September 3, 2025 • 57 mins
On today's episode of Rerouted, Nick interviews Tadeh Issakhanian. Tadeh originally planned on becoming a doctor, but ended up beginning a career in environmental work. He's spent time as an air quality specialist, a congressional staffer, a consultant at Deloitte, and a presidentially appointed senior climate advisor to the administrator of the GSA under the Biden administration. We talk about his early career, moving to DC, how he's consistently leveraged his network, and more.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome back to Rerouted. After a short break, we are back
with a new episode with guest Tadi Isakanian.
Tadi originally planned on becoming a doctor but ended up
beginning a career in environmental work.
He spent time as an air quality specialist, a congressional
staffer, a consultant at Deloitte, and a presidentially
appointed senior climate advisorto the administrator of the GSA
(00:20):
under the Biden administration. We talk about his early career,
moving to DC, how he's consistently leveraged his
network, and more. I hope you enjoy.
So Taya, thank you so much for joining me today.
It's awesome to have you. Thank you for being here.
Absolutely. I'm excited.
Thanks for having me. Yeah.
So let's start off. Could you just give us a little
(00:41):
bit of a background for college?What'd you study?
Where'd you go? All that type of stuff.
Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up in Fresno, CA.
So I went to Fresno State and you know, going into college I
wasn't really sure what I wantedto do.
And then you know, I realized, hey, as a young Armenian I got a
(01:03):
couple choices. I can be a lawyer or a doctor,
so I might as well go be a doctor.
So I was a bio and a chemistry major and it was really
interesting in undergrad, you know, I did some internships at
a local Children's Hospital and I was all in on, you know, going
(01:24):
to Med school and taking, you know, the pre Med school tests,
things like that. And it was great.
I mean it, it was a very interesting major.
I think it teaches you how to look at technical and scientific
text and understand kind of complex problems.
There's a lot of also like calculus and physics and all
(01:45):
these things that I've never been exposed to.
So that was my undergrad. And as my undergrad was coming
to an end, I kind of realized, hey, you know what, Med school's
not the thing for me. I started getting involved in
running, funny enough, like I started running the cycling club
at Fresno State. And with that came, you know,
(02:08):
hey, we need to get sponsors to pay for our travel and these
types of things. We need to organize events and
races and bring colleges from all over the country or all over
California to Fresno. And just through that, I found a
lot of success and a lot of joy.I found a lot more joy doing
(02:29):
that than figuring out physics problems.
So, you know, I, I kind of decided, hey, you know what, I
maybe need to do something else.And that's why after my
undergrad, I went into an MBA also at Fresno State.
And the idea there was like, letme open the aperture on what
I've been exposed to. And if I decide to go to Med
(02:49):
school, well, great, I have a, you know, advanced degree now I
can apply and go to Med school still.
But I think that just opened up a whole new area of opportunity
and I went down a completely different path, which is funny.
You know, you spend 4 years focused on something and then
you go do something completely different.
But again, the things that I learned and the skill sets I
(03:13):
acquired by being in a hard science major, I think even now
in business, have been very fruitful.
All right, so you've got your MBA.
What are you doing now after you're graduating with your MBA
or what did you do, not what you're doing.
You're right. The second foot right after you
graduated. Yeah.
Well, during my MBA, so I did a a weekends program.
(03:35):
So I was working at a local air pollution control district after
I graduated to college or university.
So I'm working my first job and doing the MBA at the same time.
And then, you know, that is a three-year process, you know,
between graduating, finishing MBA.
(03:58):
And in that time, I kind of realized, you know what, the
work I was doing at the Air District was very interesting,
but the ceiling was very low, right?
This is a place where people stay their entire careers, which
is awesome because there is justso much institutional knowledge.
(04:19):
But again, there wasn't a lot ofmobility.
And I kind of got involved in some other things.
I got involved in some politics.I got involved in the policy
side of what I was doing at the Air District.
So, you know, when I graduated with my MB AI actually decided,
you know, and I'm going to move to DC.
(04:40):
So I'm a fresh MBA graduate, moved, just moved to DC and I'm
a free intern on Capitol Hill working for Congressman Jim
Costa trying to figure out this next kind of path, right?
So moved off the Med school path.
It's more of a business path right now.
I'm in the environmental kind ofbusiness area and now I'm making
(05:01):
another shift into politics and I'm on the hill all.
Right. I want to take a step back real
quick. How did you air?
Air pollution feels very different to me from my view
from biology. What you're saying underground?
How'd you get to that first position?
Yeah. I mean, I think this is a, this
is a theme across my career where OK Net, my network has
(05:25):
dictated the opportunities that have come about.
So again, you know, nothing planned, but, you know, I was
cycling through cycling and classmates in college, I met a a
close friend who was working at the air district at the time and
his father-in-law, or to be father-in-law was the head of
(05:47):
the air district. So through him, I met and
through cycling a bunch of folksthat worked at the air district.
And initially they said, hey, you know, do you want to come be
a student assistant? And This is why I was still an
undergraduate. And I said, yeah, absolutely.
You know, I was a supervisor at a pizza place.
(06:08):
And, you know, student assistantat air district was, you know,
double the pay. But also, like the air district,
right, does environmental modeling, it does compliance.
It does all these things. So like, my background in the
sciences translated. So I came in as a student
assistant, worked my butt off. Then when I graduated undergrad,
(06:31):
I got an offer, Hey, do you wantto come on full time?
Came on full time initially in the grants and incentives
program. A year later, transitioned into
the permitting and environmentalcompliance side of things.
So I was doing environmental modeling, which was, you know,
again, something I had never done, but I learned on the job.
(06:54):
So that's kind of how I transitioned initially from Med
school. No, we're not going to do that
to students assisted at the areadistrict to a full time job.
And then, you know, started my MBA and now we're moving to DC
and and trying politics. All right, so now you're in DC,
you're trying politics. What's that like working as a
(07:15):
congressional staffer? What type of work were you
doing? Was it still in the vein of
environmental or was it completely different what it
look like? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a
very humbling experience. And I think something that, you
know, now that I've been in thisposition, I talked to a lot of
young professionals that go on the hill.
I try to help them understand this.
As an intern, you're there to dothe grunt work, right?
(07:39):
You're there to store mail, do alittle bit of research and just
help out in the office any way you could.
You know, I was lucky. I knew the office a little bit
through the work I was doing in the Air District and just in my,
my involvement in the community,you know, I got a little bit
more responsibility as an intern.
Got to go to some hearings and just focus on the environmental
(08:00):
side 'cause people knew I had a background there.
But really, I mean, the, you know, the 2 1/2 three months
that I was an intern, I mean, the focus was like, it doesn't
matter what task I'm given, I'm just going to knock this out of
the park and, you know, make this the most important thing
that I'm doing today. And you know, I like there was,
(08:23):
I had to go into it with no ego.Like I can't go in and be like,
hey, I already have work experience and I have an MBA.
I shouldn't be doing this, you know, free intern stuff because
I understood like, hey, this is a foot in the door.
This is how the hill works. Everyone starts off as an
intern. I have this opportunity.
There's others that wanted this that didn't get it.
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So I'm just going to do my best and see where this takes me.
And that was the intern experience.
I mean, I gave people who was the capital and you know, did
you know anything and everythingthat they asked for?
And that's kind of how I got my start in DC all.
Right. I know that DC is an incredibly
expensive city to live in, and being an unpaid intern, it
(09:08):
sounds difficult financially. How did you manage that?
Yeah. I mean, I had a little bit of
savings from, you know, having worked for a number of years in
undergrad and once I graduated. So that was my my base when I
had to kind of plan around that,which, you know, eventually like
that became an issue. So three months in, I was hired
(09:32):
as a scheduler slash press assistant, which again, great.
I got an opportunity for a full time job.
I'm not doing legislative work, I'm not using my MBA, but I'm
scheduling and setting up thingsfor the congressman.
But it's a stepping stone. And you know, it was a great
(09:54):
role. I learned a ton.
It's one of those things where the the more different
experiences you have, you take little things from them.
So even being a scheduler on theHill, you don't, I learned a
bunch of stuff that I now use in, in the role I have now in
the role I have in the Biden administration, etcetera.
(10:14):
But eventually, like we got to the end of the my first year in
DC and you know, the little bit of savings I had kind of
dwindled away. You know, now on the hill,
there's AI think 50K is the pay minimum, but before it was, you
know, that whatever they want topay you, they pay you.
So I think I made $29,000 as an annual salary.
(10:38):
So again, in DC, like, you know,I'm completely on my own
financially. It got to a point where hey, I
need to look elsewhere. No one's leaving the office.
I'm not gonna. I also didn't want to go work
for another member. Like this was my hometown
member. If I was going to be on the
hill, I wanted to work for this individual.
(11:00):
So I started looking around and that's kind of, you know, how I
ended up transitioning into my first consulting role at Booz
Allen. All right.
Can you tell us a little bit about that first consulting role
at Booz Allen? Yeah, and you know, I'll share
the story about how I even kind of got it.
You know, again, everything's about in my career has been
(11:21):
about networking. And you know, there's very
intentional networking when you go to an event or you reach out
to somebody in LinkedIn and thenthere's like the secondary
passive networking. And this is very passive.
Like I met somebody at a housemates birthday party and we
(11:41):
had a conversation. He was, you know, in the
environmental space, he was at Booz Allen.
We chatted a little bit and, youknow, I kept touch with him over
the next, you know, 7-8 months and, you know, in the November
time frame, I saw, hey, Booz Allen's hiring for an
environmental consultant. Well, who do I know?
(12:02):
Booz Allen of this individual. I reach out and it just happens
to be that it's his job that they're hiring for.
He took an offer elsewhere. So he's like, Yep, this is my
role. You know, I know what you do.
I know your background. You'd be a good fit.
Let me, you know, put in a reference.
(12:24):
No, not everything works out that easily.
He came back to me a couple hours later and said, hey, they
already have a candidate, so youknow, they'll keep an eye out
for you. A week goes by and I guess the
candidate for whatever reason, didn't work out.
Like they gave them an offer, something happened and they
said, hey, you want to come in for an interview?
(12:46):
Said sure. Came in, interviewed with a few
people, got hired, and now you know, my whole plan of moving to
DC and working on Capitol Hill has completely changed.
Now I'm joining Booz Allen Hamilton as a consultant and
that was a interesting experience.
(13:06):
You know, your first day is onboarding, the second day you
go pick up your computer, you meet your team, etcetera.
The night of my second day on the job, I get a call from my
coach and my manager, if you will, and she asked me two
things. She goes, do you own a suit?
And I said, yeah, I own a suit. She's like, great, can you wear
(13:28):
a suit and meet one of the principals at the EPA office in
the morning at 8:00 AM? Yeah, of course.
You know, anything you need. So I walk in, I meet this guy
who's my boss's boss for, I don't know, 60 seconds.
And then we walk into a meeting with the chief operating officer
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of the EPA and the chief of staff of the EPA.
And this is right at the beginning of the Trump
administration. So this is under Scott Pruitt's
EPA. And they go, hey, you know, this
is the team who Booz Allen and they essentially tell us, hey,
we need you to do research and gather everything and anything
(14:16):
that's been said about the EPA, different EPA programs, issues
with the EPA timeline like inefficiencies, etcetera from
the past 10 years. And this is like we're middle of
December, like right before the holidays.
And we want to use this information to justify what they
(14:38):
wanted to do was revamp every single EPA program.
And their whole idea was the EPAis inefficient and ineffective.
So give us congressional testimony, let us know what
industry has said, like, give usall the dirt on the EPA, which,
you know, strange first assignment.
(14:59):
Also just a strange first assignment as like, I'm an
environmental person. I worked on, you know, for a
Democratic congressman, and now a Republican administration has
asked me to do this research. But you know, hey, that's the
job. And we walk out and my principal
goes, well, hey, I'm heading outfor Christmas break.
(15:21):
Let's tag up after the new year.I'm sure you're going to do an
amazing job. And that was the extent of like
the guidance, right? It was like, Hey, they, they
asked you to go do this, Go do this.
Joe, I spent Christmas break in DC, you know, first Christmas
since moving to DCI Didn't go back home.
(15:41):
Just, I mean, going through hours and hours of testimony and
written things and this is like,yeah, I thought about the other.
I'm like, this is before ChatGPT.
It's been so much easier to go, hey, look at the transcript of
this hearing and pull out everything that was said about
the EPA. But like it was all, you know,
hand done essentially. So that was interesting.
(16:03):
I did some more EPA work and then I met somebody that was
working on electric vehicles forthe Navy within Booz Allen.
And electric vehicle work is something that I had done at the
Air District. I'd started the first charging
station incentive program in California, worked on some
(16:23):
vehicle programs, etcetera. So it was like something that I
had a passion for. And again, the weird timing
thing, like I met with him on Friday.
On Monday he let Booz Allen knowthat he got an offer from the
Navy. So he's going to become a Fed
and he's like, well, I talked tothis person, you know, on
Friday. I think he'd be a great
replacement. So they pull me in, they
(16:48):
interview me. They're like, hey, would you
want to do this? I'm like, absolutely.
And a week later, I'm sitting atthe Washington Navy Yard as the
EV expert ready to help the Navywith their fleet
electrification. And that lasts 3 months.
And then this is just kind of the how consulting works.
(17:10):
Booz Allen had a, you know, three-year contract.
I think they'd won it once or twice.
It had come up to recompete. So when I joined, they had
already submitted their recompete and they end up losing
the contract to Deloitte. So three months in, they're
like, hey, we lost the contract.This work ends in a month.
(17:32):
And I'm like, OK, so, you know, I'm new to this.
What does that even mean? Luckily, the work and this is
getting technical, but the work,there's a base contract and then
there's optional things that arerelated to the base contract
that you can add on. And the EV work was an add on.
(17:54):
And it being an add on meant Deloitte didn't win that piece
of the work. And in this case, the client was
still interested and still had funding and wanted to keep me
along. So I went to Booz Allen said,
hey, they still want to keep this.
They told me like, great, let's let's work, let's find another
contract vehicle to put this on.That slowed down a bit and I
(18:16):
kind of saw, you know, the lightat the end of the tunnel.
I was like, they're not going tobe able to find a contract.
Like there's too much else goingon for them to prioritize this.
So again, network, I reached outto a person that I had met
through one of, you know, the mentors in the, the CGP program
that brought me to DC said, hey,I know you're at Deloitte.
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I know you guys won this project.
I have this additional piece of work.
It's fully funded. It's, you know, X amount of
dollars a year. The client wants to keep me.
Can you figure out who the partner is that won this work?
I want to see if like you guys would be interested in it and
can bring me over. And you know, funny enough, like
(19:01):
he called me back, the partner called me like 20 minutes later,
Hey, I heard I heard you have work explained it to him.
He goes, OK, well, I need to do some due diligence.
He went talked with the client, I'm sure verified that like,
Yep, they want me, there's funding for this work, etcetera.
(19:21):
They pulled me in to an interview later that week and
got an offer the following week.And like, so now I've spent
about, you know, a year on the Hill, nine months to move down.
And now I'm jumping to Deloitte,making another kind of shift, if
you will, in my career. And I've only been in DC and
(19:43):
I've been in DC for less than two years.
All right, Is that I'm wonderingis the ability that you've had
to meet a lot of people and be able to move around and have
that flexibility. Do you think that has anything
to do with the fact that you were living in DC or is that
like, is it anything to do with the location or is it just
something where it's like you'rejust a you're a shining star
(20:04):
that loves to talk to people Andso that's kind of where it is.
You know what? I.
Mean no, I think I think being in DC helped Like I wouldn't
have met those individuals if I had not been in DC And I think
that's the thing with networkingis like I could go and look up
who are the environmental or transportation people at who's
(20:27):
Allen and Deloitte if I lived inCalifornia and still probably
would never have connected with the specific individuals that
opened the door on these opportunities.
The other thing too is like I, Ithink I knew what networking was
when I lived in California and Ihad reached out to some people
(20:47):
and had some conversations, but like, I really learned what
networking was when I came to DC.
That was a skill that I developed here.
So no, I mean those opportunities would not have
come up if I was still back in California or, you know,
elsewhere. OK, got it.
So where we're at in the timeline?
(21:08):
So now you're at Deloitte Fresh there, I want to and you're
there for quite a bit, but I want to talk about, do you think
that there are some certain likepros of consulting work and what
you're like learning and kind oftransferable skills to other
worlds? I've heard of people, you know,
leaving consulting to do some other stuff in the tech world.
(21:29):
What are your thoughts on that as someone who's been in the
consulting world for quite a while and really focused on
energy? Yeah, I think consulting is a
great field to get into because I think it turns you into a
Swiss Army neck because as a consultant you have to do so
many things at one time. So great, you're a subject
(21:51):
matter expert in something, but at the same time you need to,
and this is kind of a joke, likeall we do is make PowerPoints
and presentations. Well, sure, that's that's part
of it. But I think what you learn from
doing that is how to sell an idea, how to present data, how
to present work. So you become much better at
(22:13):
being client facing. At the same time, like when
you're on a project and you're leading a project, you manage.
So like I manage the financials of the project, I manage the
staffing of the project, I manage the staffing turnover, I
work with a contracts team to put together contracts.
(22:35):
You end up not working within just your Deloitte bubble, but
you're working with industry. So, you know, I've been able to
sign alliances with other tech partners and figure out that
process of how does an outside company in Deloitte come
together, get some terms and conditions drafted and then go
(22:55):
to market together to sell a combination of what that company
does best and what we do best. So you learn that.
I mean, that's the thing with consulting is you learn so many
different aspects of the job. And I think that's why it's so,
you know, consultants get pickedup and go into industry and
become very successful because they've not just done one job,
(23:18):
they've done a multitude of jobs.
So you get somebody that can come into a project and not just
understand the subject matter and get the work done, but they
can manage the financials, they can manage the team, they can
manage a client relationship, they can do business
development. So that's another piece of it,
right? We need to sell work to be able
(23:39):
to go do work. So how do you identify those
client needs? How do you approach clients?
How do you respond to a solicitation?
And then there's like this marketing piece of it as well,
right? So I need to develop a brand for
myself in this space. So we write white papers, I'm
pitching to conferences to go speak on panels.
(24:01):
Like, all of those things make you a very well-rounded
professional, and they're all transferable skills wherever
else you go after consulting. Yeah.
How do you go about, or have yougone about as well kind of
becoming that subject matter expert in what you're doing?
It's you're, you're talking about, you're in the trenches,
you're doing the work. You're, you're taking Christmas
(24:23):
breaks to learn everything abouteveryone, any, everything
anyone's ever said about the EPAover the last 10 years.
But went over the course of justbecoming that guy who eventually
becomes a presidential appointee, though, which we'll
talk about in a second. How do you just go about
becoming that guy? Yeah, I, I think there's two
(24:43):
things. Maybe 3-1 is, you know, you're
fully immersed in the client. So when I came in, you know, to
the Navy project at Deloitte, but they're looking to procure
vehicles. Well, I've never done
procurement. They're looking to put in
infrastructure. Well, I had some infrastructure
background, but like I'm not an engineer.
(25:04):
So some of it is you just learn by doing on the job.
The second part of it is, you know, I was continuously
vigilant in talking to people both inside the firm and people
outside the firm all the time about what they do, what
resources they have, you know, what webinars you're joining.
(25:27):
So like, I really made it almostlike a, a homework assignment to
continue to learn about the space I was in.
And then I think the third and, and most important thing is, you
know, Deloitte and you know, allthese firms, right?
They're massive. There's over 100,000 people.
(25:47):
There's people that are experts in all kinds of things.
I don't need to be the expert. I need to understand what the
client needs and translate that into something that we can go
deliver. So, you know, we, we went and
delivered a big kind of data transformation project for the
(26:10):
same client, right? When the Trump administration
came in, eventually they cut allthe E OS for EVs.
All of a sudden there's no need for this work while I'm still
there. And if I don't pivot, then I'm
going to lose this client in this project.
I'm going to have to go find something else.
So I knew just from listening, being in meetings and being with
(26:33):
the client all the time, like data quality was a huge issue
for them. Well, that's great, right?
I can identify that. I can pitch, you know, Hey, I
think we should come in and do atop down analysis on why your
data quality's this bad. We, you know, and this is like,
(26:53):
I'm just spitballing here with the client, but I'm like, you
know, there should be a dashboard that shows you every
data field that you track and which one's correct and which
one's incorrect. Like we should have some
analytics and tools. Like I know you want to make
decisions based off the data. You can't, let's get the data to
where it's good enough, where you can start to make decisions.
(27:15):
But you know, that work I can't do.
But I know that if I can sell the client on, yeah, I need that
work. There are people in the firm
that are experts in this space. They'll come in, I'll translate
what the client actually needs and they'll do the technical
work. And that has been something that
I've always done right. We've built these data tools, we
(27:37):
built AAI driven procurement tool, we've done utilization
analysis. The people that actually do this
stuff are not me. And and that's not my role.
I don't need to be the expert ineverything.
I need to leverage the people that are around me to come in
and solve these problems. And I play a specific role in
(27:57):
that. But I think that's the other
piece is like, you could look atmy resume and say, look, this
person implemented this technology, built this tool, did
this, did that. Well, yeah, I don't, I don't do
the coding. I don't, you know, build these
things. But like I work with people to
do that. And that's where it's not always
(28:18):
subject matter expertise, but knowing how to use the resources
that are around you, leverage the amazing people that you work
with, and come together to solvea bigger problem that you could
then you could solve on your own.
Sure. OK.
I want to come back to a point you made and I'm curious about
you're talking about making surethat you understand your users,
(28:40):
your clients needs and that way you're able to sell them more
work. I'm curious how you've gone
about developing that muscle because that's something where
actually the last guest I had onthat's a lot of her work is
related to developing entity foryou empathy, not enthalpy.
Geez. See, this is the this is the
science. You know, I'm also woof.
But anyways, user empathy and you know, thinking about every B
(29:02):
to BAI SAS startup as well developing user empathy.
So I'm curious, how have you gone about developing that
muscle? Yeah.
I mean, sometimes it's as simpleas just, you know, actually
listening to what clients talk about over and over again and,
(29:23):
you know, kind of deducing what the core issue is.
You know, if, if they're constantly talking about, well,
we can't make decisions, you know, I can't make this
decision. I don't have enough data or, you
know, hey, we procure things just based off of, you know,
(29:44):
splitting the money evenly across installations across the
US. And then you ask the question of
like, well, why do you do that? They go, well, there, there's no
other way that we could do it. Little by little you start to
tease out that like, hey, the issue is they don't trust their
own data. They may not explicitly say
(30:05):
that, but they will speak to these issues over and over.
And I think the thing too is like, you know, you have your
main client, but your main client usually has a whole team
that works with them. And then in the DoD context,
there's echelons. So there's people at the
regional level, there's people at the installation level.
(30:26):
And I always made it a point to say like, great, the
headquarters folks are my day-to-day clients, but the rest
of these folks at the lower echelons are part of this
organization. So let me go speak to them,
right? Like let me follow up on them if
they say something interesting in a call, like let me write
(30:48):
them an e-mail and ask them, youknow, exactly what they meant.
So I'm always kind of mining formore data and information on
what people are feeling because the people at the headquarters
level may not feel the same heartburn as the people actually
at the base doing the day-to-daywork.
But connecting those two things is super important.
(31:11):
And then the other thing is at the end of the day, clients,
everyone, you know, everyone's aperson.
We're all people. We all have self motivation, so,
you know, understanding not onlywhat your client needs to
accomplish in their day-to-day tasks, but like what is their
goals? Where do they want to go?
What legacy do they want to leave?
(31:33):
So you know, the client that we worked on the data stuff with,
like he really wanted to leave his mark.
This was his last role in the Navy before he retired, and I
could sense that he was a analytics based person.
So I knew that you would be motivated by the thought of,
(31:56):
hey, in the next two years whileyou're still here, if we can
completely transform the data quality and the analytics
capability of the Navy, that ends up being the legacy that
you leave before you retire. So not only understanding what
the business need was, but what the personal motivators of the
people that I work with it are, I think becomes key in kind of
(32:20):
identifying what people want to do.
Because the data piece, and thisis just an example that we keep
going to, but the data piece could have been really important
to the Navy. But if the client and the
leadership didn't care about it,I mean, I can sell them, try to
sell them on all these amazing ideas and fixes, but if they
(32:42):
weren't also personally motivated, they wouldn't pull
the trigger and you know, go after this work or hire us to
help them achieve this. So it's it's a bit of like what
is the business need and what are the motivators of the people
that are leading the business? All right.
So to kind of summarize, it's not just you're making sure that
(33:03):
you're talking to different people in the organization,
really understanding what peopleall across IT or top to bottom
need. And then just getting to know
the person who you're actually trying to sell something to and
making sure that at the end of the day, you're MIT, you're
doing what they what they want to do personally, you're helping
them get that done. Yeah.
And I think you need, you need top down, buy in, right.
(33:23):
If I were going to go in and completely change how the
organization lifted data, I couldn't go do something that
the headquarters folks liked, but the individuals at the
installations that actually dealt with the data every day
hated. There would just be a mutiny.
So I'd understand and balance kind of what they need and what
(33:44):
the headquarters folks need. So I think it's, it's always
about looking at the full picture and understanding what
how to make something work for everyone.
It's never going to work for everyone.
But as close as you can be and as much as you know, I can then
say, hey, I know you want thingsthis way, but we're doing it
another way and I can explain itand justify it.
(34:05):
And it's something that is addressed instead of like just
ignored. OK.
All right. That's great.
So you worked at Deloitte also the first time around?
For how long? About six years.
All right. About six years.
So after that time you became the presidential appointee for
(34:27):
the GSA. Can you tell us a little bit
about what you did in that organization?
Yeah. I mean, as a presidential
appointee, your role is to come in and execute on the
president's agenda. So as the senior climate advisor
at GSA, my role was to execute on the climate priorities of the
(34:48):
administration and of GSA. All right.
I'll pause real quick, could youwhat's GSA stand for?
Yeah, it's the General Services Administration.
GSA has been around for 75 years.
It's they have a really interesting background.
So GSA was the first federal agency to use e-mail.
(35:09):
You're the first agency, actually one of the first
entities in the US to build an online catalog of products that
somebody could procure. They do hundreds of billions of
dollars in procurement for the government.
And that is everything from like, you know, cafeteria
supplies and office supplies to they hold and execute tons of
(35:35):
contracts for different agencies.
On the more technical side, GSA and the Department of Defense
are the only two entities that can buy power electricity for
the federal government. They also manage, you know, over
almost half a million non tactical vehicle assets that
(35:57):
they do the leasing procurement to all the federal agencies for.
So the GSA, though, is, you know, isn't as known as, you
know, the Department of Defense or DOJ, etcetera, has a really
outsized role in how the government functions.
So that's, you know, and it was an agency that I worked with a
(36:17):
lot through the work I did at Deloitte.
So I knew them well and I, I knew the impact that the agency
can have. So when I got brought in, OK,
we're executing on the president's goals, I'm in, you
know, the last year of the administration.
So a lot of the work had alreadybeen started.
(36:40):
But my role was a couple of things.
One is GSA had about $2 billion in bipartisan infrastructure and
investment in Inflation Reduction Act money.
And that funding was to be used for building technology that
would make buildings more efficient, more cost effective.
(37:03):
So a lot of that work was working with energy service
companies to put together third party financing projects to
implement new technology. And that could be solar, that
could be new boilers, that couldbe, you know, battery storage.
It could be a whole host of things.
I mean, even just like, you know, repairs and upgrades to
(37:28):
the building and the systems themselves and kind of how that
works is, you know, the government says, hey, we want to
do this project. It's going to cost us
$2,000,000. But we don't have $2,000,000
right now to do the project. But we know over the next 25
years that this, by doing this, it'll save us $1,000,000 in
(37:51):
utility costs. Great.
So they partner with a third party, a energy service company
to say, hey, we'll pay the $1,000,000.
Now you pay the remaining amount.
And over the next 25 years, as we save this additional
$1,000,000 by implementing this,we will pay you back for what
(38:12):
you covered for this project. And obviously I'm, you know,
there's a, there's a percentage there that the energy service
company gets on top of it, etcetera.
But that helps the government implement projects that are
going to save money in the shortterm, even if they don't have
the full funding to, you know, pay for that project.
(38:34):
So part of it was that part of it was, you know, I've done EV
work for the federal government that was still a executive order
mandate. So I jumped into what the GSA
was doing on electric vehicles we worked on.
Again, GSA is the only entity other than the DoD that can buy
power. So we're working a time with
(38:56):
utilities. Right before I left, we actually
executed the largest procurementof nuclear power in the federal
government's history and that was a big power agreement for 14
different agencies. So it's not just the GSA, but
we're buying for for others. So that was part of the role.
(39:18):
And also, you know, it was supporting the administrator,
working with the federal staff on a whole host of different
initiatives. And yeah, I mean, overall, I
think it was an amazing role. I think it's really nice to come
in and have a very clear mandateof what you're supposed to do
and accomplish and then work with an, you know, an entity as
(39:42):
big as GSA, right? 20,000 employees when I was
there to be able to, you know, pull the different level levers,
work with industry, get deals done, continue to communicate
the success of what we're doing.But at the end of the day, like
everything that we did made the GS as footprint and the agencies
(40:06):
that it supported more energy efficient, it saved money and
the things we're doing were goodfor the communities that.
These, you know, federal buildings, courthouses, etcetera
we're in. So overall it was very rewarding
work and and something that I, Ihad a lot of joy doing all.
(40:26):
Right, So how does 1 become thisposition?
Do they post on indeed? They don't post on indeed.
It's, you know, there's, there'snot like a, a clear path to how
somebody becomes an appointee. You know, again, part of it is
networking, right? People in the administration
(40:47):
need to know who you are, the skill sets you have and your
interest. Part of it is a fit, like I, you
know, early in the administration interviewed for a
number of roles, similar type oflike senior climate advisor
roles for some like I just wasn't a fit.
(41:08):
You know, like I interviewed an agency, they wanted somebody
that was a like Emergency Management expert because that's
the side of climate they deal with.
Well, great. I'm not that person.
At the same time, like these roles aren't technical in a
certain way. Like I'm not there to do the
(41:29):
day-to-day work, right? There's a whole federal
workforce that's doing this workto really in the role you're,
you're also like focused on how do I collaborate with thousands,
hundreds of people across the federal government to get things
done? And, and that's what they're
looking for is somebody that cancome in and get things done.
I don't necessarily need to be the expert in buying energy or,
(41:56):
you know, putting battery storage in buildings or whatever
might be. But like, do I have the skill
sets to collaborate and move theagenda forward for me?
You know, I kept, and this is been the case, you know, across
my careers. Like if I want something in this
case, I really wanted to work for, you know, the Biden
(42:17):
administration. I kept knocking on the door,
right? I kept following up with people.
I kept finding opportunities to meet new people in the
administration, learn about whatthey do, have them connect me to
somebody else that they thought might be helpful.
And, you know, eventually, like the right opportunity, the right
timing, the right fit came up. And yeah, I mean, you get a call
(42:39):
from, you know, the White House Office of Personnel and they go,
hey, would you be interested in serving in the administration?
This is the role You go through a very similar, you know,
interview process as you would for any other job.
And, you know, there's also a good amount of vetting that
happens, right? They check social media, they
(42:59):
check your background, etcetera,which is why I always tell
people, especially younger folks, like be cognizant of what
you post and, and what you do online because not only for the
administration, but like Deloitte, any job that you need
a clearance for really any job now, like people are going to do
a background check on you and they're going to see, you know,
(43:21):
what you've posted, what you've said, etcetera.
So like all, all of those factors come into play and then
you get an opportunity to serve in an administration.
All right. Are there like pros or cons of
doing this type of of governmental work?
Were there like certain restrictions that you had or
were you, was it all, was it, was it generally pretty
positive? Super positive.
(43:45):
And I think all right, The funnything is from a consultant to in
the administration as a consultant, there's always a
wall, right? You're not, you're not the
government, you're an outside entity and you only get exposed
to what's need to know. So you don't get access to
(44:05):
everyone. You don't get into every meeting
because like you're not part of the Navy.
So you don't need to be part of every meeting in the Navy.
You don't need to know everything.
Being in an administration that you know, the curtain gets
lifted and you get access to everyone.
So, you know, I had a bi weekly call with the chief
environmental officer of the entire administration.
(44:27):
I got to chat with whoever I wanted at agencies as we were
collaborating with them and theycould share everything with me
because now I'm on the government side, I'm not an
outside entity. So I really saw value in in that
because you get a completely different perspective than the
perspective you have as a consultant coming into a
government agency. So I now see the value of why
(44:54):
people join administrations and then they leave and then they'll
come and join another administration because you
really understand who is who that are making these decisions
and truly how the government works coming out.
Yeah, there's restrictions, right?
Like you can't go and directly lobby on things that you worked
(45:16):
on before. You know, I have to be careful
and, and what I potentially do if I were to bring on GSA as a
client going forward. So there's rules, but overall
like it's the the benefits outweigh any, any cons like, you
know, a million to one. All right, that's awesome.
(45:37):
At the very beginning of our interview you made, actually,
I'm not sure if it was a joke, but you said as a young
Armenian, I had two options, being a doctor or a lawyer.
I'm curious, have there been anyways that your Armenian
background have affected your career and decisions that you
made or people who you met, anything like that?
I mean, the people I met, absolutely.
(45:58):
Like I, I came to DC through theArmy National Committee's
Capital Gateway program. You know, I wouldn't have made a
jump from California to having ajob, etcetera, to a completely
new city if I didn't know that, hey, there was this program,
there was housing, there was a community of, you know, other
(46:20):
Armenians that I can rely on. And I think community is key.
I mean, you see it on Capitol Hill, you see it everywhere,
right? There's the Congressional
Hispanic Caucus, this is the Congressional Black Caucus.
There's all these groups of folks that are, you know, of a
similar background and they're working to help each other.
(46:41):
They're working to become resources for each other.
You know, that's, that's how youand I met right through this
type of this types of programming.
So I think that's the benefit islike I came in with a set
support system and some folks that have gone through coming to
DCE, finding a job, navigating their career and they're open
(47:05):
and willing to help. And I think that's, you know, I
continue to be involved in helping other young
professionals come through because of the example that was
set for me when I arrived. So I think that's that's the
biggest piece and it's been the biggest benefit I think.
All right. I want to go back earlier as
(47:26):
well. So if you could do it over
again, would you have gotten theMBA?
No, not in the way I did. And, and this is, there's a
specific reason why I, I don't think you folks should not get
(47:46):
an MBA because they want to learn about business, right?
Like the accounting class I tookgetting my MBA.
Like I don't, I'm not an accountant.
I don't use the accounting principles anymore.
The entrepreneur class is like, they're great, right?
You learn something different, you get exposed to something
(48:06):
different. But I think what I've seen now
being in DC and being in Deloitte, etcetera, is the NBA
is really about the network you create and how you learn to
collaborate with others. And you know, the big piece of
going to these big business schools is you get exposure to
(48:27):
the network and then you get access to the network after you
get out. So if I was to do it over again,
I would go get my MBA, you know,in my late 20s versus my early
20s. And I would focus on, you know,
for me, it didn't matter where Iwent.
I, I was like, hey, I need to learn more about business as I'm
(48:49):
shifting away from science. So I'll just go to, you know,
Fresno States program, which is a great program, but like that
network would have been great ifI stayed in Fresno.
But you know, the Fresno State MBA program doesn't have a
nationwide presence as, you know, going to Harvard or Penn
or Yale or some, you know, one of those other schools would.
(49:10):
So I've seen the benefit of young consultants in their mid
to late 20s leaving Deloitte, going in and getting an MBA for
two years and coming back and leveraging the lessons learned,
the network, the experience, thetravel, etcetera.
For me, I, I think I just did ittoo soon.
(49:31):
And I mean, in my class, like I was the youngest person by
several years. At the time, I didn't see that
as, as an issue. But now I see why.
Like those individuals were muchmore mature in their career and
they could take the lessons fromthe NBA and implement them in
(49:52):
their work right away. And they can use the network
right away and they're making connections where I was still,
you know, 2223 years old when I started.
Like I'm, you know, I didn't make the most of the experience.
So nothing wrong with like I gotan MBA, great summer resume.
I learned some things, but like to get the true value of it.
(50:15):
I'd say wait a little bit. And again, like the the point in
the NBA is the network that you build and the experiences you
have while you're in the program.
And then when you leave the reach back, you have to the
network of that whole Business School.
And that's, yeah, that's the only reason I'd say like I would
(50:37):
do it a little bit differently. All right.
So if you are somebody in my position now kind of about to
enter career or if you're somebody who's like in your
position, you're kind of into career, about how would you go
about or how do you and how would you at my age go about
networking to kind of start creating these opportunities for
(50:57):
yourself? Yeah, I I think you should look
at it two ways. The first is networking should
be fun. So look at people that are in
positions that you want to be ineventually and reach out to
those folks and show genuine curiosity in how they got there,
(51:20):
what they do and meet these people.
Let them be inspirations. Let them give you advice on hey,
these are the steps I took. This is what you should
consider. And you know, we, I think maybe
even when we met in DC, we talked about this like your,
yeah, you have your core network, which are the people
(51:42):
that you interact with, work with, go to school with every
day. You have your support network,
which is mentors, individuals that can give you advice, look
at your resume, helping prep foran interview, et cetera.
And then you have your broader expanded network.
And that's where opportunities come from.
And in that expanded network, like you should really reach out
(52:03):
far and wide and talk to anyone and everyone because, you know,
even if they're tangentially related to what you want to do,
that is experience and insight that you can use at a more
tactical level. I always tell people, write down
the 10 to 20 companies that you would want to work for if you
(52:26):
got the opportunity and start with three connections at each
company. You know, start in LinkedIn
adding people, start reaching out, start having coffees, but
eventually build it up so that you have a couple of different
connections at each of these companies.
They don't all have this specifically be in like say I'm
(52:48):
I'm interested in energy. They don't all have to be energy
people, right? Let's say 75% are energy people
and the other 25% are in different parts of the
organization. But really the idea is 1 great.
You'd learn from them. You understand what they do, you
understand the culture, But you know, networking isn't always
(53:09):
about like, I'm going to go talkto this person because I want a
job now, right in my stories, like the people that helped me
in my network help me a year to two years after I met them.
But right right now, say you want to go work at Meta and you
start to build these connectionsand your first job out of
(53:30):
college isn't at Meta, it's somewhere else.
And nine months later, the perfect entry level opportunity
at Meta opens up. If you're starting to network at
that point, you're already behind the game.
But if starting now, you had started to cultivate
relationships and, you know, connect with people at Meta,
(53:53):
well, nine months, a year, nine months, whenever from now when
that opportunity opens up, like they already know you, they know
that you, you know, network withthem out of genuine curiosity.
They have followed your career. They've seen your LinkedIn post,
things like that. So when you come back and you
say, hey, you know, I know we connected six months ago when I
(54:15):
started this new job, this new opportunity open up at Meta.
Would you be willing to refer me?
Tell me more about the role? Like you're going to have so
much more success in having others help you if you've done
the groundwork way before that opportunity ever came up all.
Right. Well Ty, this has been an
(54:35):
incredible conversation. Is there any advice that you'd
like to any? Any final words of wisdom you'd
like to impart? Sure.
And this has been wonderful and I appreciate you doing this.
I'm really excited to see this continue to go forward.
Thank you. People always ask, you know,
hey, what's the one piece of advice, etcetera.
(54:56):
I always say fail fast and fail forward.
People always, I, I think often wait until whatever they want to
do is perfect and then they go do it.
And even if you wait until you think it's perfect, it's not
going to be perfect and you're going to have to rework it.
(55:19):
So my philosophy has always beenlike, if I have an idea, just
jump into it quicker, fail quicker, get the feedback I need
to fix it and continue to iterate going forward versus let
me sit on it for two months, fail the same way I'm going to
fail anyway and then start fixing it.
(55:41):
But now I'm two months behind. And you know, like some of those
examples of the Navy, like when we built them a procurement
tool. Look, I didn't know how to build
a procurement tool, but I knew that, hey, the client needs
this. Like they just got, you know,
their boss, you know, really laid into them for not having a
(56:03):
plan for why they buy things theway they buy things.
Now, I could have spent two months, you know, meeting with
different people and getting this perfect plan together.
But instead I, I was like, it's never going to be right that
we're going to have to work and iterate and build this anyway.
So I put together a pitch in twodays, went to the client and
(56:23):
said, hey, we can do this. It won't come out the same way.
But like, this is the general idea and we jumped in, we did
it, we built the tool. There was a lot of pushback.
There's a lot of things that we made assumptions on that weren't
true that we had to fix eventually.
But like if I had waited two months to go present, that the
urgency that the client had feltcoming out of that meeting where
(56:47):
they couldn't answer the questions they needed to would
have been gone. Or somebody else could have
brought them an idea, or they could have figured something
else out on their own. So move quickly, like failing,
failing at something is not a bad thing.
It gets you on the right path quicker.
So fail quick, fail forward. That's like, you know what I
(57:10):
live by. That's my my closing advice I
guess. All right.
Well, thank you again. It's been a lot of fun talking
with you today. I really appreciate all your
time. Absolutely.
Thanks so much. I hope you enjoyed the episode.
If you have any thoughts or feedback, shoot me an e-mail at
nick@reroutedpod.com. If you like the show, leave a
review. You can find links to our
(57:31):
website and socials in the description below.
I'm looking forward to seeing you next week.
Welcome back to Rerouted. After a short break, we are back
with a new episode with guest Tadi Isakanian.
Tadi originally planned on becoming a doctor but ended up
beginning a career in environmental work.
He spent time as an air quality specialist, a congressional
staffer, a consultant at Deloitte, and a presidentially
appointed senior climate advisorto the administrator of the GSA
(00:20):
under the Biden administration. We talk about his early career,
moving to DC, how he's consistently leveraged his
network, and more. I hope you enjoy.
So Taya, thank you so much for joining me today.
It's awesome to have you. Thank you for being here.
Absolutely. I'm excited.
Thanks for having me. Yeah.
So let's start off. Could you just give us a little
(00:41):
bit of a background for college?What'd you study?
Where'd you go? All that type of stuff.
Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up in Fresno, CA.
So I went to Fresno State and you know, going into college I
wasn't really sure what I wantedto do.
And then you know, I realized, hey, as a young Armenian I got a
(01:03):
couple choices. I can be a lawyer or a doctor,
so I might as well go be a doctor.
So I was a bio and a chemistry major and it was really
interesting in undergrad, you know, I did some internships at
a local Children's Hospital and I was all in on, you know, going
(01:24):
to Med school and taking, you know, the pre Med school tests,
things like that. And it was great.
I mean it, it was a very interesting major.
I think it teaches you how to look at technical and scientific
text and understand kind of complex problems.
There's a lot of also like calculus and physics and all
(01:45):
these things that I've never been exposed to.
So that was my undergrad. And as my undergrad was coming
to an end, I kind of realized, hey, you know what, Med school's
not the thing for me. I started getting involved in
running, funny enough, like I started running the cycling club
at Fresno State. And with that came, you know,
(02:08):
hey, we need to get sponsors to pay for our travel and these
types of things. We need to organize events and
races and bring colleges from all over the country or all over
California to Fresno. And just through that, I found a
lot of success and a lot of joy.I found a lot more joy doing
(02:29):
that than figuring out physics problems.
So, you know, I, I kind of decided, hey, you know what, I
maybe need to do something else.And that's why after my
undergrad, I went into an MBA also at Fresno State.
And the idea there was like, letme open the aperture on what
I've been exposed to. And if I decide to go to Med
(02:49):
school, well, great, I have a, you know, advanced degree now I
can apply and go to Med school still.
But I think that just opened up a whole new area of opportunity
and I went down a completely different path, which is funny.
You know, you spend 4 years focused on something and then
you go do something completely different.
But again, the things that I learned and the skill sets I
(03:13):
acquired by being in a hard science major, I think even now
in business, have been very fruitful.
All right, so you've got your MBA.
What are you doing now after you're graduating with your MBA
or what did you do, not what you're doing.
You're right. The second foot right after you
graduated. Yeah.
Well, during my MBA, so I did a a weekends program.
(03:35):
So I was working at a local air pollution control district after
I graduated to college or university.
So I'm working my first job and doing the MBA at the same time.
And then, you know, that is a three-year process, you know,
between graduating, finishing MBA.
(03:58):
And in that time, I kind of realized, you know what, the
work I was doing at the Air District was very interesting,
but the ceiling was very low, right?
This is a place where people stay their entire careers, which
is awesome because there is justso much institutional knowledge.
(04:19):
But again, there wasn't a lot ofmobility.
And I kind of got involved in some other things.
I got involved in some politics.I got involved in the policy
side of what I was doing at the Air District.
So, you know, when I graduated with my MB AI actually decided,
you know, and I'm going to move to DC.
(04:40):
So I'm a fresh MBA graduate, moved, just moved to DC and I'm
a free intern on Capitol Hill working for Congressman Jim
Costa trying to figure out this next kind of path, right?
So moved off the Med school path.
It's more of a business path right now.
I'm in the environmental kind ofbusiness area and now I'm making
(05:01):
another shift into politics and I'm on the hill all.
Right. I want to take a step back real
quick. How did you air?
Air pollution feels very different to me from my view
from biology. What you're saying underground?
How'd you get to that first position?
Yeah. I mean, I think this is a, this
is a theme across my career where OK Net, my network has
(05:25):
dictated the opportunities that have come about.
So again, you know, nothing planned, but, you know, I was
cycling through cycling and classmates in college, I met a a
close friend who was working at the air district at the time and
his father-in-law, or to be father-in-law was the head of
(05:47):
the air district. So through him, I met and
through cycling a bunch of folksthat worked at the air district.
And initially they said, hey, you know, do you want to come be
a student assistant? And This is why I was still an
undergraduate. And I said, yeah, absolutely.
You know, I was a supervisor at a pizza place.
(06:08):
And, you know, student assistantat air district was, you know,
double the pay. But also, like the air district,
right, does environmental modeling, it does compliance.
It does all these things. So like, my background in the
sciences translated. So I came in as a student
assistant, worked my butt off. Then when I graduated undergrad,
(06:31):
I got an offer, Hey, do you wantto come on full time?
Came on full time initially in the grants and incentives
program. A year later, transitioned into
the permitting and environmentalcompliance side of things.
So I was doing environmental modeling, which was, you know,
again, something I had never done, but I learned on the job.
(06:54):
So that's kind of how I transitioned initially from Med
school. No, we're not going to do that
to students assisted at the areadistrict to a full time job.
And then, you know, started my MBA and now we're moving to DC
and and trying politics. All right, so now you're in DC,
you're trying politics. What's that like working as a
(07:15):
congressional staffer? What type of work were you
doing? Was it still in the vein of
environmental or was it completely different what it
look like? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a
very humbling experience. And I think something that, you
know, now that I've been in thisposition, I talked to a lot of
young professionals that go on the hill.
I try to help them understand this.
As an intern, you're there to dothe grunt work, right?
(07:39):
You're there to store mail, do alittle bit of research and just
help out in the office any way you could.
You know, I was lucky. I knew the office a little bit
through the work I was doing in the Air District and just in my,
my involvement in the community,you know, I got a little bit
more responsibility as an intern.
Got to go to some hearings and just focus on the environmental
(08:00):
side 'cause people knew I had a background there.
But really, I mean, the, you know, the 2 1/2 three months
that I was an intern, I mean, the focus was like, it doesn't
matter what task I'm given, I'm just going to knock this out of
the park and, you know, make this the most important thing
that I'm doing today. And you know, I like there was,
(08:23):
I had to go into it with no ego.Like I can't go in and be like,
hey, I already have work experience and I have an MBA.
I shouldn't be doing this, you know, free intern stuff because
I understood like, hey, this is a foot in the door.
This is how the hill works. Everyone starts off as an
intern. I have this opportunity.
There's others that wanted this that didn't get it.
(08:46):
So I'm just going to do my best and see where this takes me.
And that was the intern experience.
I mean, I gave people who was the capital and you know, did
you know anything and everythingthat they asked for?
And that's kind of how I got my start in DC all.
Right. I know that DC is an incredibly
expensive city to live in, and being an unpaid intern, it
(09:08):
sounds difficult financially. How did you manage that?
Yeah. I mean, I had a little bit of
savings from, you know, having worked for a number of years in
undergrad and once I graduated. So that was my my base when I
had to kind of plan around that,which, you know, eventually like
that became an issue. So three months in, I was hired
(09:32):
as a scheduler slash press assistant, which again, great.
I got an opportunity for a full time job.
I'm not doing legislative work, I'm not using my MBA, but I'm
scheduling and setting up thingsfor the congressman.
But it's a stepping stone. And you know, it was a great
(09:54):
role. I learned a ton.
It's one of those things where the the more different
experiences you have, you take little things from them.
So even being a scheduler on theHill, you don't, I learned a
bunch of stuff that I now use in, in the role I have now in
the role I have in the Biden administration, etcetera.
(10:14):
But eventually, like we got to the end of the my first year in
DC and you know, the little bit of savings I had kind of
dwindled away. You know, now on the hill,
there's AI think 50K is the pay minimum, but before it was, you
know, that whatever they want topay you, they pay you.
So I think I made $29,000 as an annual salary.
(10:38):
So again, in DC, like, you know,I'm completely on my own
financially. It got to a point where hey, I
need to look elsewhere. No one's leaving the office.
I'm not gonna. I also didn't want to go work
for another member. Like this was my hometown
member. If I was going to be on the
hill, I wanted to work for this individual.
(11:00):
So I started looking around and that's kind of, you know, how I
ended up transitioning into my first consulting role at Booz
Allen. All right.
Can you tell us a little bit about that first consulting role
at Booz Allen? Yeah, and you know, I'll share
the story about how I even kind of got it.
You know, again, everything's about in my career has been
(11:21):
about networking. And you know, there's very
intentional networking when you go to an event or you reach out
to somebody in LinkedIn and thenthere's like the secondary
passive networking. And this is very passive.
Like I met somebody at a housemates birthday party and we
(11:41):
had a conversation. He was, you know, in the
environmental space, he was at Booz Allen.
We chatted a little bit and, youknow, I kept touch with him over
the next, you know, 7-8 months and, you know, in the November
time frame, I saw, hey, Booz Allen's hiring for an
environmental consultant. Well, who do I know?
(12:02):
Booz Allen of this individual. I reach out and it just happens
to be that it's his job that they're hiring for.
He took an offer elsewhere. So he's like, Yep, this is my
role. You know, I know what you do.
I know your background. You'd be a good fit.
Let me, you know, put in a reference.
(12:24):
No, not everything works out that easily.
He came back to me a couple hours later and said, hey, they
already have a candidate, so youknow, they'll keep an eye out
for you. A week goes by and I guess the
candidate for whatever reason, didn't work out.
Like they gave them an offer, something happened and they
said, hey, you want to come in for an interview?
(12:46):
Said sure. Came in, interviewed with a few
people, got hired, and now you know, my whole plan of moving to
DC and working on Capitol Hill has completely changed.
Now I'm joining Booz Allen Hamilton as a consultant and
that was a interesting experience.
(13:06):
You know, your first day is onboarding, the second day you
go pick up your computer, you meet your team, etcetera.
The night of my second day on the job, I get a call from my
coach and my manager, if you will, and she asked me two
things. She goes, do you own a suit?
And I said, yeah, I own a suit. She's like, great, can you wear
(13:28):
a suit and meet one of the principals at the EPA office in
the morning at 8:00 AM? Yeah, of course.
You know, anything you need. So I walk in, I meet this guy
who's my boss's boss for, I don't know, 60 seconds.
And then we walk into a meeting with the chief operating officer
(13:53):
of the EPA and the chief of staff of the EPA.
And this is right at the beginning of the Trump
administration. So this is under Scott Pruitt's
EPA. And they go, hey, you know, this
is the team who Booz Allen and they essentially tell us, hey,
we need you to do research and gather everything and anything
(14:16):
that's been said about the EPA, different EPA programs, issues
with the EPA timeline like inefficiencies, etcetera from
the past 10 years. And this is like we're middle of
December, like right before the holidays.
And we want to use this information to justify what they
(14:38):
wanted to do was revamp every single EPA program.
And their whole idea was the EPAis inefficient and ineffective.
So give us congressional testimony, let us know what
industry has said, like, give usall the dirt on the EPA, which,
you know, strange first assignment.
(14:59):
Also just a strange first assignment as like, I'm an
environmental person. I worked on, you know, for a
Democratic congressman, and now a Republican administration has
asked me to do this research. But you know, hey, that's the
job. And we walk out and my principal
goes, well, hey, I'm heading outfor Christmas break.
(15:21):
Let's tag up after the new year.I'm sure you're going to do an
amazing job. And that was the extent of like
the guidance, right? It was like, Hey, they, they
asked you to go do this, Go do this.
Joe, I spent Christmas break in DC, you know, first Christmas
since moving to DCI Didn't go back home.
(15:41):
Just, I mean, going through hours and hours of testimony and
written things and this is like,yeah, I thought about the other.
I'm like, this is before ChatGPT.
It's been so much easier to go, hey, look at the transcript of
this hearing and pull out everything that was said about
the EPA. But like it was all, you know,
hand done essentially. So that was interesting.
(16:03):
I did some more EPA work and then I met somebody that was
working on electric vehicles forthe Navy within Booz Allen.
And electric vehicle work is something that I had done at the
Air District. I'd started the first charging
station incentive program in California, worked on some
(16:23):
vehicle programs, etcetera. So it was like something that I
had a passion for. And again, the weird timing
thing, like I met with him on Friday.
On Monday he let Booz Allen knowthat he got an offer from the
Navy. So he's going to become a Fed
and he's like, well, I talked tothis person, you know, on
Friday. I think he'd be a great
replacement. So they pull me in, they
(16:48):
interview me. They're like, hey, would you
want to do this? I'm like, absolutely.
And a week later, I'm sitting atthe Washington Navy Yard as the
EV expert ready to help the Navywith their fleet
electrification. And that lasts 3 months.
And then this is just kind of the how consulting works.
(17:10):
Booz Allen had a, you know, three-year contract.
I think they'd won it once or twice.
It had come up to recompete. So when I joined, they had
already submitted their recompete and they end up losing
the contract to Deloitte. So three months in, they're
like, hey, we lost the contract.This work ends in a month.
(17:32):
And I'm like, OK, so, you know, I'm new to this.
What does that even mean? Luckily, the work and this is
getting technical, but the work,there's a base contract and then
there's optional things that arerelated to the base contract
that you can add on. And the EV work was an add on.
(17:54):
And it being an add on meant Deloitte didn't win that piece
of the work. And in this case, the client was
still interested and still had funding and wanted to keep me
along. So I went to Booz Allen said,
hey, they still want to keep this.
They told me like, great, let's let's work, let's find another
contract vehicle to put this on.That slowed down a bit and I
(18:16):
kind of saw, you know, the lightat the end of the tunnel.
I was like, they're not going tobe able to find a contract.
Like there's too much else goingon for them to prioritize this.
So again, network, I reached outto a person that I had met
through one of, you know, the mentors in the, the CGP program
that brought me to DC said, hey,I know you're at Deloitte.
(18:40):
I know you guys won this project.
I have this additional piece of work.
It's fully funded. It's, you know, X amount of
dollars a year. The client wants to keep me.
Can you figure out who the partner is that won this work?
I want to see if like you guys would be interested in it and
can bring me over. And you know, funny enough, like
(19:01):
he called me back, the partner called me like 20 minutes later,
Hey, I heard I heard you have work explained it to him.
He goes, OK, well, I need to do some due diligence.
He went talked with the client, I'm sure verified that like,
Yep, they want me, there's funding for this work, etcetera.
(19:21):
They pulled me in to an interview later that week and
got an offer the following week.And like, so now I've spent
about, you know, a year on the Hill, nine months to move down.
And now I'm jumping to Deloitte,making another kind of shift, if
you will, in my career. And I've only been in DC and
(19:43):
I've been in DC for less than two years.
All right, Is that I'm wonderingis the ability that you've had
to meet a lot of people and be able to move around and have
that flexibility. Do you think that has anything
to do with the fact that you were living in DC or is that
like, is it anything to do with the location or is it just
something where it's like you'rejust a you're a shining star
(20:04):
that loves to talk to people Andso that's kind of where it is.
You know what? I.
Mean no, I think I think being in DC helped Like I wouldn't
have met those individuals if I had not been in DC And I think
that's the thing with networkingis like I could go and look up
who are the environmental or transportation people at who's
(20:27):
Allen and Deloitte if I lived inCalifornia and still probably
would never have connected with the specific individuals that
opened the door on these opportunities.
The other thing too is like I, Ithink I knew what networking was
when I lived in California and Ihad reached out to some people
(20:47):
and had some conversations, but like, I really learned what
networking was when I came to DC.
That was a skill that I developed here.
So no, I mean those opportunities would not have
come up if I was still back in California or, you know,
elsewhere. OK, got it.
So where we're at in the timeline?
(21:08):
So now you're at Deloitte Fresh there, I want to and you're
there for quite a bit, but I want to talk about, do you think
that there are some certain likepros of consulting work and what
you're like learning and kind oftransferable skills to other
worlds? I've heard of people, you know,
leaving consulting to do some other stuff in the tech world.
(21:29):
What are your thoughts on that as someone who's been in the
consulting world for quite a while and really focused on
energy? Yeah, I think consulting is a
great field to get into because I think it turns you into a
Swiss Army neck because as a consultant you have to do so
many things at one time. So great, you're a subject
(21:51):
matter expert in something, but at the same time you need to,
and this is kind of a joke, likeall we do is make PowerPoints
and presentations. Well, sure, that's that's part
of it. But I think what you learn from
doing that is how to sell an idea, how to present data, how
to present work. So you become much better at
(22:13):
being client facing. At the same time, like when
you're on a project and you're leading a project, you manage.
So like I manage the financials of the project, I manage the
staffing of the project, I manage the staffing turnover, I
work with a contracts team to put together contracts.
(22:35):
You end up not working within just your Deloitte bubble, but
you're working with industry. So, you know, I've been able to
sign alliances with other tech partners and figure out that
process of how does an outside company in Deloitte come
together, get some terms and conditions drafted and then go
(22:55):
to market together to sell a combination of what that company
does best and what we do best. So you learn that.
I mean, that's the thing with consulting is you learn so many
different aspects of the job. And I think that's why it's so,
you know, consultants get pickedup and go into industry and
become very successful because they've not just done one job,
(23:18):
they've done a multitude of jobs.
So you get somebody that can come into a project and not just
understand the subject matter and get the work done, but they
can manage the financials, they can manage the team, they can
manage a client relationship, they can do business
development. So that's another piece of it,
right? We need to sell work to be able
(23:39):
to go do work. So how do you identify those
client needs? How do you approach clients?
How do you respond to a solicitation?
And then there's like this marketing piece of it as well,
right? So I need to develop a brand for
myself in this space. So we write white papers, I'm
pitching to conferences to go speak on panels.
(24:01):
Like, all of those things make you a very well-rounded
professional, and they're all transferable skills wherever
else you go after consulting. Yeah.
How do you go about, or have yougone about as well kind of
becoming that subject matter expert in what you're doing?
It's you're, you're talking about, you're in the trenches,
you're doing the work. You're, you're taking Christmas
(24:23):
breaks to learn everything abouteveryone, any, everything
anyone's ever said about the EPAover the last 10 years.
But went over the course of justbecoming that guy who eventually
becomes a presidential appointee, though, which we'll
talk about in a second. How do you just go about
becoming that guy? Yeah, I, I think there's two
(24:43):
things. Maybe 3-1 is, you know, you're
fully immersed in the client. So when I came in, you know, to
the Navy project at Deloitte, but they're looking to procure
vehicles. Well, I've never done
procurement. They're looking to put in
infrastructure. Well, I had some infrastructure
background, but like I'm not an engineer.
(25:04):
So some of it is you just learn by doing on the job.
The second part of it is, you know, I was continuously
vigilant in talking to people both inside the firm and people
outside the firm all the time about what they do, what
resources they have, you know, what webinars you're joining.
(25:27):
So like, I really made it almostlike a, a homework assignment to
continue to learn about the space I was in.
And then I think the third and, and most important thing is, you
know, Deloitte and you know, allthese firms, right?
They're massive. There's over 100,000 people.
(25:47):
There's people that are experts in all kinds of things.
I don't need to be the expert. I need to understand what the
client needs and translate that into something that we can go
deliver. So, you know, we, we went and
delivered a big kind of data transformation project for the
(26:10):
same client, right? When the Trump administration
came in, eventually they cut allthe E OS for EVs.
All of a sudden there's no need for this work while I'm still
there. And if I don't pivot, then I'm
going to lose this client in this project.
I'm going to have to go find something else.
So I knew just from listening, being in meetings and being with
(26:33):
the client all the time, like data quality was a huge issue
for them. Well, that's great, right?
I can identify that. I can pitch, you know, Hey, I
think we should come in and do atop down analysis on why your
data quality's this bad. We, you know, and this is like,
(26:53):
I'm just spitballing here with the client, but I'm like, you
know, there should be a dashboard that shows you every
data field that you track and which one's correct and which
one's incorrect. Like we should have some
analytics and tools. Like I know you want to make
decisions based off the data. You can't, let's get the data to
where it's good enough, where you can start to make decisions.
(27:15):
But you know, that work I can't do.
But I know that if I can sell the client on, yeah, I need that
work. There are people in the firm
that are experts in this space. They'll come in, I'll translate
what the client actually needs and they'll do the technical
work. And that has been something that
I've always done right. We've built these data tools, we
(27:37):
built AAI driven procurement tool, we've done utilization
analysis. The people that actually do this
stuff are not me. And and that's not my role.
I don't need to be the expert ineverything.
I need to leverage the people that are around me to come in
and solve these problems. And I play a specific role in
(27:57):
that. But I think that's the other
piece is like, you could look atmy resume and say, look, this
person implemented this technology, built this tool, did
this, did that. Well, yeah, I don't, I don't do
the coding. I don't, you know, build these
things. But like I work with people to
do that. And that's where it's not always
(28:18):
subject matter expertise, but knowing how to use the resources
that are around you, leverage the amazing people that you work
with, and come together to solvea bigger problem that you could
then you could solve on your own.
Sure. OK.
I want to come back to a point you made and I'm curious about
you're talking about making surethat you understand your users,
(28:40):
your clients needs and that way you're able to sell them more
work. I'm curious how you've gone
about developing that muscle because that's something where
actually the last guest I had onthat's a lot of her work is
related to developing entity foryou empathy, not enthalpy.
Geez. See, this is the this is the
science. You know, I'm also woof.
But anyways, user empathy and you know, thinking about every B
(29:02):
to BAI SAS startup as well developing user empathy.
So I'm curious, how have you gone about developing that
muscle? Yeah.
I mean, sometimes it's as simpleas just, you know, actually
listening to what clients talk about over and over again and,
(29:23):
you know, kind of deducing what the core issue is.
You know, if, if they're constantly talking about, well,
we can't make decisions, you know, I can't make this
decision. I don't have enough data or, you
know, hey, we procure things just based off of, you know,
(29:44):
splitting the money evenly across installations across the
US. And then you ask the question of
like, well, why do you do that? They go, well, there, there's no
other way that we could do it. Little by little you start to
tease out that like, hey, the issue is they don't trust their
own data. They may not explicitly say
(30:05):
that, but they will speak to these issues over and over.
And I think the thing too is like, you know, you have your
main client, but your main client usually has a whole team
that works with them. And then in the DoD context,
there's echelons. So there's people at the
regional level, there's people at the installation level.
(30:26):
And I always made it a point to say like, great, the
headquarters folks are my day-to-day clients, but the rest
of these folks at the lower echelons are part of this
organization. So let me go speak to them,
right? Like let me follow up on them if
they say something interesting in a call, like let me write
(30:48):
them an e-mail and ask them, youknow, exactly what they meant.
So I'm always kind of mining formore data and information on
what people are feeling because the people at the headquarters
level may not feel the same heartburn as the people actually
at the base doing the day-to-daywork.
But connecting those two things is super important.
(31:11):
And then the other thing is at the end of the day, clients,
everyone, you know, everyone's aperson.
We're all people. We all have self motivation, so,
you know, understanding not onlywhat your client needs to
accomplish in their day-to-day tasks, but like what is their
goals? Where do they want to go?
What legacy do they want to leave?
(31:33):
So you know, the client that we worked on the data stuff with,
like he really wanted to leave his mark.
This was his last role in the Navy before he retired, and I
could sense that he was a analytics based person.
So I knew that you would be motivated by the thought of,
(31:56):
hey, in the next two years whileyou're still here, if we can
completely transform the data quality and the analytics
capability of the Navy, that ends up being the legacy that
you leave before you retire. So not only understanding what
the business need was, but what the personal motivators of the
people that I work with it are, I think becomes key in kind of
(32:20):
identifying what people want to do.
Because the data piece, and thisis just an example that we keep
going to, but the data piece could have been really important
to the Navy. But if the client and the
leadership didn't care about it,I mean, I can sell them, try to
sell them on all these amazing ideas and fixes, but if they
(32:42):
weren't also personally motivated, they wouldn't pull
the trigger and you know, go after this work or hire us to
help them achieve this. So it's it's a bit of like what
is the business need and what are the motivators of the people
that are leading the business? All right.
So to kind of summarize, it's not just you're making sure that
(33:03):
you're talking to different people in the organization,
really understanding what peopleall across IT or top to bottom
need. And then just getting to know
the person who you're actually trying to sell something to and
making sure that at the end of the day, you're MIT, you're
doing what they what they want to do personally, you're helping
them get that done. Yeah.
And I think you need, you need top down, buy in, right.
(33:23):
If I were going to go in and completely change how the
organization lifted data, I couldn't go do something that
the headquarters folks liked, but the individuals at the
installations that actually dealt with the data every day
hated. There would just be a mutiny.
So I'd understand and balance kind of what they need and what
(33:44):
the headquarters folks need. So I think it's, it's always
about looking at the full picture and understanding what
how to make something work for everyone.
It's never going to work for everyone.
But as close as you can be and as much as you know, I can then
say, hey, I know you want thingsthis way, but we're doing it
another way and I can explain itand justify it.
(34:05):
And it's something that is addressed instead of like just
ignored. OK.
All right. That's great.
So you worked at Deloitte also the first time around?
For how long? About six years.
All right. About six years.
So after that time you became the presidential appointee for
(34:27):
the GSA. Can you tell us a little bit
about what you did in that organization?
Yeah. I mean, as a presidential
appointee, your role is to come in and execute on the
president's agenda. So as the senior climate advisor
at GSA, my role was to execute on the climate priorities of the
(34:48):
administration and of GSA. All right.
I'll pause real quick, could youwhat's GSA stand for?
Yeah, it's the General Services Administration.
GSA has been around for 75 years.
It's they have a really interesting background.
So GSA was the first federal agency to use e-mail.
(35:09):
You're the first agency, actually one of the first
entities in the US to build an online catalog of products that
somebody could procure. They do hundreds of billions of
dollars in procurement for the government.
And that is everything from like, you know, cafeteria
supplies and office supplies to they hold and execute tons of
(35:35):
contracts for different agencies.
On the more technical side, GSA and the Department of Defense
are the only two entities that can buy power electricity for
the federal government. They also manage, you know, over
almost half a million non tactical vehicle assets that
(35:57):
they do the leasing procurement to all the federal agencies for.
So the GSA, though, is, you know, isn't as known as, you
know, the Department of Defense or DOJ, etcetera, has a really
outsized role in how the government functions.
So that's, you know, and it was an agency that I worked with a
(36:17):
lot through the work I did at Deloitte.
So I knew them well and I, I knew the impact that the agency
can have. So when I got brought in, OK,
we're executing on the president's goals, I'm in, you
know, the last year of the administration.
So a lot of the work had alreadybeen started.
(36:40):
But my role was a couple of things.
One is GSA had about $2 billion in bipartisan infrastructure and
investment in Inflation Reduction Act money.
And that funding was to be used for building technology that
would make buildings more efficient, more cost effective.
(37:03):
So a lot of that work was working with energy service
companies to put together third party financing projects to
implement new technology. And that could be solar, that
could be new boilers, that couldbe, you know, battery storage.
It could be a whole host of things.
I mean, even just like, you know, repairs and upgrades to
(37:28):
the building and the systems themselves and kind of how that
works is, you know, the government says, hey, we want to
do this project. It's going to cost us
$2,000,000. But we don't have $2,000,000
right now to do the project. But we know over the next 25
years that this, by doing this, it'll save us $1,000,000 in
(37:51):
utility costs. Great.
So they partner with a third party, a energy service company
to say, hey, we'll pay the $1,000,000.
Now you pay the remaining amount.
And over the next 25 years, as we save this additional
$1,000,000 by implementing this,we will pay you back for what
(38:12):
you covered for this project. And obviously I'm, you know,
there's a, there's a percentage there that the energy service
company gets on top of it, etcetera.
But that helps the government implement projects that are
going to save money in the shortterm, even if they don't have
the full funding to, you know, pay for that project.
(38:34):
So part of it was that part of it was, you know, I've done EV
work for the federal government that was still a executive order
mandate. So I jumped into what the GSA
was doing on electric vehicles we worked on.
Again, GSA is the only entity other than the DoD that can buy
power. So we're working a time with
(38:56):
utilities. Right before I left, we actually
executed the largest procurementof nuclear power in the federal
government's history and that was a big power agreement for 14
different agencies. So it's not just the GSA, but
we're buying for for others. So that was part of the role.
(39:18):
And also, you know, it was supporting the administrator,
working with the federal staff on a whole host of different
initiatives. And yeah, I mean, overall, I
think it was an amazing role. I think it's really nice to come
in and have a very clear mandateof what you're supposed to do
and accomplish and then work with an, you know, an entity as
(39:42):
big as GSA, right? 20,000 employees when I was
there to be able to, you know, pull the different level levers,
work with industry, get deals done, continue to communicate
the success of what we're doing.But at the end of the day, like
everything that we did made the GS as footprint and the agencies
(40:06):
that it supported more energy efficient, it saved money and
the things we're doing were goodfor the communities that.
These, you know, federal buildings, courthouses, etcetera
we're in. So overall it was very rewarding
work and and something that I, Ihad a lot of joy doing all.
(40:26):
Right, So how does 1 become thisposition?
Do they post on indeed? They don't post on indeed.
It's, you know, there's, there'snot like a, a clear path to how
somebody becomes an appointee. You know, again, part of it is
networking, right? People in the administration
(40:47):
need to know who you are, the skill sets you have and your
interest. Part of it is a fit, like I, you
know, early in the administration interviewed for a
number of roles, similar type oflike senior climate advisor
roles for some like I just wasn't a fit.
(41:08):
You know, like I interviewed an agency, they wanted somebody
that was a like Emergency Management expert because that's
the side of climate they deal with.
Well, great. I'm not that person.
At the same time, like these roles aren't technical in a
certain way. Like I'm not there to do the
(41:29):
day-to-day work, right? There's a whole federal
workforce that's doing this workto really in the role you're,
you're also like focused on how do I collaborate with thousands,
hundreds of people across the federal government to get things
done? And, and that's what they're
looking for is somebody that cancome in and get things done.
I don't necessarily need to be the expert in buying energy or,
(41:56):
you know, putting battery storage in buildings or whatever
might be. But like, do I have the skill
sets to collaborate and move theagenda forward for me?
You know, I kept, and this is been the case, you know, across
my careers. Like if I want something in this
case, I really wanted to work for, you know, the Biden
(42:17):
administration. I kept knocking on the door,
right? I kept following up with people.
I kept finding opportunities to meet new people in the
administration, learn about whatthey do, have them connect me to
somebody else that they thought might be helpful.
And, you know, eventually, like the right opportunity, the right
timing, the right fit came up. And yeah, I mean, you get a call
(42:39):
from, you know, the White House Office of Personnel and they go,
hey, would you be interested in serving in the administration?
This is the role You go through a very similar, you know,
interview process as you would for any other job.
And, you know, there's also a good amount of vetting that
happens, right? They check social media, they
(42:59):
check your background, etcetera,which is why I always tell
people, especially younger folks, like be cognizant of what
you post and, and what you do online because not only for the
administration, but like Deloitte, any job that you need
a clearance for really any job now, like people are going to do
a background check on you and they're going to see, you know,
(43:21):
what you've posted, what you've said, etcetera.
So like all, all of those factors come into play and then
you get an opportunity to serve in an administration.
All right. Are there like pros or cons of
doing this type of of governmental work?
Were there like certain restrictions that you had or
were you, was it all, was it, was it generally pretty
positive? Super positive.
(43:45):
And I think all right, The funnything is from a consultant to in
the administration as a consultant, there's always a
wall, right? You're not, you're not the
government, you're an outside entity and you only get exposed
to what's need to know. So you don't get access to
(44:05):
everyone. You don't get into every meeting
because like you're not part of the Navy.
So you don't need to be part of every meeting in the Navy.
You don't need to know everything.
Being in an administration that you know, the curtain gets
lifted and you get access to everyone.
So, you know, I had a bi weekly call with the chief
environmental officer of the entire administration.
(44:27):
I got to chat with whoever I wanted at agencies as we were
collaborating with them and theycould share everything with me
because now I'm on the government side, I'm not an
outside entity. So I really saw value in in that
because you get a completely different perspective than the
perspective you have as a consultant coming into a
government agency. So I now see the value of why
(44:54):
people join administrations and then they leave and then they'll
come and join another administration because you
really understand who is who that are making these decisions
and truly how the government works coming out.
Yeah, there's restrictions, right?
Like you can't go and directly lobby on things that you worked
(45:16):
on before. You know, I have to be careful
and, and what I potentially do if I were to bring on GSA as a
client going forward. So there's rules, but overall
like it's the the benefits outweigh any, any cons like, you
know, a million to one. All right, that's awesome.
(45:37):
At the very beginning of our interview you made, actually,
I'm not sure if it was a joke, but you said as a young
Armenian, I had two options, being a doctor or a lawyer.
I'm curious, have there been anyways that your Armenian
background have affected your career and decisions that you
made or people who you met, anything like that?
I mean, the people I met, absolutely.
(45:58):
Like I, I came to DC through theArmy National Committee's
Capital Gateway program. You know, I wouldn't have made a
jump from California to having ajob, etcetera, to a completely
new city if I didn't know that, hey, there was this program,
there was housing, there was a community of, you know, other
(46:20):
Armenians that I can rely on. And I think community is key.
I mean, you see it on Capitol Hill, you see it everywhere,
right? There's the Congressional
Hispanic Caucus, this is the Congressional Black Caucus.
There's all these groups of folks that are, you know, of a
similar background and they're working to help each other.
(46:41):
They're working to become resources for each other.
You know, that's, that's how youand I met right through this
type of this types of programming.
So I think that's the benefit islike I came in with a set
support system and some folks that have gone through coming to
DCE, finding a job, navigating their career and they're open
(47:05):
and willing to help. And I think that's, you know, I
continue to be involved in helping other young
professionals come through because of the example that was
set for me when I arrived. So I think that's that's the
biggest piece and it's been the biggest benefit I think.
All right. I want to go back earlier as
(47:26):
well. So if you could do it over
again, would you have gotten theMBA?
No, not in the way I did. And, and this is, there's a
specific reason why I, I don't think you folks should not get
(47:46):
an MBA because they want to learn about business, right?
Like the accounting class I tookgetting my MBA.
Like I don't, I'm not an accountant.
I don't use the accounting principles anymore.
The entrepreneur class is like, they're great, right?
You learn something different, you get exposed to something
(48:06):
different. But I think what I've seen now
being in DC and being in Deloitte, etcetera, is the NBA
is really about the network you create and how you learn to
collaborate with others. And you know, the big piece of
going to these big business schools is you get exposure to
(48:27):
the network and then you get access to the network after you
get out. So if I was to do it over again,
I would go get my MBA, you know,in my late 20s versus my early
20s. And I would focus on, you know,
for me, it didn't matter where Iwent.
I, I was like, hey, I need to learn more about business as I'm
(48:49):
shifting away from science. So I'll just go to, you know,
Fresno States program, which is a great program, but like that
network would have been great ifI stayed in Fresno.
But you know, the Fresno State MBA program doesn't have a
nationwide presence as, you know, going to Harvard or Penn
or Yale or some, you know, one of those other schools would.
(49:10):
So I've seen the benefit of young consultants in their mid
to late 20s leaving Deloitte, going in and getting an MBA for
two years and coming back and leveraging the lessons learned,
the network, the experience, thetravel, etcetera.
For me, I, I think I just did ittoo soon.
(49:31):
And I mean, in my class, like I was the youngest person by
several years. At the time, I didn't see that
as, as an issue. But now I see why.
Like those individuals were muchmore mature in their career and
they could take the lessons fromthe NBA and implement them in
(49:52):
their work right away. And they can use the network
right away and they're making connections where I was still,
you know, 2223 years old when I started.
Like I'm, you know, I didn't make the most of the experience.
So nothing wrong with like I gotan MBA, great summer resume.
I learned some things, but like to get the true value of it.
(50:15):
I'd say wait a little bit. And again, like the the point in
the NBA is the network that you build and the experiences you
have while you're in the program.
And then when you leave the reach back, you have to the
network of that whole Business School.
And that's, yeah, that's the only reason I'd say like I would
(50:37):
do it a little bit differently. All right.
So if you are somebody in my position now kind of about to
enter career or if you're somebody who's like in your
position, you're kind of into career, about how would you go
about or how do you and how would you at my age go about
networking to kind of start creating these opportunities for
(50:57):
yourself? Yeah, I I think you should look
at it two ways. The first is networking should
be fun. So look at people that are in
positions that you want to be ineventually and reach out to
those folks and show genuine curiosity in how they got there,
(51:20):
what they do and meet these people.
Let them be inspirations. Let them give you advice on hey,
these are the steps I took. This is what you should
consider. And you know, we, I think maybe
even when we met in DC, we talked about this like your,
yeah, you have your core network, which are the people
(51:42):
that you interact with, work with, go to school with every
day. You have your support network,
which is mentors, individuals that can give you advice, look
at your resume, helping prep foran interview, et cetera.
And then you have your broader expanded network.
And that's where opportunities come from.
And in that expanded network, like you should really reach out
(52:03):
far and wide and talk to anyone and everyone because, you know,
even if they're tangentially related to what you want to do,
that is experience and insight that you can use at a more
tactical level. I always tell people, write down
the 10 to 20 companies that you would want to work for if you
(52:26):
got the opportunity and start with three connections at each
company. You know, start in LinkedIn
adding people, start reaching out, start having coffees, but
eventually build it up so that you have a couple of different
connections at each of these companies.
They don't all have this specifically be in like say I'm
(52:48):
I'm interested in energy. They don't all have to be energy
people, right? Let's say 75% are energy people
and the other 25% are in different parts of the
organization. But really the idea is 1 great.
You'd learn from them. You understand what they do, you
understand the culture, But you know, networking isn't always
(53:09):
about like, I'm going to go talkto this person because I want a
job now, right in my stories, like the people that helped me
in my network help me a year to two years after I met them.
But right right now, say you want to go work at Meta and you
start to build these connectionsand your first job out of
(53:30):
college isn't at Meta, it's somewhere else.
And nine months later, the perfect entry level opportunity
at Meta opens up. If you're starting to network at
that point, you're already behind the game.
But if starting now, you had started to cultivate
relationships and, you know, connect with people at Meta,
(53:53):
well, nine months, a year, nine months, whenever from now when
that opportunity opens up, like they already know you, they know
that you, you know, network withthem out of genuine curiosity.
They have followed your career. They've seen your LinkedIn post,
things like that. So when you come back and you
say, hey, you know, I know we connected six months ago when I
(54:15):
started this new job, this new opportunity open up at Meta.
Would you be willing to refer me?
Tell me more about the role? Like you're going to have so
much more success in having others help you if you've done
the groundwork way before that opportunity ever came up all.
Right. Well Ty, this has been an
(54:35):
incredible conversation. Is there any advice that you'd
like to any? Any final words of wisdom you'd
like to impart? Sure.
And this has been wonderful and I appreciate you doing this.
I'm really excited to see this continue to go forward.
Thank you. People always ask, you know,
hey, what's the one piece of advice, etcetera.
(54:56):
I always say fail fast and fail forward.
People always, I, I think often wait until whatever they want to
do is perfect and then they go do it.
And even if you wait until you think it's perfect, it's not
going to be perfect and you're going to have to rework it.
(55:19):
So my philosophy has always beenlike, if I have an idea, just
jump into it quicker, fail quicker, get the feedback I need
to fix it and continue to iterate going forward versus let
me sit on it for two months, fail the same way I'm going to
fail anyway and then start fixing it.
(55:41):
But now I'm two months behind. And you know, like some of those
examples of the Navy, like when we built them a procurement
tool. Look, I didn't know how to build
a procurement tool, but I knew that, hey, the client needs
this. Like they just got, you know,
their boss, you know, really laid into them for not having a
(56:03):
plan for why they buy things theway they buy things.
Now, I could have spent two months, you know, meeting with
different people and getting this perfect plan together.
But instead I, I was like, it's never going to be right that
we're going to have to work and iterate and build this anyway.
So I put together a pitch in twodays, went to the client and
(56:23):
said, hey, we can do this. It won't come out the same way.
But like, this is the general idea and we jumped in, we did
it, we built the tool. There was a lot of pushback.
There's a lot of things that we made assumptions on that weren't
true that we had to fix eventually.
But like if I had waited two months to go present, that the
urgency that the client had feltcoming out of that meeting where
(56:47):
they couldn't answer the questions they needed to would
have been gone. Or somebody else could have
brought them an idea, or they could have figured something
else out on their own. So move quickly, like failing,
failing at something is not a bad thing.
It gets you on the right path quicker.
So fail quick, fail forward. That's like, you know what I
(57:10):
live by. That's my my closing advice I
guess. All right.
Well, thank you again. It's been a lot of fun talking
with you today. I really appreciate all your
time. Absolutely.
Thanks so much. I hope you enjoyed the episode.
If you have any thoughts or feedback, shoot me an e-mail at
nick@reroutedpod.com. If you like the show, leave a
review. You can find links to our
(57:31):
website and socials in the description below.
I'm looking forward to seeing you next week.
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