrorism sting - he said he's still confident in the case.

Pikus said, "We had to do whatever we can to identify if this individual was a threat to the United States. One of our techniques is a sting operation - giving the individual ample opportunity to withdraw, to make the right move, make the right phone call. In this case one of the two defendants had one of the agent's card in his pocket and could have very easily have made a phone call and did not do that."

And there's the question of the informant known as "Malik." He testified in this case and in a similar case in Newburgh after recording the defendants. But the judges in both cases had to remind him to tell the truth - repeatedly.

We asked, "When you're dealing with someone who talks one way and then talks another, does that give you pause, or not?"

"Well, it does," Pikus responded. "In the sense that we always verify question, understand who we're dealing with. When you're working with criminal matters, generally you're not working with choir boys."

His biggest concern now - potential terrorists becoming indoctrinated, not over the course of years, but months.

Pikus said, "What my fear is, and our concern is that we can have trip-wires out and our contacts out there, but there are individuals being radicalized out there in their own home without their families knowing about it, their friends knowing about it, their schools knowing about it, and they get to that level where they espouse very radical very violent beliefs. My fear is we don't pick that up sometimes until the very end. That is my chief concern that keeps me up at night."

Friday we'll share part two of the interview with Special Agent in Charge John Pikus. He'll give his thoughts on the Joe Bruno corruption case, as well as the investigation into this area's violent gangs. We will continue to share his story, his thoughts, and what's next for him, ahead of his retirement.

Watch the full interview with Special Agent in Charge John Pikus:

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