December 2, 2025 • 28 mins
Mr. Steckel joined AMERICAN SYSTEMS in June 2018 as VP, Business Development, and has been instrumental in aligning the company’s business development and delivery of strategic offerings with customer needs. In April 2022, Mr. Steckel was promoted to VP, Corporate Development, adding oversight of the company’s legislative affairs and merger and acquisition initiatives to his business development responsibilities. In September 2023, Mr. Steckel was named President and CEO of AMERICAN SYSTEMS.Prior to joining AMERICAN SYSTEMS, Mr. Steckel held senior business development positions for several government contracting firms, including Vencore, Raytheon, and BAE Systems. Mr. Steckel served in the U.S. Navy as aNaval Flight Officer and is currently a Blue and Gold Officer for the U.S. Naval Academy Admissions Office. In addition to his role as AMERICAN SYSTEMS’ President and CEO, Mr. Steckel is Vice Chairman of the company’s Board of Directors. Additionally, Mr. Steckel serves on the boards of the Professional Services Council and the Northern Virginia Technology Council. He is active with the Potomac Officers Club, the ArmedForces Cycling Classic, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), as well as other industry and community organizations. In 2022, Mr. Steckel was named to the “Top Business Development Executives to Watch” list by Washington Exec, and later that year, won Washington Exec’s Pinnacle Award as Business Development Executive of the Year, Private Company. Mr. Steckel received a Bachelor of Science degree from the U.S. Naval Academy and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M and T Bank presents CEOs you should.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Know power by iHeart Media.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Let's meet John Steckel. He is the president and CEO
for American Systems, and employee owned company that provides information
technology and engineering services to federal government customers, focusing on
national priority programs for defense, intelligence, and civilian agencies. Before
we talk more about John's company, who, by the way,
is celebrating their fiftieth anniversary, I first asked him to
(00:26):
talk a little bit about himself, where he's from and
his origin story.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Actually born in Newport, Rhode Island, of all places, I
grew up in a military family. My dad was a
destroyer sailor, I guess, and I lived both on the
East Coast and West Coast.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
But when I think.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
About where I actually grew up, it was really in
the DC area, basically around Alexandria, Virginia. I lived at
the foot of the Masonic Temple for several years, and
then over by the intersection the Seminary Road in three
ninety five. And this that was a long time ago.
That was back when, oh my gosh, when seven Corners
was the place to shop. Yes, Tyson's Corner was.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
The end of the year remember those days.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I do.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Oh my god, if you didn't have a full tank
of gas and your drive out to Dugless, you.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Were going to be you know, your life would end.
That was That was the days you're bringing.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
You're bringing a lot of memories back because I'm an
all fulls church kid, and i was four blocks away
from seven Corners and that old Lord and Taylor that
was across the street, if you remember. And then if
it wanted to do a day excursion, folks, he went
to Tyson's Corner and went to Farrel's ice Cream back
in the late seventies, early eighties. And if it was
a really big weekend, you go to King's Dominion. Those
were the good old days. If you lived in Northern Virginia, those.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Were good back in the days, back in the days.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
But yeah, So I actually went to the US Naval Academy,
graduated back in nineteen eighty four. Served in Navy twenty
one years, nine years active duty, and twelve was a reservist.
I was a naval aviator of all things. I flew
maritime patrol and P three all P three aircraft.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
All over the world.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
And then I got an MBA from the University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill. So I was traveling around quite
a bit and it came back to the DMV probably
around twenty ten time framed work for the raytheon.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Well, there's so many things to talk about with you,
and of course we're going to talk about American systems
in your seven and a half plus years that you've
been with the company and now as CEO and pres
last couple but I want to thank you for your service,
and I did want to talk to you because military.
We talked to a lot of people that had really
extensive military service in this series. And the one thing
that you know, we gather from the leadership and the
culture that you learned from being in the military and
(02:29):
how you apply that to the private sector, but also
just about you know what you want to do, and
there's a lot of people, especially for you that did
a couple of decades in the service, sometimes there's not
preparation all the time and what you want to do
next because you've been in that career for so long.
With that said, when you were leaving the service, did
you have a plan about exactly what you wanted to do?
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Well, sort of I used the word sort of with
laser fingers, right. So I was fortunate that my second
tour in the service was at see you in North
Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
So I actually took that opportunity to.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Get an MBA at that point, and I wanted to
get involved with marketing, so I did some interviews and
things like that at various companies.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Wound up getting a.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Job at PepsiCo, of all places, in their leadership development program,
which happened to be more of an operations focus. But
that program went away basically two years when I was
after I joined PepsiCo, and I was fortunate enough to
find a position at Federal Express, so I joined. I
worked in the big brands for several years as a
(03:36):
brand manager, and it was there that I kind of
picked up a lot of the I guess what you
can call commercial marketing skills, the four p's, I guess
it's five p's now, and worked in that business to
business and business to consumer world for several years before
I even got into the business to government world.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Well, let's talk a little bit about joining American Systems.
As you did that seven and a half years ago. I
looked at your resume, there's a lot of business development
in there, and I know that's what you started at
American Systems when you joined, and now CEO and pres
of the company. With that said, I want to know
what attracted you to the company. You know, I see
what they saw on you. You know, your military service,
(04:16):
all the business development. You worked for some very prominent companies.
Why did you want to join them?
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Well, it's an interesting story. American Systems actually found me.
I didn't find American Systems. I was at Vencore, senior
vice president of business development at a company called Vencore,
and Vencore was going through transaction to become what ultimately
became a company called Perspective. And at that point in time,
(04:42):
be honest, Dennis, I was getting ready to retire, to
find a retirement home, ride my bicycle six seven hours
a day, just to enjoy life, right, And the senior
vice president of human resources at Vencoorp. Gave me a
holler and said, Hey, would you be interested in talking
to American system And I was like, I have no
idea who they are, but sure, so I reached out.
(05:04):
They reached out to me. We had these conversations and
I learned a lot about American Systems and one thing
that was probably the most exciting thing to me was
the culture they had. It's my first exposure to an
employee owned company, and some of the programs they set
up were very reminiscent of other programs and reinforcing.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Cultures that I was exposed through throughout my career.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
And if you think about it, I've always been on
this don Quixote quest for, you know, to relive the
cultures I experienced my first squad or and that early
days of Federal Express under Fred Smith that you know,
BA Systems working with a guy named Wolf Havenstein and
Don Donovan, who are just amazing individuals, and American Systems
(05:50):
highlighted the employee ownership, the culture of accountability, the whole
focus on personal accountability, and it was incredibly attractive.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
And I just and I basically told him, It's like,
you know.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
I'm very excited about you all, but I do want
to retire in two or three years or two years
at the time, and I can do everything I can
to support and improve people's lives through THESOP. And they said, sure,
why not, Well here we are right this this you know,
seven years later, I'm still here, John.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
They got their hooks in you man, and you know
the other thing that you did an amazing pivot because
this is really amazing. Your military service, then all the
different companies that you worked with, you're ready to retire,
enjoy life, and then you join the company business development
and now CEO Press. So my question to you is,
after that giant pivot they sold you on joining the
(06:42):
company probably got you excited and invigorated again, but did
you have any inkling did you either want to be
or know that they had tabbed you for CEO and
Press down the road?
Speaker 4 (06:51):
I had no clue, Dennis, I mean, it was the
story on that one was we had We were in
middle of COVID, right. My CEO called me up, Peter Smith,
and said, hey, need you to come in to talk
about some strategic initiatives. And I'm like, okay, can we
just talk on the phone because you know we're in COVID, right,
And no, No, I need you to come in.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I'm like, well, this is either I'm getting fired.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Or something else is going on, right, So drove in
and he let me know that he was thinking about
retiring and he wanted me to be the candidate. And
I was just floored. Totally unexpected. I bet, I bet
unplanned and unexpected.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
All right, well, let's do this.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
There's a lot to talk about when it comes to
American systems, and before we kind of find out with
our listeners that are learning all about your company about
what you do. I know, mission and vision is very important.
What are those?
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Yeah, So we actually have two mission statements here, which
sounds a little different from what you read in the books, right,
but we have an internal mission statement and an external
mission statement. The internal mission statement really focus us on
what we want to do for ourselves as an employee
owned company. And fundamentally what says is our mission is
(07:59):
to maintain employee ownership as much as as long as possible.
It's an incredibly important thing to us, is that employee
ownership and the whole benefits it brings to the folks.
And that actually enables our second mission statement, which is
very simple, to do everything we can to help our
customers be.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Successful and.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
The culture of personal accountability and everybody stepping up to
help our customers be successful, which in terns makes us
successful as a company, which in turns makes every individual
successful as an individual through the retirement accounts or through
their job progressions is really it's an unusual and really
(08:42):
just an exciting thing and it's hard to explain until
you experience it.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
And then we do that.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
We execute the whole thing by being a high end
mission essential and what we call mission essential engineering services company.
We are a government services company, there's no that's just
who we are. But we are different in many ways.
We are different in different aspects of of how we
how we provide those services. I worked, like you said,
(09:07):
I worked in a variety of companies in my career
BA Systems right theon Vencore perspective, and before that in
the commercial side FedEx, you know, PepsiCo, of several other
small companies out of New England. And and it's interesting
when I came to the business to government world, in
this defense world, it's it was so different from my
business to business and business to consumer experiences. There it
(09:29):
was all about economies of scale, right, it was all
about about marketing, it was all about targeting customers. It
was all about transactional sales and things like that. Well,
the business to government world is dramatically different. We execute,
we execute as projects and programs.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
It's it's I tell folks, doesn't matter how big you are.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
It's just to collaborate a conglomeration or a federation of
projects and programs.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
And and we talked.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
We used to talk about economies of scale up my
other companies, my former companies, but you never really get
that unless you're in many backstoring and your supply chain
and stuff like that. What makes American systems difference. We
actually work under a framework that helps that helps us
transfer knowledge between all our programs and our business office.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And it's a fluid and it's a powerful framework that
allows us to bring lessons, to learn good ones, bad ones,
you name it, to bear on any program, any issue.
And that's only to be honest.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
I don't think that works without having the culture we
have in American systems, where we're all in it to
make ourselves and our customers stronger and.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Better understanding and well said.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
And we're going to talk a little bit more about
that when I ask you about leadership and culture in
this employee owned company that's fifty years old. Now, I
know you're celebrating your anniversary and that's a really big deal.
I did want to ask you about this because I
know a lot of our listeners could be understanding what
American system is unfamiliar with the company. But there's a
lot of our listeners too in this series that are
getting introduced to companies all the time. If you were
(10:56):
to give John kind of a thirty thousand foot view
and a quick kind of synopsis about what you do,
what would you tell people?
Speaker 4 (11:01):
So we provide high, high end mission essential and engineering
services to our customers what we call national priority programs.
These are the programs that our customers have to have
to execute to make our country safe, to make our
country at work, because without them, the country doesn't work fundamentally.
(11:22):
And that's actually been very beneficient. It's really when I
first came to American Systems, I tell folks, I had
no idea what that meant, and it's you know, it's
like three marketing words, right, national priority programs.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
But over the.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Past couple of years, especially the past couple of months,
it's really become apparent to everyone in the company.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
How powerful those three words are.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
We've been through a lot of uncertainty recently in the
market space, and it's a lot of upheaval. I mean,
the traditions, the way that the industry has worked for
decades is being challenged on multiple fronts, and our focus
on those national priority programs and really allowed us to
continue providing services to our customers.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Those continue to endure throughout any change. It's really powerful
for us.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Well, let's do this so I know that there are
a lot of different programs and capabilities and things that
you offer your clients. What's really hot right now that
you're either very proud of or that your clients really
want to be a part of when it comes to
working with you.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
That's a good question, because we do a lot of
different things for a lot of different companies. Because we've
been around for fifty years. There's I think the biggest
thing that we're seeing from our customers is some of
the high technologies, which I'm sure you've heard about and
read about, whether it's artificial intelligence, machine learning a couple
(12:42):
of years ago, as model based systems engineering, but that's
still a predominant thing. All the work on the information
technology side, as far as applications in the cloud, applications
and data centers, all those types of things, And what's
exciting to us and exciting to our customers is that
we also do those things, but we don't.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Talk about it, we actually apply it.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
So we've been applying things like model based systems engineering
for decades back was it was called model based acquisition
back in the days, or model based development.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
So we do we do a lot of work with
our customers to leverage digital engineering, digital models to create
you know, digital twins of systems and all these words.
I'm sure you've heard other companies.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Talk about to actually improve the efficiencies and effectiveness of
our customers programs. We're doing that with artificial intelligence right now.
I mean, I know it's a big hot thing, and
you know, I can't tell you how many times I've
heard on the radio airways artificial intelligence, this, that and
the other. But to be honest, I sometimes wonder what
people who even know what that means or how to
(13:46):
use it. And we've been very blessed with a series
of customers are willing to take chances with us and
we brought artificial intelligence into their programs and they see
the value of it as we as do we. And
it's things like that that are very exciting to keep
us at the forefront of technologies and capabilities.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Well, let's do this.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
I don't want to make any assumption that there's another
company out there that does what you and your team do.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
John.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
But with that said, when you're either pitching yourself to
a client or somebody comes John, I want to work
with your team, sell me. How do you differentiate yourself
from the competition out there?
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Well, the biggest thing is the eesop. The employee ownership
is probably our biggest differentiator. And we have several sister
ESOPs out there that we know of and work together with,
and that ESOP culture is incredibly powerful and just the
thought of somebody working for themselves within the confines of
(14:40):
an employee owned company is incredibly alluring and incredibly powerful
because again, the benefits of what we do is reaped
by the employees that we have, and that really differentiates
us from many, many different companies.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
When it comes to challenges, and you mentioned just a
couple there as we were chatting about things right now
in your sphere when it comes to your team and
who you work with and not only third party companies
and your clients. What kind of challenges are presenting in
twenty twenty five right now to you and your people.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Well, I think there's a couple we talked a little
bit about it, right, the changes in the market space
on certain market space. One thing when I first came
to this industry, one thing I learned that it's so
different from the commercial side, not just in the operations,
not just in the life cycles of projects and programs,
all those types of things, right, but it's how.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
The mark the industry is functions.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
From a financial standpoint, we're very we have traditionally been
very stable, highly regulated, very.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
There's not a lot of guesswork in our industry.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
You know, if folks know what we do, we know
what returns are, all that type of stuff. And the
commercial side is dramatically different. Well, there's a lot of
changes going on, and there's different there's different entities involved
with our our agent are our industry. I mean, there's
commercial companies that are are becoming more and more involved
with the business to government world. And as with that,
(16:09):
there's there's new regulations, there's new acquisition rules. I mean
you just open the front page of the Washington Post
or New York Times or LA Times or whatever and
you read it at Nauja. Well, that that drives change
into our industry and it's different for us, and that
becomes something where we need to work and be able
to function in an environment of uncertainty, and that just
(16:33):
demands that we need to be flexible and agile and
and all the things you read about, but physically and
actually do it. And one things that I learned from
my Marine Corps friends back in the day was, you know,
semper gumpy, right, always flexible, and if you really need
to be flexible, you're semper gumpy and and semper pokey,
you know. So that's it's really being that type of thing.
(16:55):
And it's hard, it's hard, and it's a it's a
change for us. But I think what keeps us true,
at least on American Systems is that, you know, our
focus on our customers and the focus on the mission
that we do is incredibly important because as employee owners,
we know that we can impact all that and that's
what drives us to be to continue to be sex
(17:17):
sstiful in this kind of weird environment.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Understanding, Well, thank you for all that.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
I did want to talk about maybe a great story
that you have, and you've been there for seven and
a half years and I'm sure you've seen some incredible things.
And I like to ask this question, John, because you know,
it can apply to my business and yours and anybody
about This is why we get up every day. And
I imagine that with a client. You know, there was
either a large request or something special had to happen.
(17:41):
Your team came together and you knocked it out of
the park. Can you share maybe a story with us
that either has recently happened or maybe in your seven
and a half years at the company at American Systems
where you said, you know what, we did a great
job here today we knocked out of the park, and
this is why we get up every day. Do you
have something to share with us?
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Well, it's got to disappoint you because I have no
single story for that, because I think our employee owners
do that every single day.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, it's it's really it's.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
And I think that's the biggest success story we have
done this. I mean we've been I feel like I'm
beating a drum over and over again. But it's such
a unique company and a unique place to be that
and what gets me up in the morning is our
two thousand employee owners.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
That's what gets me up in the morning.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
And one of the things that I say, you know,
it's it that makes me want to come to work.
And any company I've been to has really been a
mission focus, right, and it's a mission you know, Federal Express,
be honest.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
The mission focus there.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Was package delivery on you know, absolutely positively on time.
That's what got me going. And that's what you know,
everything we did was around that because that package was
important to that customer and we wanted to make sure
that package was there. And BA Systems it was all
about you know, we prodect those that protect us. So
everything we did that got me up in the morning
was every decision was around or we helping to protect
(19:00):
our warfighters. One of the major drivers here as American
Systems is our employee ownership. And you know, am I
personally helping our employee owners be successful in their careers?
You know, from a professional standpoint, from you know, job
growth capabilities all that type of stuff to financial right?
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Am I feeding there?
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Am I making sure their retirement funds are going to
be there for them when they leave the company. And
the biggest success story I can say is really the
success of our ESOP and we've grown for over you know,
for the past nine years, we've had increased share values,
which is just amazing to me. And then especially as
the markets go up and down and we've had continued
(19:39):
growth as a company, and it sounds, you know, kind
of financially focused. But what that means to me is
that our employee owners are being successful and there they
are reaping the benefits of their efforts as owners of
the company. I guess that's that's kind of what really
is the biggest success story in my mind, Dennis, is
that successful our employee owners in resa right.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
And I think my takeaway, John is that it's always
great to be a part of a team that has
great culture. And it's obviously you do and I do
want to talk leadership in just a moment, but I
think we all know in this world that you know,
being on a team is important, but when you have
ownership of something, it heightens it even that much.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
More about how important it is for everybody.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
But it makes it a personal experience that I've got
a hand in the company here, and I matter. And
it's that simple acknowledgment that we all want as human beings,
that say you're actually really a part of this team.
And I imagine you get feedback like that from all
your employees all the time.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
And then you know, I think back about you want
to talk about leadership in a second, but when I
think back about, you know, all the.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Leadership courses you go through throughout the years. I've been
in multiple leadership development programs and I've been you know,
it's the whole whatever.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
And we talked about those days about hey, making your
people feel part of something, and I think the challenge was, Okay,
we can make them feel part of something, and that works, right,
But when you feel about part of something and then
realize a tangible benefit from being part of something, it
(21:06):
just reinforces that ever so much more.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
If that makes sense, it does, it does. Well, let's
do this.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
I always love to talk about ex military in the
private sector because you know, there's a lot, especially me
being a sports guy, that you know, there's so many
parallels between sports and military and leadership. It's incredible how
you can all share the same values. But here's what
I want to ask you, coming out of the military
in your two plus decades and now being see on
(21:32):
president of American Systems, what were you able to apply
as a leader of this company from the military that
did work in the private sector now and what doesn't
work from those military days as a leader that you
had to change up.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
That's a great question.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
It's actually very apropos I'm actually working to build a
leadership program here in American systems to kind of share
leadership experiences over time. So, you know, I it's a
it's a hard question to answer, Dennis, because leadership is
not one single thing, right, It's it's.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
A series of different things.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
It's and you know sometimes I situational based leadership, and
and you know, over the years you learn all about
your different power sources and sources of leadership.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
And all that all that you know, map that textbook stuff, right.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
I think some of the biggest things I've learned that
can carry forward from my military time into the into
the commercial world has been around influential. You know, leadership
in the civilian world is more influential as opposed to directional.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
That makes sense, it does. Now.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
It's not to say it's not to say the military
side doesn't have a very strong influential aspect to it.
It just relies more and directional because it's more crisis oriented.
It's more it's you're you're in you're in life and
death situations more often than not right in the civilian
world or in the business world, that doesn't doesn't necessarily
(23:00):
work or last put that way, and it could actually
have detrimental effects to your relationship with your employees, your peers,
your senior leadership above you, all that type of stuff.
So over the years, I've picked up a lot of
experiences around influence and around things like emotional intelligence in
(23:21):
a way around to position decisions and position situations in
terms of impact on others, be it the individuals or
the customer or both. Right, And I think as you
grow as a leader, especially, I think regardless of the
situation you're in, I think it's important to continue to
(23:42):
understand the influence you have on your decisions and influence
that your decisions have on your market space, whatever, and
be able to communicate that in terms of understanding of
that audience.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Does that kind of make sense?
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, it does, Yeah, absolutely does.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Well.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
I wanted to do this just for a few moments
that we have left. We're going to kind of recap
our conversation. We're going to give the website if you're hiring,
I know people listen to our series about that, and
just some final things that we need to chat about
but I didn't want to talk about philanthropic and charity work.
And I know you're very busy, but when you have
time to either be a part of it at home
with a family or at the company with of course
all the employees, what do you like to be part.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
Of Well, it's actually interesting because because corporate citizenship is
a core value of American systems and where it's very
important to us that that we're part of the communities
in which we work. And so you know, from a
perfect personal standpoint, I get involved with charitable situation organizations
that really support a mission as some kind of personal
(24:42):
tie to myself or my family, right, so that personal aspect,
So you know, we support educational programs like you know,
for example, the Naval Academy. We do support the Naval
Academy and their educational and athletic programs, by the way,
and we also support military families and sit in through
programs like the Tragedy Assistant Program for Survivors or TAPS,
(25:03):
which I think is an amazing program. But we also
support organizations that whose job in life is to is
to fight.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
And conquer cancer.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Like many families, our family has been impacted by cancer,
my wife is a cancer survivor. My wife is an
amazing individual. She's been married for over forty years. She
basically guided and ran the family throughout my military career
and continues to do such throughout my professional career. And
she she was a she's a cancer survivor, a colon
(25:35):
cancer survivor, and she's a volunteer at a local cancer center.
And then my son actually works at the Olman Foundation
up in Baltimore, Maryland, where they support children going through
cancer treatments. So personally, those are things that I tend
to get involved with. From a from a company perspective,
we actually have evolved to it. I think it's a
(25:57):
rather unique way of giving back to our communities. You
have something called a volunteer time off program where individuals
can volunteer at a food pantry or or at a
charitable event, whatever, and we give them time off back
of the company to compensate for that. And that just
that just empowers people to be active in the community
(26:17):
and support things that they care about, and that's become
a very popular program for us outstanding.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Well, let's do this. Let's get some final thoughts from you.
What we talked about we're going to give the website
and anything else you'd like to add on, John, but
the floor is yours.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
I would just thanks, Dennis. I appreciate that, no pressure
on that. Thank you so much. I just I just.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Want to, you know, express everybody that you know it's
been I've been blessed in my life. I'man blessing my family,
and I feel actually I've been blessed to be able
to work in American systems and have the opportunity to
lead American systems and really to serve my fellow employee
owners and.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Help them in their career.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
I really feel, and this is hard to explain that
experiencing it is American systems such w'ch an incredibly special
place to work and in a special place to be
a part of. And the whole concept of being able
to own your destiny is just an incredible experience, and
it's it's really more than just a great place to work, right.
So what I would say to folks is that we
(27:17):
are continuing to hire, continuing to grow, and if people
are interested in, you know, owning their destiny and being
part of a company that does incredible work for our
for our customers, come check us out in Americansystems dot com.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
It's a great place outstanding.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
You know.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
In this series, I'm very fortunate to talk to people
like you, John that love what they do for a
living and they get excited about it every day. There's
a lot of people that don't get to do that.
So I really appreciate your passion, your desire, and your
enthusiasm for the job.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
And I'm glad we could feature you on CEOs. You
should know.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Thanks, Dennis, appreciate it. And I wish we could talk
more about the Redskins and the commanders. I have to
be a big time Redskins fan back in the day.
We can talk about that later.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
And also we should add on with with John being
a Navy guy. And John, thanks again for your service.
Those new uniforms, folks, if you haven't checked out the
Navy ones for the Army Navy game, they are fired
because they feature the USS Constitution and I think they
look pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
They're gonna look really good when we sing seconds.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
There you go. There's a rivalry everybody. Thanks Jean, Thanks Dannis.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Having a great day.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Our community partner, M and T Bank supports CEOs. You
should know is part of their ongoing commitment to building
strong communities, and that starts by backing the businesses within them.
As a Bank for communities, M and T believes in
dedicating time, talent, and resources to help local businesses thrive
because when businesses succeed, our community succeed.
M and T Bank presents CEOs you should.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Know power by iHeart Media.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Let's meet John Steckel. He is the president and CEO
for American Systems, and employee owned company that provides information
technology and engineering services to federal government customers, focusing on
national priority programs for defense, intelligence, and civilian agencies. Before
we talk more about John's company, who, by the way,
is celebrating their fiftieth anniversary, I first asked him to
(00:26):
talk a little bit about himself, where he's from and
his origin story.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Actually born in Newport, Rhode Island, of all places, I
grew up in a military family. My dad was a
destroyer sailor, I guess, and I lived both on the
East Coast and West Coast.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
But when I think.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
About where I actually grew up, it was really in
the DC area, basically around Alexandria, Virginia. I lived at
the foot of the Masonic Temple for several years, and
then over by the intersection the Seminary Road in three
ninety five. And this that was a long time ago.
That was back when, oh my gosh, when seven Corners
was the place to shop. Yes, Tyson's Corner was.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
The end of the year remember those days.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I do.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Oh my god, if you didn't have a full tank
of gas and your drive out to Dugless, you.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Were going to be you know, your life would end.
That was That was the days you're bringing.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
You're bringing a lot of memories back because I'm an
all fulls church kid, and i was four blocks away
from seven Corners and that old Lord and Taylor that
was across the street, if you remember. And then if
it wanted to do a day excursion, folks, he went
to Tyson's Corner and went to Farrel's ice Cream back
in the late seventies, early eighties. And if it was
a really big weekend, you go to King's Dominion. Those
were the good old days. If you lived in Northern Virginia, those.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Were good back in the days, back in the days.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
But yeah, So I actually went to the US Naval Academy,
graduated back in nineteen eighty four. Served in Navy twenty
one years, nine years active duty, and twelve was a reservist.
I was a naval aviator of all things. I flew
maritime patrol and P three all P three aircraft.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
All over the world.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
And then I got an MBA from the University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill. So I was traveling around quite
a bit and it came back to the DMV probably
around twenty ten time framed work for the raytheon.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Well, there's so many things to talk about with you,
and of course we're going to talk about American systems
in your seven and a half plus years that you've
been with the company and now as CEO and pres
last couple but I want to thank you for your service,
and I did want to talk to you because military.
We talked to a lot of people that had really
extensive military service in this series. And the one thing
that you know, we gather from the leadership and the
culture that you learned from being in the military and
(02:29):
how you apply that to the private sector, but also
just about you know what you want to do, and
there's a lot of people, especially for you that did
a couple of decades in the service, sometimes there's not
preparation all the time and what you want to do
next because you've been in that career for so long.
With that said, when you were leaving the service, did
you have a plan about exactly what you wanted to do?
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Well, sort of I used the word sort of with
laser fingers, right. So I was fortunate that my second
tour in the service was at see you in North
Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
So I actually took that opportunity to.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Get an MBA at that point, and I wanted to
get involved with marketing, so I did some interviews and
things like that at various companies.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Wound up getting a.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Job at PepsiCo, of all places, in their leadership development program,
which happened to be more of an operations focus. But
that program went away basically two years when I was
after I joined PepsiCo, and I was fortunate enough to
find a position at Federal Express, so I joined. I
worked in the big brands for several years as a
(03:36):
brand manager, and it was there that I kind of
picked up a lot of the I guess what you
can call commercial marketing skills, the four p's, I guess
it's five p's now, and worked in that business to
business and business to consumer world for several years before
I even got into the business to government world.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Well, let's talk a little bit about joining American Systems.
As you did that seven and a half years ago. I
looked at your resume, there's a lot of business development
in there, and I know that's what you started at
American Systems when you joined, and now CEO and pres
of the company. With that said, I want to know
what attracted you to the company. You know, I see
what they saw on you. You know, your military service,
(04:16):
all the business development. You worked for some very prominent companies.
Why did you want to join them?
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Well, it's an interesting story. American Systems actually found me.
I didn't find American Systems. I was at Vencore, senior
vice president of business development at a company called Vencore,
and Vencore was going through transaction to become what ultimately
became a company called Perspective. And at that point in time,
(04:42):
be honest, Dennis, I was getting ready to retire, to
find a retirement home, ride my bicycle six seven hours
a day, just to enjoy life, right, And the senior
vice president of human resources at Vencoorp. Gave me a
holler and said, Hey, would you be interested in talking
to American system And I was like, I have no
idea who they are, but sure, so I reached out.
(05:04):
They reached out to me. We had these conversations and
I learned a lot about American Systems and one thing
that was probably the most exciting thing to me was
the culture they had. It's my first exposure to an
employee owned company, and some of the programs they set
up were very reminiscent of other programs and reinforcing.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Cultures that I was exposed through throughout my career.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
And if you think about it, I've always been on
this don Quixote quest for, you know, to relive the
cultures I experienced my first squad or and that early
days of Federal Express under Fred Smith that you know,
BA Systems working with a guy named Wolf Havenstein and
Don Donovan, who are just amazing individuals, and American Systems
(05:50):
highlighted the employee ownership, the culture of accountability, the whole
focus on personal accountability, and it was incredibly attractive.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
And I just and I basically told him, It's like,
you know.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
I'm very excited about you all, but I do want
to retire in two or three years or two years
at the time, and I can do everything I can
to support and improve people's lives through THESOP. And they said, sure,
why not, Well here we are right this this you know,
seven years later, I'm still here, John.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
They got their hooks in you man, and you know
the other thing that you did an amazing pivot because
this is really amazing. Your military service, then all the
different companies that you worked with, you're ready to retire,
enjoy life, and then you join the company business development
and now CEO Press. So my question to you is,
after that giant pivot they sold you on joining the
(06:42):
company probably got you excited and invigorated again, but did
you have any inkling did you either want to be
or know that they had tabbed you for CEO and
Press down the road?
Speaker 4 (06:51):
I had no clue, Dennis, I mean, it was the
story on that one was we had We were in
middle of COVID, right. My CEO called me up, Peter Smith,
and said, hey, need you to come in to talk
about some strategic initiatives. And I'm like, okay, can we
just talk on the phone because you know we're in COVID, right,
And no, No, I need you to come in.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I'm like, well, this is either I'm getting fired.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Or something else is going on, right, So drove in
and he let me know that he was thinking about
retiring and he wanted me to be the candidate. And
I was just floored. Totally unexpected. I bet, I bet
unplanned and unexpected.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
All right, well, let's do this.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
There's a lot to talk about when it comes to
American systems, and before we kind of find out with
our listeners that are learning all about your company about
what you do. I know, mission and vision is very important.
What are those?
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Yeah, So we actually have two mission statements here, which
sounds a little different from what you read in the books, right,
but we have an internal mission statement and an external
mission statement. The internal mission statement really focus us on
what we want to do for ourselves as an employee
owned company. And fundamentally what says is our mission is
(07:59):
to maintain employee ownership as much as as long as possible.
It's an incredibly important thing to us, is that employee
ownership and the whole benefits it brings to the folks.
And that actually enables our second mission statement, which is
very simple, to do everything we can to help our
customers be.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Successful and.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
The culture of personal accountability and everybody stepping up to
help our customers be successful, which in terns makes us
successful as a company, which in turns makes every individual
successful as an individual through the retirement accounts or through
their job progressions is really it's an unusual and really
(08:42):
just an exciting thing and it's hard to explain until
you experience it.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
And then we do that.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
We execute the whole thing by being a high end
mission essential and what we call mission essential engineering services company.
We are a government services company, there's no that's just
who we are. But we are different in many ways.
We are different in different aspects of of how we
how we provide those services. I worked, like you said,
(09:07):
I worked in a variety of companies in my career
BA Systems right theon Vencore perspective, and before that in
the commercial side FedEx, you know, PepsiCo, of several other
small companies out of New England. And and it's interesting
when I came to the business to government world, in
this defense world, it's it was so different from my
business to business and business to consumer experiences. There it
(09:29):
was all about economies of scale, right, it was all
about about marketing, it was all about targeting customers. It
was all about transactional sales and things like that. Well,
the business to government world is dramatically different. We execute,
we execute as projects and programs.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
It's it's I tell folks, doesn't matter how big you are.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
It's just to collaborate a conglomeration or a federation of
projects and programs.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
And and we talked.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
We used to talk about economies of scale up my
other companies, my former companies, but you never really get
that unless you're in many backstoring and your supply chain
and stuff like that. What makes American systems difference. We
actually work under a framework that helps that helps us
transfer knowledge between all our programs and our business office.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And it's a fluid and it's a powerful framework that
allows us to bring lessons, to learn good ones, bad ones,
you name it, to bear on any program, any issue.
And that's only to be honest.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
I don't think that works without having the culture we
have in American systems, where we're all in it to
make ourselves and our customers stronger and.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Better understanding and well said.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
And we're going to talk a little bit more about
that when I ask you about leadership and culture in
this employee owned company that's fifty years old. Now, I
know you're celebrating your anniversary and that's a really big deal.
I did want to ask you about this because I
know a lot of our listeners could be understanding what
American system is unfamiliar with the company. But there's a
lot of our listeners too in this series that are
getting introduced to companies all the time. If you were
(10:56):
to give John kind of a thirty thousand foot view
and a quick kind of synopsis about what you do,
what would you tell people?
Speaker 4 (11:01):
So we provide high, high end mission essential and engineering
services to our customers what we call national priority programs.
These are the programs that our customers have to have
to execute to make our country safe, to make our
country at work, because without them, the country doesn't work fundamentally.
(11:22):
And that's actually been very beneficient. It's really when I
first came to American Systems, I tell folks, I had
no idea what that meant, and it's you know, it's
like three marketing words, right, national priority programs.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
But over the.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Past couple of years, especially the past couple of months,
it's really become apparent to everyone in the company.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
How powerful those three words are.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
We've been through a lot of uncertainty recently in the
market space, and it's a lot of upheaval. I mean,
the traditions, the way that the industry has worked for
decades is being challenged on multiple fronts, and our focus
on those national priority programs and really allowed us to
continue providing services to our customers.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Those continue to endure throughout any change. It's really powerful
for us.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Well, let's do this so I know that there are
a lot of different programs and capabilities and things that
you offer your clients. What's really hot right now that
you're either very proud of or that your clients really
want to be a part of when it comes to
working with you.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
That's a good question, because we do a lot of
different things for a lot of different companies. Because we've
been around for fifty years. There's I think the biggest
thing that we're seeing from our customers is some of
the high technologies, which I'm sure you've heard about and
read about, whether it's artificial intelligence, machine learning a couple
(12:42):
of years ago, as model based systems engineering, but that's
still a predominant thing. All the work on the information
technology side, as far as applications in the cloud, applications
and data centers, all those types of things, And what's
exciting to us and exciting to our customers is that
we also do those things, but we don't.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Talk about it, we actually apply it.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
So we've been applying things like model based systems engineering
for decades back was it was called model based acquisition
back in the days, or model based development.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
So we do we do a lot of work with
our customers to leverage digital engineering, digital models to create
you know, digital twins of systems and all these words.
I'm sure you've heard other companies.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Talk about to actually improve the efficiencies and effectiveness of
our customers programs. We're doing that with artificial intelligence right now.
I mean, I know it's a big hot thing, and
you know, I can't tell you how many times I've
heard on the radio airways artificial intelligence, this, that and
the other. But to be honest, I sometimes wonder what
people who even know what that means or how to
(13:46):
use it. And we've been very blessed with a series
of customers are willing to take chances with us and
we brought artificial intelligence into their programs and they see
the value of it as we as do we. And
it's things like that that are very exciting to keep
us at the forefront of technologies and capabilities.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Well, let's do this.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
I don't want to make any assumption that there's another
company out there that does what you and your team do.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
John.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
But with that said, when you're either pitching yourself to
a client or somebody comes John, I want to work
with your team, sell me. How do you differentiate yourself
from the competition out there?
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Well, the biggest thing is the eesop. The employee ownership
is probably our biggest differentiator. And we have several sister
ESOPs out there that we know of and work together with,
and that ESOP culture is incredibly powerful and just the
thought of somebody working for themselves within the confines of
(14:40):
an employee owned company is incredibly alluring and incredibly powerful
because again, the benefits of what we do is reaped
by the employees that we have, and that really differentiates
us from many, many different companies.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
When it comes to challenges, and you mentioned just a
couple there as we were chatting about things right now
in your sphere when it comes to your team and
who you work with and not only third party companies
and your clients. What kind of challenges are presenting in
twenty twenty five right now to you and your people.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Well, I think there's a couple we talked a little
bit about it, right, the changes in the market space
on certain market space. One thing when I first came
to this industry, one thing I learned that it's so
different from the commercial side, not just in the operations,
not just in the life cycles of projects and programs,
all those types of things, right, but it's how.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
The mark the industry is functions.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
From a financial standpoint, we're very we have traditionally been
very stable, highly regulated, very.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
There's not a lot of guesswork in our industry.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
You know, if folks know what we do, we know
what returns are, all that type of stuff. And the
commercial side is dramatically different. Well, there's a lot of
changes going on, and there's different there's different entities involved
with our our agent are our industry. I mean, there's
commercial companies that are are becoming more and more involved
with the business to government world. And as with that,
(16:09):
there's there's new regulations, there's new acquisition rules. I mean
you just open the front page of the Washington Post
or New York Times or LA Times or whatever and
you read it at Nauja. Well, that that drives change
into our industry and it's different for us, and that
becomes something where we need to work and be able
to function in an environment of uncertainty, and that just
(16:33):
demands that we need to be flexible and agile and
and all the things you read about, but physically and
actually do it. And one things that I learned from
my Marine Corps friends back in the day was, you know,
semper gumpy, right, always flexible, and if you really need
to be flexible, you're semper gumpy and and semper pokey,
you know. So that's it's really being that type of thing.
(16:55):
And it's hard, it's hard, and it's a it's a
change for us. But I think what keeps us true,
at least on American Systems is that, you know, our
focus on our customers and the focus on the mission
that we do is incredibly important because as employee owners,
we know that we can impact all that and that's
what drives us to be to continue to be sex
(17:17):
sstiful in this kind of weird environment.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Understanding, Well, thank you for all that.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
I did want to talk about maybe a great story
that you have, and you've been there for seven and
a half years and I'm sure you've seen some incredible things.
And I like to ask this question, John, because you know,
it can apply to my business and yours and anybody
about This is why we get up every day. And
I imagine that with a client. You know, there was
either a large request or something special had to happen.
(17:41):
Your team came together and you knocked it out of
the park. Can you share maybe a story with us
that either has recently happened or maybe in your seven
and a half years at the company at American Systems
where you said, you know what, we did a great
job here today we knocked out of the park, and
this is why we get up every day. Do you
have something to share with us?
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Well, it's got to disappoint you because I have no
single story for that, because I think our employee owners
do that every single day.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, it's it's really it's.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
And I think that's the biggest success story we have
done this. I mean we've been I feel like I'm
beating a drum over and over again. But it's such
a unique company and a unique place to be that
and what gets me up in the morning is our
two thousand employee owners.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
That's what gets me up in the morning.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
And one of the things that I say, you know,
it's it that makes me want to come to work.
And any company I've been to has really been a
mission focus, right, and it's a mission you know, Federal Express,
be honest.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
The mission focus there.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Was package delivery on you know, absolutely positively on time.
That's what got me going. And that's what you know,
everything we did was around that because that package was
important to that customer and we wanted to make sure
that package was there. And BA Systems it was all
about you know, we prodect those that protect us. So
everything we did that got me up in the morning
was every decision was around or we helping to protect
(19:00):
our warfighters. One of the major drivers here as American
Systems is our employee ownership. And you know, am I
personally helping our employee owners be successful in their careers?
You know, from a professional standpoint, from you know, job
growth capabilities all that type of stuff to financial right?
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Am I feeding there?
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Am I making sure their retirement funds are going to
be there for them when they leave the company. And
the biggest success story I can say is really the
success of our ESOP and we've grown for over you know,
for the past nine years, we've had increased share values,
which is just amazing to me. And then especially as
the markets go up and down and we've had continued
(19:39):
growth as a company, and it sounds, you know, kind
of financially focused. But what that means to me is
that our employee owners are being successful and there they
are reaping the benefits of their efforts as owners of
the company. I guess that's that's kind of what really
is the biggest success story in my mind, Dennis, is
that successful our employee owners in resa right.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
And I think my takeaway, John is that it's always
great to be a part of a team that has
great culture. And it's obviously you do and I do
want to talk leadership in just a moment, but I
think we all know in this world that you know,
being on a team is important, but when you have
ownership of something, it heightens it even that much.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
More about how important it is for everybody.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
But it makes it a personal experience that I've got
a hand in the company here, and I matter. And
it's that simple acknowledgment that we all want as human beings,
that say you're actually really a part of this team.
And I imagine you get feedback like that from all
your employees all the time.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
And then you know, I think back about you want
to talk about leadership in a second, but when I
think back about, you know, all the.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Leadership courses you go through throughout the years. I've been
in multiple leadership development programs and I've been you know,
it's the whole whatever.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
And we talked about those days about hey, making your
people feel part of something, and I think the challenge was, Okay,
we can make them feel part of something, and that works, right,
But when you feel about part of something and then
realize a tangible benefit from being part of something, it
(21:06):
just reinforces that ever so much more.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
If that makes sense, it does, it does. Well, let's
do this.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
I always love to talk about ex military in the
private sector because you know, there's a lot, especially me
being a sports guy, that you know, there's so many
parallels between sports and military and leadership. It's incredible how
you can all share the same values. But here's what
I want to ask you, coming out of the military
in your two plus decades and now being see on
(21:32):
president of American Systems, what were you able to apply
as a leader of this company from the military that
did work in the private sector now and what doesn't
work from those military days as a leader that you
had to change up.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
That's a great question.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
It's actually very apropos I'm actually working to build a
leadership program here in American systems to kind of share
leadership experiences over time. So, you know, I it's a
it's a hard question to answer, Dennis, because leadership is
not one single thing, right, It's it's.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
A series of different things.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
It's and you know sometimes I situational based leadership, and
and you know, over the years you learn all about
your different power sources and sources of leadership.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
And all that all that you know, map that textbook stuff, right.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
I think some of the biggest things I've learned that
can carry forward from my military time into the into
the commercial world has been around influential. You know, leadership
in the civilian world is more influential as opposed to directional.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
That makes sense, it does. Now.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
It's not to say it's not to say the military
side doesn't have a very strong influential aspect to it.
It just relies more and directional because it's more crisis oriented.
It's more it's you're you're in you're in life and
death situations more often than not right in the civilian
world or in the business world, that doesn't doesn't necessarily
(23:00):
work or last put that way, and it could actually
have detrimental effects to your relationship with your employees, your peers,
your senior leadership above you, all that type of stuff.
So over the years, I've picked up a lot of
experiences around influence and around things like emotional intelligence in
(23:21):
a way around to position decisions and position situations in
terms of impact on others, be it the individuals or
the customer or both. Right, And I think as you
grow as a leader, especially, I think regardless of the
situation you're in, I think it's important to continue to
(23:42):
understand the influence you have on your decisions and influence
that your decisions have on your market space, whatever, and
be able to communicate that in terms of understanding of
that audience.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Does that kind of make sense?
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, it does, Yeah, absolutely does.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Well.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
I wanted to do this just for a few moments
that we have left. We're going to kind of recap
our conversation. We're going to give the website if you're hiring,
I know people listen to our series about that, and
just some final things that we need to chat about
but I didn't want to talk about philanthropic and charity work.
And I know you're very busy, but when you have
time to either be a part of it at home
with a family or at the company with of course
all the employees, what do you like to be part.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
Of Well, it's actually interesting because because corporate citizenship is
a core value of American systems and where it's very
important to us that that we're part of the communities
in which we work. And so you know, from a
perfect personal standpoint, I get involved with charitable situation organizations
that really support a mission as some kind of personal
(24:42):
tie to myself or my family, right, so that personal aspect,
So you know, we support educational programs like you know,
for example, the Naval Academy. We do support the Naval
Academy and their educational and athletic programs, by the way,
and we also support military families and sit in through
programs like the Tragedy Assistant Program for Survivors or TAPS,
(25:03):
which I think is an amazing program. But we also
support organizations that whose job in life is to is
to fight.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
And conquer cancer.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Like many families, our family has been impacted by cancer,
my wife is a cancer survivor. My wife is an
amazing individual. She's been married for over forty years. She
basically guided and ran the family throughout my military career
and continues to do such throughout my professional career. And
she she was a she's a cancer survivor, a colon
(25:35):
cancer survivor, and she's a volunteer at a local cancer center.
And then my son actually works at the Olman Foundation
up in Baltimore, Maryland, where they support children going through
cancer treatments. So personally, those are things that I tend
to get involved with. From a from a company perspective,
we actually have evolved to it. I think it's a
(25:57):
rather unique way of giving back to our communities. You
have something called a volunteer time off program where individuals
can volunteer at a food pantry or or at a
charitable event, whatever, and we give them time off back
of the company to compensate for that. And that just
that just empowers people to be active in the community
(26:17):
and support things that they care about, and that's become
a very popular program for us outstanding.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Well, let's do this. Let's get some final thoughts from you.
What we talked about we're going to give the website
and anything else you'd like to add on, John, but
the floor is yours.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
I would just thanks, Dennis. I appreciate that, no pressure
on that. Thank you so much. I just I just.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Want to, you know, express everybody that you know it's
been I've been blessed in my life. I'man blessing my family,
and I feel actually I've been blessed to be able
to work in American systems and have the opportunity to
lead American systems and really to serve my fellow employee
owners and.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Help them in their career.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
I really feel, and this is hard to explain that
experiencing it is American systems such w'ch an incredibly special
place to work and in a special place to be
a part of. And the whole concept of being able
to own your destiny is just an incredible experience, and
it's it's really more than just a great place to work, right.
So what I would say to folks is that we
(27:17):
are continuing to hire, continuing to grow, and if people
are interested in, you know, owning their destiny and being
part of a company that does incredible work for our
for our customers, come check us out in Americansystems dot com.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
It's a great place outstanding.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
You know.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
In this series, I'm very fortunate to talk to people
like you, John that love what they do for a
living and they get excited about it every day. There's
a lot of people that don't get to do that.
So I really appreciate your passion, your desire, and your
enthusiasm for the job.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
And I'm glad we could feature you on CEOs. You
should know.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Thanks, Dennis, appreciate it. And I wish we could talk
more about the Redskins and the commanders. I have to
be a big time Redskins fan back in the day.
We can talk about that later.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
And also we should add on with with John being
a Navy guy. And John, thanks again for your service.
Those new uniforms, folks, if you haven't checked out the
Navy ones for the Army Navy game, they are fired
because they feature the USS Constitution and I think they
look pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
They're gonna look really good when we sing seconds.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
There you go. There's a rivalry everybody. Thanks Jean, Thanks Dannis.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Having a great day.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Our community partner, M and T Bank supports CEOs. You
should know is part of their ongoing commitment to building
strong communities, and that starts by backing the businesses within them.
As a Bank for communities, M and T believes in
dedicating time, talent, and resources to help local businesses thrive
because when businesses succeed, our community succeed.
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