#109 Michael Brabner - From Infantry to Innovation - Tales of Leadership

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Finally, at a point in my life where we own our
house, we've set conditions.
Everything I've done, I'vebackward.
I always have a backwards planright.
So the acquisition framework, Itold you it's like find what
you want to kill, neutralize,defeat or destroy and work back
from that.
I've had that in my head since Ienlisted December of 2001.
I always knew this day wouldcome and I gave you kind of the

(00:21):
cancer diagnosis analogy.
I got seven months, six daysand like it's really.
I'm really starting to feelthat now I'm also proud that
we've been chopping wood.
As I hand this guy on on herbaton off, I feel confident that
enough change is in motion now,like there's a bow wave of
change that's built up, that Ican take the uniform off and

(00:42):
then stay active in this space.
In 2001, when I enlisted, if youhad told me like, hey, you're
going to be doing roboticsystems at the end of your
career as an acquisition officerand an infantryman, I would
have been like you're crazy,right, Can't see, you don't know
what's coming.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
You're listening to the Tells the Leadership podcast
.
This podcast is for leaders atany phase on their leadership
journey to become a morepurposeful and accountable
leader what I like to call a pal.
Join me on our journey togethertowards transformational
leadership.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
All right team.
Welcome back to the Tales ofLeadership podcast.
I'm your host, Josh McMillian.
A quick background on me I'm anactive duty army officer.
I've been in for 16 years.
I'm an army leadership coach, aremote coaching company,
McMillian leadership coaching,and I'm on a mission to continue
to grow my leadershipcapability, both as a father, a

(01:37):
servant leader, as a member ofthe DOD, but also to end toxic
leadership.
And I'm going to do that by twoways One, bringing on inspired
leaders, like today withLieutenant Colonel Michael
Brabner, or sharing leadershiplessons with you that I've went
through to help you shorten thelearning curve and hopefully
prevent some of those mistakesthat I went through in my past.

(02:00):
But on today's episode I havethe absolute honor and privilege
of discussing leadership withLieutenant Colonel Mike Brabner,
and he's a good buddy of mine.
So Mike Brabner serves as theAir Branch Chief in the Maneuver
Capabilities DevelopmentIntegration Directorate,
Robotics Requirements Division.

(02:20):
Say that three times fast.
Originally from Oak Harbor,Washington, Brab says his
friends like to call himenlisted in the Washington Army
National Guard in 2001.
Following the events ofSeptember 11th 2001, he was
inspired to join the military.
Over his 25 year career, heserved 14 years in an infantry

(02:45):
role or capacities, includingdeployments as a platoon leader
with the 101st Division duringthe Iraq surge and as a rifle
company commander with the 25thInfantry Division Wolfhounds in
Afghanistan acquisition core in2014.

(03:08):
He has led projects across theacquisition life cycle, from
J-SIDs to shaping futurerequirements and right now he's
really driving in that space ofrobotics and that's a huge
disruptive technology.
And to arm you with some tools,you can go to
mcmillianleadershipcoachingcom.
If you're listening to thisepisode right now, there is a
blog that I summarized anddistilled all the key facts, so

(03:29):
you can go there and just listento it.
As always, I have additionalresources on McMillian
Leadership Coaching to includeall the other podcasts,
accompanied with their own blogs, and then all the different
articles that I have written tocontinue to add tools to your
toolkit.
But without further ado, let'sbring on Lieutenant Colonel

(03:50):
Michael Brabner Brabs.
Welcome to the Tales ofLeadership podcast.
Brother, how are you doing?

Speaker 1 (03:55):
I'm doing good, good morning.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, it's always fun to have that initial dialogue
when we've probably been talkingfor like the last 15 minutes.
Right, it's great to have youon the show and I think number
one I want to say thank you forbeing a guest on the show.
This is the first episode thatI've got to film in the past six
months.
I had to take some hiatus offand I think it's awesome to have

(04:17):
you on, because we both kind ofdo the same thing, but on
different spectrums within theArmy right now.
But I'd love to get anopportunity just to have you,
kind of like, quickly introduceyourself to the listeners.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, happy Saturday morning everyone.
So Michael Brabner kind of goby Brabs for short currently
serving as an officer in theUnited States Army, coming up on
the 25-year mark.
So I did 14 years operationallyin the infantry, so all jobs
within an infantry battalion,basically from a private

(04:50):
rifleman up to a battalion S3,after completing 26 months of
rifle company command, which waskind of like what I consider to
be my Superbowl ring in thearmy.
And then after that I learnedabout this little thing called
acquisition and I was mentoredinto that.
I did the voluntary transferprocess, kind of, you know, both
knees into the breeze, jumpedinto it and done every job

(05:14):
across the acquisition lifecycle.
So everything from J-SIDs allthe way up to D-MIL to include
program management, jpo,armaments and ammunition,
science and technology advisorto the two-star commanding
general at the Fire Center ofExcellence.
Right around the same time theArmy Futures Command came out,
both the number one and twocross-functional teams being

(05:36):
there at Fort Sill thentransitioned down to operational
test command at Fort Hood.
Uh was a test officer foralmost four years on.
Uh, so many big tests, uhplanning.
So I got to work that piecedoing follow on test, initial
operational test and evaluation,uh, working with DOT and E,
some really cool programs.

(05:57):
And then uh had the opportunity, uh, for my last job in the
army, to do robotics and uh, atthe time I didn't, I didn't put
a lot of thought to it, I waskind of, uh, I was part of that
bad culture.
Um, you know where we had theRQ 11, bravo or Charlie Raven.
Um, josh, you probably have thesame experience.
You know we didn't use it.
We weren't good users oftechnology because those systems

(06:20):
, those systems were looked atas expensive tools and if you
had any mishaps or anything gowrong, your neck was on the
block for the guillotine by yourchain of command.
You know, either financialinvestigation or property loss
or a 15-6.
So we didn't use those tacticaltools.
So when I came into this joband was hired by a colonel now

(06:40):
retired, rob Ryan, he said look,you're off the leash.
You have no left and rightlimit, you have no SDZ.
He goes.
All I want you to do is justwin, go.
So I've been doing that for thelast almost three years now.
We've had some majoraccomplishments and I think
we're going to dive into that.
So thanks for having me on,josh.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, no, and you and I do share that.
I remember being in Afghanistanand we never used the Ravens
that we had One, because theywere extremely difficult to use,
because we had to get a raw setup in place and then the time
that we would actually get theapproval to use those things, we
wouldn't need them anymore.

(07:20):
So we would just like workaround that technology.
But I start off with I think agreat place is if you can kind
of define leadership in yourterms.
How, how does Brab seeleadership?

Speaker 1 (07:32):
So I think, I really think leadership is an
evolutionary process.
You have to be introspectiveand you have to try and you have
to be not afraid of failing.
Those are lessons I learnedearly on in life, mainly through
the Boy Scouts of America, andI'm still really involved with
that.
My son is now in the troop, I'mon the committee, I'm a high

(07:54):
adventure coordinator, I'm alsoassistant scout master.
So, constantly putting yourselfin new situations, you will
find that you have to develop aRolodex of tools.
You have to be the Home Depotright.
You can't just be thescrewdriver or the hammer or the
nail.
You really have to be veryeclectic in your approach and

(08:17):
you gain new skills andattributes based on your
character, your morals and thenyour tactical and practical
application of leadership acrossa wide range of scenarios in
your daily life.
So you know it takes leadershipto be a father, you know, to a
son and a daughter.

(08:37):
It takes leadership to be ahusband, you know to my wife.
You have to build relationshipsand then you know, once I cross
the threshold on my commute inin the morning, I'm building
relationships.
I'm using that time to makecalls, listen to podcasts, make
myself smarter, get my mindright before I cross the

(08:59):
threshold into the SCIF at myoffice in Robotics Requirements
Division and then work with myteam, with my deputy, mr John
Dudas, who's a rock star,probably one of the best
capability developers in theUnited States Army.
Brian Reed, who's my lead CapeDev you know working annexes for
me to the Joint Small UAS CDDand what are their needs and how

(09:21):
to.
How can I exercise some humilityto put put my wants, desires or
what, what's priority in mylife on pause, to prioritize
what's, what's in theirimmediate target zone.
You know what's in that?
25 to 50 meter targets now thatthey're trying to focus on.
So they can, they can chalkwood and help us accomplish our

(09:41):
mission.
So leadership's it's, it'sevolutionary and every day
you're going to face newchallenges.
And if you're not facing newchallenges, you need to get out
there and not be afraid to go tothe shooting range and take
some risk.
And then when you get dialed inon that bullseye, then you,
just you know you keep stingingthat bullseye.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Then you build up that repertoire of success and
application I I really wanted toto do like kind of a quick deep
dive into those 11 points ofleadership that you sent me last
night, because I, I that'samazing and it's funny that I
run a leadership podcast andI've never came across this
topic yet.
Yeah, when you first had that,like through the the boy scouts,

(10:25):
how did they kind of go throughthose leadership skills with
you?
Was it like a crawl, walk, runof like hey, here's the 11
tenets, uh, that we abide bywhen it comes to leadership
development?
And then how did they instillthat in you at a young age?

Speaker 1 (10:40):
it's the, it's the be no do model right.
So when you come in, um, Idon't know um, you know where
your sons are in life.
This was the model that Ifollowed.
So United Cub Scouts.
But when I got to Boy Scouts,you come in and you're part of a
patrol and I didn't realize itat the time.
But the boy leaders and thetroop although you know, from my

(11:00):
patrol leader to thequartermaster, the chaplain, the
librarian, the secretary, allthe way up to senior patrol
leader they had all been trained, they'd all been trained in
those leadership 11 points ofleadership at national youth
training camps.
In YLT Our scoutmasters wereall wood badge trained.
So that's kind of like thepremier executive leadership

(11:22):
course.
And so there's models, there'slayers, just like the
sedimentary layers.
You know the Grand Canyon andyou build, you build on that
right, you create a mountain ofa mountain or a library of
leadership potential andeverybody's working on it and
then you're working on ittogether.
So you know, you get to theteaming aspect.
So as I got older and I was putin leadership positions, I had

(11:44):
to learn my style and a lot ofthat was emulating those that I
saw who were successful.
So, growing up in a navalcommunity, constantly being
around.
You know Top Gun graduates.
You know guys that fly at the.
You know speed.
You know faster than the speedof sound mock whatever with

(12:06):
their pants on fire.
I learned a lot of leadershipattributes and I wasn't always,
you know, kind of the loud giant.
I am my son's like that now.
You know he's very quiet, he'scalculative, he listens a lot.
So my younger years were veryformational in that I had to
learn the skill of activelistening.
And then, as I got older and youget put in leadership positions

(12:29):
, you have to make a decision.
Kind of goes back to the oldranger school adage like what
are you going to do, pl, but youhave to make decisions.
And that's when it's go time.
And that's when you have to sayyou know, hey, what kind of
leadership style or tactic am Igoing to apply?
Is it going to be transactional?
In combat, you're the commander, you're the platoon leader,
you're the squad leader.

(12:50):
You have to make a decision,you have to direct.
You know, am I going to be acoach?

Speaker 2 (12:55):
in my job now.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
I'm more of a you know kind of a servant
democratic visionary in what Ido.
I've never been laissez-faire.
There's times when you can belaissez-faire, you know, like
when you're in front of yourcompany in the morning and you
can just tell they're just beatdown after a week of training
and you just don't really feellike doing an eight mile run,
you know.
And so you could kind of be alittle more laissez-faire and,

(13:18):
you know, yell zonk and releasethem and the morale you know
release them and the morale.
You know, you've heard the wordzonk man.
It's like it's oh yeah, I'vegot a good story on that one.
It is, it's a shot ofadrenaline.
But but back to the 11, 11points of leadership.
It was, you know, getting andgiving information,
understanding group needs,characters or characteristics,

(13:39):
um, knowing and using theresources of the group.
I think that's a big one.
I learned that.
I learned that in the nationalguard early on when I was
enlisted.
Um, you know, I had a, had a,had a team leader who was a
nuclear physicist at the nuclearplant in um, central Washington
and um, he's, he's like, hey, Ijust want to be, I want to be a

(13:59):
team leader, I want to be an E5, you know that's.
This is where I love coming andworking.
And then my real job is reallyhard.
I mean, he's a nuclearphysicist, right, working on
reactors.
He's like I come to do the army, for you know the camaraderie,
the uh, the teamwork, um, andjust, you know being around
friends and just working towardsa common goal.
You know national defense orHomeland security.

(14:21):
You know when there's a tornadoor hurricane or a mass disaster
like Hurricane Helena.
So that part of like my earlyintroduction to being a soldier
and then commissioning and beingan officer in the, you know,
the Florida Army National Guard,really opened my eyes to all
kinds of leadership and allkinds of bad leadership too.

(14:44):
We've all had toxic leaderswhere you're like I wouldn't
follow that guy, I wouldn't, Iwouldn't follow that guy into
combat.
Sometimes you, sometimes you doright.
I was watching band of brotherswith my son last night and he's
like that captain Sobel guy iskind of a jerk and I was like,
yes, I worked for a few of those, you know, but you learn to um,
it may, it may feel bad, it maynot be a good experience while

(15:05):
you're in those, in those rolesor positions.
But you know the men, themission and me, right, you, you
find a way.
And then when, when you're in aleadership role, you're like I,
I don't want to be viewed thatway, I don't want that to be my
legacy.
So it says cumulative effectsthat just kind of grow and build
with you within your heart andsoul over the course of your

(15:25):
life and your career.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
I think that that's a very powerful piece of wisdom.
Right there is that in badleaders you have probably even
more profound wisdom that youcan gain from versus good
leaders.
Like good leaders it's easy toemulate because it's good
behavior.
Like good leaders, it's easy toemulate because it's good
behavior.
Bad leaders it's hard to findthe things that they're doing

(15:48):
well and then to isolate thoseand what you want to replicate
as a leader yourself.
Because you talked about thatat the beginning.
I think we all go through thatlike emulation phase of like,
where we're kind of like amockingbird in a way, until we
kind of find our stride.
But bad leader is the mostimportant thing that I found out
and that's the blessing and thecurse I think of being in the

(16:09):
military is you have reallygreat leaders and I think they
outweigh the bad.
But when you have bad leaders,I mean they're bad, like super
bad, like borderline, like toxic, and it changes just the whole,
the whole organization.
But how do we not replicatethose behaviors?
And then using those is like aburning desire, almost, that I

(16:31):
am never going to do that,because I know what it feels
like being on the end of it.
Another thing that I love thatyou said, and what's one of the
tenets of the 11 principles isunderstanding the needs and the
tools of your team.
I think that's critical too,and I think that's one thing
that most people are missingnowadays is like getting a full

(16:53):
survey of your team and whatstrengths everyone possesses
uniquely, and then how can weharness that collectively to go
do this hard task, thisdisruptive thing?
And if you can learn how to dothat, I really think that's what
sets you apart from otherpeople.
Like within the requirementsrealm in the big army right now,
it's like number one.

(17:13):
You got like a deep passion forit, which you have to have.
You have to care for it, andthen you have to learn how to
harness your team towards thatvision, and that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
What a lot of people kind of forget but they always
have to acknowledge and comeback to is in the army any
service branch really you coulddie and others could die that
you're in charge of.
So that puts an extra level ofstress and ownership and
accountability on leadership.
You know, if I was just youknow going into work when I was

(17:46):
at Picatinny Arsenal I'm notdiscounting or discrediting the
civilian workforce here it'slike you're probably not going
to die in the daily execution ofyour duties and
responsibilities.
You know, unless you knowyou're handling explosives or
doing other things and I usePicatinny as a perfect example
because there's some wizards upthere that do some amazing stuff
with armaments and ammunitionand explosives and other things.

(18:08):
They call it the home oflethality for a reason.
But you know you're going intoa job, it's a fun job, you're
probably not going to die andpeople in your workforce
probably aren't going to die.
But you know you're training upat NTC and JRTC or JPMRC and
know, you're going to thetwo-way petting zoo, yeah, so
you always have that.

(18:28):
You're always carrying thatcross, you're always shouldering
that burden, and it gets prettyheavy at times too and it
crushes a lot of people.
And then those that rise up tothe challenge I think they, I
think they experience anexponential level of spiritual
and personal growth because youknow, if you're in a leadership
position, you are held to a muchhigher standard.

(18:51):
Yeah, I think.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
I had a very like, a very impactful lesson that I
learned when I just took over myplatoon in Afghanistan.
It was probably like a weekbefore and before that time,
like I was the night battlecaptain, so I was pushing, you
know, sigacs and reports andlike just monitoring, making
sure the battalion was stayingafloat.

(19:14):
One of the hardest things forme at that point is like I
wanted to go be the platoonleader to get recognition, get
awards, go get in firefights, goto Ranger Regiment.
Like I was super gung gun ho,like that's what I wanted to do,
that's why I joined theinfantry, like I want to go do
bad things to bad people.
And then I went, uh, to one ofmy platoon's memorials for

(19:37):
sergeant rodriguez and that'swhere I got to meet my platoon
for the first time.
Like we're in theater, you know,you only see those things in
like movies.
But like just the emotional,like response from the platoon
like grown men, like steely-eyedkillers that are doing bad
things to bad people, just likebreaking down.
And then I sit there and I likeponder myself of like how

(19:57):
selfish I was at the time tolike kind of go in with an
agenda and an ego.
What leader does this platoonneed at that time and then adapt
to that environment.
And then that set me on a pathof kind of a humble leadership
within a way of always beinghumility at like at my core,

(20:18):
because I know what a bad daylooks like and this isn't a bad
day, and that always goes backto my motto is every day is a
gift.
I don't want to waste minebecause I know what a bad day
looks like and this isn't a badday, and that always goes back
to my motto is every day is agift.
I don't want to waste minebecause I know what a bad day
looks like.
Dude, I love that.
That's straight like fire Brabs.
So I would like to like shiftit over to what drove you to

(20:38):
join the military, because youwere in the National Guard first
and you spent how long when youget ready to retire, like
cumulative total of service.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
That'll be over 25 years total service.
That's awesome, brother.
Yeah, it's.
I always knew I was going to gointo the military, believe it
or not.
I thought when I was young, youknow, I told you I grew up in a
you know the son of a Navalaviator, so it was always around
the jet jockeys, right?
So delusions of grandeur.

(21:08):
Sometimes life has a way oftelling you where you need to go
versus where you want to go.
So, as I grew to be like sixfoot eight, and then I wasn't
blessed with my father's perfectvision laughing right now as I
wear glasses I wasn't going tobe sitting in the cockpit of a
F-14, tomcat or an F-18 or, youknow, super Hornet.

(21:32):
You know, doing that, I'm likehell, I pass out on roller
coasters, right.
So when I, when I started doingthat, they were like, yeah,
you're, you're too tall, but now, you know, being 42, 42, I was
like I would fly a, you know ac17 or a c130, like all day long
, right, because I got somefriends that do that and they
have great lives.
But, um, you evolve over time.

(21:52):
So I was in college, atwashington state university,
woke up, you know, uh, themorning of, uh, september 11th
my mom called me and she's liketurn on your tv now.
I was like what's wrong andturn it on.
You know, and you see what'sgoing on in New York City.
And I'd never been to New YorkCity but I think it just hit a
lot of Americans in the fieldsand I went in with two of my

(22:14):
best friends in college at thetime and we all enlisted and
we're standing there talking toour recruiter and you know they
went to be 88 mics,no-transcript.

(23:06):
And he's like what'd you do?
And I was like well, youremember how you told me like
when I graduated I had to go tocollege and that was that was
non-negotiable and and that youweren't going to pay for it.
And he goes yep.
And I remember I told you, I'vebeen telling you, I told you
that for your entire adolescenceI was like well, I found a way
to kind of pay for it, asidefrom working three jobs.

(23:27):
I joined the army.
And he said a few colorfulwords and then he hung up on me
and then he called me back likean hour later and he's like I'm
just happy you didn't join theAir Force.
I think we can deal with this.
I love that yeah.
So that's how I came in and Ijoined the Washington Army
National Guard, enlisted.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
I stayed in school.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
Then I was in the chow hall one day A senior ROTC
cadet came up.
They were like, hey, are you inthe Washington Army National
Guard?
Are you 11 Bravo?
I was like, yeah, you want todo ROTC?
I was like, nah, I hateofficers, he goes, we'll pay you
AtC.
And I was like, nah, I hateofficers, and you know he goes,
we'll pay you.
And at the time I was reallypoor, right, and I was like how
much?
And he's like I think stipendthen was like 150 bucks or

(24:12):
something and I was like thatwas a significant jump in my
pocketbook, right.
So I did that and you know,when I graduated I commissioned
into the Florida Army NationalGuard.
I was recruited down there byMajor Haas, who is now the
Adjutant General of Florida, andwent down there and went in
with my hand raised.

(24:33):
I volunteered for everything.
I went to every school he'dsend me to.
I worked on battalion staff.
I was a platoon leader,executive officer, worked for
the S4.
I was a transition officer.
I, as that infantry battalion,transitioned to be a cavalry
squadron.
So I learned, you know, mtoequipment.
I learned property book and Iwas put in charge of some big

(24:55):
things for a platoon leader,second lieutenant and then a
first lieutenant.
In my time in the 4th ArmyNational Guard.
You know took my platoonoverseas to do an exchange in
Folkestone, england, with theRoyal Irish Ranger Regiment.
Oh, that sounds awesome.
It was really cool.
And as a first Lieutenant I waslike man.
The army like gives you a lot ofopportunity to do some cool
stuff.
You know managing and drivingconvoys in excess of a hundred

(25:18):
vehicles across the battalion togo respond to Hurricane Katrina
, hurricane Rita you know howthat has devastated the Gulf
Coast.
So I really got to do thesoldier citizen mission and be a
servant leader to the community.
That's what I really likedabout the National Guard is you
get.
You know, knowing and using theresources of the group.
You know I could have asheriff's deputy who you know

(25:40):
was on the Escambia County SWATteam.
I could have an electrician.
I could have a plumber, who youknow.
I was on the Escambia CountySWAT team.
I could have an electrician.
I could have a plumber.
Um, you know, I could have aschool teacher as my company
commander.
And all the skillsets theybrought um from their their
civilian careers into themilitary made it a really fun
organization to be a part of.
And then in 2007, you know,every day I logged into HRC St

(26:01):
Louis at the time before theymoved to Knox, and you know,
they had this limited call toactive duty one day and I
applied to it and I was one of11 National Guard infantry
officers that was picked up tocome on active duty and I did
that in 2007.
So that's when I started myactive time.
You know, at the time I wasstationed in Panama City Beach,

(26:22):
florida, working active duty,special work, um, for my, for my
battalion, for you know, then,major hollis, and uh, me and
theresa, my wife, we just wemade that jump and we came on
active duty and uh, we werereally blessed with some really
good assignments at the 101stwhere I did my uh combat tour,
uh in baghdad during the surge,and then uh you, doing rifle

(26:44):
company command and uh, thirdbrigade, uh, charlie, company
two, two, seven, the Wolfhounds,uh out in Hawaii, so getting
paid to you know surf, the bigwaves at the North shore and um
have some of the best, bestexperiences in life.
I said earlier that was mySuper Bowl ring, trained with
them for 12 months and thendeployed for 12 months to

(27:05):
Afghanistan, to what was one ofthe most austere mountainous
fighting regions in RC EastKunar province and solved some
really hard problems and dothose things Carry skedcos that
your friends are in, draped withan american flag, you know,

(27:25):
being picked up in the dark ofnight by a, a pj helicopter, um,
um it.
It brings everything fullcircle.
So, and you know the rest isjust kind of writing on the wall
um not discounting everythingin those 25 years, but active
duty has been, it's been fun andit's it's.
I see that I see the end now,and when I took this job from

(27:46):
rob ryan.
Um, people are like, oh, youknow, a lot of people just go to
, uh, the seededs or you knowmaneuver center of excellence,
to kind of just kind of witheraway and die.
And I was like no, I kind oflooked at like a cancer
diagnosis.
Um, I was like I'm going to getevery drop of juice for the
squeeze I can uh in this job.
So you know when I, when I movedhere to fort ben, juice for the
squeeze I can in this job.
So you know, when I, when Imoved here to Fort Benning for

(28:07):
the fifth time in my career, Itook a deep breath and, on July
1st 2022, hit the ground runningwith small UAS.
Didn't know much about it myown experience in robotics was
what I didn't do with the RQ 11,bravo, the Raven and you know,
in Baghdad or Afghanistan andcame in but took all those

(28:29):
lessons learned.
You know, just went through theRolodex of vignettes combat
vignettes, training vignettessaid, hey, if I had these
systems in Iraq or Afghanistan,how would I have used them?
You know, if, if, if my, if myplatoon had had something as
simple as a soldier born sensorto fly, you know, up up hills,

(28:50):
check IV lines, um, you know ratlines.
The Taliban were using the comein from Pakistan and fight us.
You know, would, would my, uh,would my company medic, you know
, doc, uh, uh, joseph Allman,would he still be alive, you
know, if he had had that tool?
And so every day I go into theoffice with my team like I
always have that in the back ofmy mind.
It's like how can we make thesesystems better?
How can we do the hard work,chop the wood to build the fire,

(29:15):
to be agents of change withinthe army, which we all know?
Change in the army is it'stectonic, it's a glacial process
, right, it's very slow to shift.
It's tectonic, it's a glacialprocess, right, it's very slow
to shift.
How can you be an agent ofchange, a disruptor, and leave
the Army, as you know, sunsethere in seven months, five days,
leave the Army better than itwas when I joined in December of

(29:38):
2001.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
I don't think there's anyone that is more qualified
and has a deeper passion thanthe position that you're in
right now, than you, and I lovethat mental concept of like a
cancer diagnosis.
I've never heard of that before, but I love that and I think
you're spot on.
Most people go to requirementsand they look at it as like a

(30:00):
curse, and I think you and Ikind of share that in a way of
where I moved to Fort Polk afterM-Triple-C and everyone was
like, oh, I'm so sorry.
I ended up extending to do twocommands there and I had some of
the best times with my familyand like professionally leading
a rifle company, an HHC company.

(30:21):
It is what you make of it.
And if you go into those typesof situations where most people
like, oh, this is going to behorrible, it's going to be
horrible because you've alreadyset your mindset to that.
But if you go in, I'm going tobe an agent of change and I'm
going to be as disruptive aspossible in a positive way, so
the next person that comes incan have all the obstacles

(30:44):
removed and then they can justmove forward and try to make as
much progress as possible, andthat's one reason that I really
deeply respect you is thatyou're willing to put that hard
work in, but you do it in a waythat is inspiring to everyone
around you.
So, yeah, this is incrediblydifficult work but everyone
especially because I got to meetyour team they're, they're to

(31:05):
do it and that's a rare personthat can inspire people to go
chase hard things but be happywhile you're doing it, and I
think it's just that charismaand that passion that you share
from your experience.
But I want to back up becauseyou shared something with me
last night and I would be remissif we don't talk about this

(31:27):
your experience in ranger school.
Walk me through that.
Cause I know it was easy, butlike cumulatively, like at the
end of that, um, what did youearn?
Cause I want to make surepeople hear this because it's
incredible.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah, it's.
Uh, I mean, from the timeyou're, you know you're a young
11 Bang Bang or an infantryofficer everybody knows you have
to go through a crucible.
Right?
Ranger school is not aleadership school, it's a small
unit tactics school and you'renot going there to earn the tab.
That's not the whole point ofit.

(32:01):
Right, it's a patch.
You can go down to Commandos orRanger Joe's and buy it.
You know, if you so want to do,to do that.
It's more than that.
When I was platoon leader inIOBC, before I went to Ranger
school, we had a.
We had a 75th Ranger Regimentlegend.
I won't say his name, but hecame out and he was talking to

(32:21):
our, talking to platoon, and youknow everybody was humping his
leg.
You know, like, how can I passranger school?
What can I do this?
you know which phase is thehardest and you know I could
tell it was irritating him and Iwas just kind of I was just
being an active listener in theback.
You know, I'm six foot eight,so I'm either standing in the
front or standing back and uh, Iwas like I don't want to bug
this man you.
This guy's a legend and he'sprobably really annoyed with

(32:43):
these kind of conversations.
And he goes let me stop youthere, guys or lieutenants.
He goes.
Let me just stop you rightthere.
He goes you're either a rangeror you're not.
You just go to the school tovalidate.
And I was like that hit me, Iwas like that was on point.
So when I got my chance, rangerschool, you know you had all
those years of fear kind of beatinto you.

(33:04):
It was institutionalized, right,you hadn't even been to the
school yet, but in some ways youwere.
You were afraid of the unknownbut you knew you had to have to
have some intestinal fortitudeand courage and be willing to
show up.
You know, at zero three in themorning, sit on your duffel bags
in the parking lot and then Iown your pts.
And then when it when it was gotime, it time, and I remember
going into that that bigcircular pit next to the

(33:26):
Malvesti obstacle course to domy pushups.
And I've been practicing, I'vebeen practicing hard.
You know I had my dog.
I cut the, I cut the cord on mydog tags and got it really
short.
So, um, you know, I got longarms.
So when I did pushups, you knowmy nose was like going deep
into that bark.
I think my nose was likebleeding by the time I finished
my 42.
And when I, you know the RIdidn't count, so he was doing

(33:48):
those mind games.
He didn't count your pushups.
You're just there, you're justtrying to do perfect, precise
execution of that exercise.
And when he said, get up,ranger, you're done, the minute
I stood up, pop in the positionof attention and walked out of
that pit, going back to the endof the line getting ready for
sit-ups, I was like I got thisschool.
I got this school in the bag I Ihad broken that threshold of

(34:10):
fear.
That had kind of beeninstitutionalized like.
This is just a school.
You've done all this before,michael.
You know you've been a seniorpatrol leader for a boy scout
troop.
You know leading them on a 75mile backpacking trip from
western washington at diablolake, across the Cascades and in
the Eastern Washington Lake.
Chelan, you've done all thisbefore you carry heavy stuff.
You know what servantleadership is.

(34:31):
You know what the 11 points ofleadership are.
You're tactically proficientbecause I had all that
experience as a, as a platoonleader, an XO, an S4.
I came in very prepared so Icharged through that.
I charged through that.
A lot of it was hey, give methe two 40, do the hardest stuff
.
Um, I went in at 280 pounds andI graduated 64 days later, on

(34:52):
January 28th, my class.
Um, at one 96,.
That's a lot of weight to lose.
So my body just like consumeditself.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
But my mind you're six, eight too, so I want to
make sure people can kind oflike picture that I weigh 190
pounds right now and I'm sixfoot.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yeah.
So I came out as you, I startedas Brabs and I came out as you
know, josh.
Um, that's a lot to lose, right, but I wasn't hungry, right.
I don't think I got hungryuntil mountain, like we.
You need to eat some calories,you know, looking over at my, I
love the Bat Boys, the RangerBattalion Boys.
Like I helped them write all oftheir op orders.

(35:27):
I did eight patrols, had eightgoes.
I think you know you can gocheck my green cards.
I want to do that before Iretire, by the way.
Just go back and read what theNCOs that were my RIs, that
walked the lanes, what theywrote about me.
And at the end of the course Ihad one.

(35:47):
I had one minor minus and thatwas, uh, in mountain phase I was
, uh, the two 40 gunner and wehad a horrific, horrific
movement.
That night, I think everybodyin leadership position got a no
go.
And uh, that night, in a patrolbase, you know, they were like,
like everybody in leadershipposition, get in here and I
looked at my, uh, ammo bearerand my assistant gunner and I
was like I was the firstlieutenant.
I was like, guys, do I need togo into the middle as the 240

(36:08):
gunner and their eyes wererolling in the back of their
head.
So I stupidly walked in themiddle of the patrol base and
the RI was like hey, everybody,that was a horrible movement,
you're all getting minor minuses.
And I raised my hand and I waslike I'm the 240 gunner, he goes
, you're still a leader.
And I was like roger that Iwent up, you know, and signed my

(36:29):
minor minus.
I took it.
So when I got to the end inflorida phase, we were on, you
know, we were, we were on the,the trucks heading back and I'm
sitting in the back.
The whole platoons just zonkedout because they're just there's
physically and emotionally likedead at that point, right, they
, they're all emaciated.
It's like a like someone hadjust liberated a prisoner of war
camp, right.
And I'm sitting in the back,bright eyed and bushy tail, just

(36:50):
looking back at the dust behindthe deuce and a half as as we,
as we head back to sixth RTB,and the RI sitting across from
me.
He's like so what'd you thinkof school?
You know, roster number, tripledeuce Ranger Bradner.
I was like.
I was like I'm going to kind ofmiss it, sergeant, he goes, you
know he goes.
You know you're going to be theofficer honor graduate, right,

(37:11):
and I was like no Sergeant, Ididn't know that.
And he goes.
It's been an honor to you, know, to walk lanes with you.
You know, see your platoon hegoes.
It's one of as I've ever hadthe luxury or honor to be a
Ranger instructor in and Ithought that was pretty cool and
fast forward.

(37:32):
He ended up being one of myplatoon sergeants in Afghanistan
.
Oh, wow, yeah.
But long story short, standingthere at Victory Pond graduating
on December 28th, which justhappened to be my Scoutmaster's
birthday and I told you he wasthe 75th Ranger Regiment guy,
that was the best present Icould ever give to him was
graduating from a school that hecherished, loves very deeply to

(37:53):
this day and not only graduateon his birthday but be the Ralph
Puckett Officer Honor Graduate.
And man, I was so excited.
I was like Ralph Puckett's alegend.
So my class graduating classwas the first class that he
stopped coming out andpersonally presenting the award
to the officer honor graduate.
So I was kind of bummed that Ididn't get to meet him.

(38:14):
And then I graduated, got in mycar and my wife and I had to
beat feet really fast to FortCampbell and the birth of our
daughter two weeks later andthen say goodbye to them and go
to Baghdad to join 175 Cab and2nd Brigade.
And long story short, a coupleof years ago this would be late

(38:36):
2022, one of my best friends,chuck Kogel, who did a lot of
time in a range ofreconnaissance company almost
his entire career.
He was getting ready to retireand his wife came up to me and
was like you know, like the onething he never got in his career
was the order of St Maurice.
I was like, are you serious?
Entire time in regiment andlike he never, never got that
and he goes.

(38:56):
No, it kind of it, kind ofmember of the National Infantry
Association.
I'll do a write-up right now.
Can you get me his DD-214?
And I wrote him up, put him infor the award.
So when we did his retirementceremony at the Ranger Memorial,
his wife, joanne Cogle she's acouncilwoman down in Columbus,
georgia coordinated for RalphPuckett to come out and we

(39:19):
surprised Chuck, you know,colonel Puckett showed up,
showed up, came out and, uh, hepresented, he read the citation
for, you know, chuck cogle,there at the ranger memorial,
and I finally got to meet ralphpuckett, so it was really cool
and we sat down and had a longconversation and just, uh, well,
you know, a wealth of wisdomkind of kind of man and, um, he

(39:42):
shook, um, he shook our handsand he, uh, he goes.
You know, I'm sorry I wasn't atyour graduation Cause we sat
there and talked and I was likeI told him the story and he gave
me, um, one of his challengecoins, one of his personalized
uh medal of honor challengecoins.
And now I got that paired up,you know, with my uh, with my
plaque, and you know that's ofall the things I've gotten

(40:03):
across, 25 years of service, youknow, to include my company
colors.
That's up there, um, and itjust goes to show.
You know, at the time and themoment, you can't be, you can't
be selfish.
Other people have needs, otherleaders have needs.
They're on their own path inlife, but eventually your paths
will cross and it'll all cometogether.
You just have to, you gottahave faith, you gotta stay the

(40:24):
course, you gotta be a believer.
Good things happen to goodpeople and I was just very
fortunate to be in thosepositions and it was a.
It was a really formative partof my career and I know it's
it's just a school, but you knowit holds it holds deeper
meaning for me, Cause you youknow, when you look at somebody
that has one or doesn't, theyeither have it or they got a

(40:45):
story right, yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
It's an instant barometer of like what type of
person they are.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
Yeah, you need to do it, and as a as a new platoon
leader, you don't have thetactical experience.
At the time you and I wentthrough, that was in the midst
of the global war on terrorism,right?
So how dare you say you don'tneed it or you're better than
that?
Because are you better thanyour men that you're going to be
leading?
You need to go throughsomething.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
I kind of think of it like this, like ranger school.
Is it going to make you abetter leader?
Possibly, right.
Is it going to make you aharder individual?
Yes, because you can learn whatyour limits are and then how to
lead people when they're atthat limit.
But one of the things that itis, it's the standard.
It is the bare minimum standardto be a rifle infantry platoon

(41:31):
leader and a company commander.
If you want to do that, youhave to mentally prepare
yourself that you're going tohave to go spend at a minimum 60
days, sometimes more than that,in this school and it's a
marathon.
It's not a sprint and it's it'smentally and physically
challenging, but it is theminimum standard.

(41:51):
We expect this of you if youwant to be a leader in the
infantry.
Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
And one thing I say to myself and even in my family
right, we, my family, we allhave our priorities at work and,
uh, every day, kind of our, ourmotto and I take this to work
too is, um, part of the RangerCreed do more than your fair
share of the task.
Everybody does that.
If everybody's chopping wood,you will have a bonfire to sit

(42:18):
next to and life will be good.
But if people are slacking andthey're not pulling their weight
, then life's not fair, lifebecomes harder.
But if you're on a team afamily unit is a team, you know
and Robotics, requirementsDivision, air Branch, that is my
team and I'm a part of it.
So if my guys, john Dudas andBrian Reed, if they're looking

(42:40):
at me and I'm not pulling myweight and I'm looking at them,
they're not pulling their weight.
It goes back to thataccountability piece and that's
something very unique in themilitary that we, we will always
have and carry with us.
And I think that's why we aredifferent when we go back into
the civilian community, becausewe we look at mission success.
We look to, we are inspired byhaving a vision.

(43:03):
We want to be part of atransformational process.
We want to be part of ademocratic process.
But we want to go places wherethere are people who are
visionaries and are setting outto do the hard, the hard thing.
You know, the hard right overthe easy, wrong, that's.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
You know we're cut from a different cloth when you
transitioned out of the infantryinto where we're at now as like
an acquisition officer.
Walk me, walk me through that.
Um, how, how was that decision?
When did you do it?
How did you find out about it?

Speaker 1 (43:36):
So I was on the North shore surfing and uh, my
acquisition mentor Chaz.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
Bowser, I want a picture.
Uh, six foot eight Brabssurfing in.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Hawaii.
Hey, so I'm not a short boarder, right?
Short boarding isn't cool, man,they're reef huggers, right?
Long boards.
Nothing shorter than 10 feet.
A custom board.
So you don't serve Taiwanesepop outs, you don't serve
plastic, so a custom bowl onglass, glass single fin, big

(44:06):
wave gun or long board.
You know, um, I was out thereon the north shore and I did a
lot of thinking uh, pre and postafghanistan, up there on the
north shore, with my you knowwho I didn't know at the time,
one of my best friends to thisday, chas bowser, and he's like
hey, brabs, have you thoughtabout acquisition?
What are you going to do aftercompany command?
I was like you know what Ireally don't want to be a

(44:27):
battalion S3 or battalioncommander, like.
I really only joined theinfantry to be a platoon leader.
And then, you know, at the timeI took the day I took the guide
on, I got my 10 year letter.
It said your service obligationis fulfilled.
The day I took the guide onwith my first sergeant, first
sergeant Stattmuller JohnStattmuller great guy.

(44:47):
I could have walked away thenand I'm glad I didn't.
But I didn't really see myselfdoing anything in the infantry,
or the army for that matter, atmy 10 year mark of, you know,
rifle company command.
But I'm glad I did it.
It was 26 months to some of thebest months of my life with
Charlie company, comanchecompany in Schofield barracks in

(45:10):
Afghanistan, and I'm stillfriends with a lot of those guys
today.
Matt Starn, stephen McElroy,cw3, eric Scarf, down flying
Apaches at Fort Stewart I didn'tknow what acquisition was and
Chaz, my mentor.
He told me he's like look man,he goes.
You could be the best Ranger,you could be the best rifleman
and you know you can kill badguys, but he goes.

(45:31):
If you go into acquisition andyou work material development
and you work on a weapon system,you work on a munition, you
work on, you know now, a roboticsmall UAS system, he goes.
You help create that system andfield good material solutions
to the warfighter, he goesyou'll be like Kalashnikov, he

(45:53):
goes you can kill a lot of badguys and a lot of people don't
look at acquisition that way.
So you know, he taught me earlyon.
He's like if you want to, ifyou want to solve a problem in
material development, look atthe combat scenario, look at
what you want to neutralize,defeat or destroy and then
backward engineer to thesolution.
Don't predetermine thatsolution, backwards engineer

(46:14):
from the solution or the desiredeffect, the desired effect.
So I was like wow, it reallystuck with me.
So I came in acquisition andI'll be honest with you.
I went to the acquisition basiccourse in Huntsville, alabama,
and I really felt like I hadbetrayed my heart and soul.
I was looking to my left andright.
I was one of only twoinfantrymen no, three
infantrymen in my little smallgroup in that 2014 acquisition

(46:37):
basic course.
And then I got to my firstassignment and it was a culture
shock.
I wasn't surrounded by meateaters anymore.
I was, you know, a lot of leafeaters, but good leaf eaters.
You know experts in their field, system engineers, quality
assurance.
And then I started makingfriends and I started reaching
out to DevCom Armament Centerand making friends with guys

(46:58):
like Russ LaVbar, who helped usdesign the Audible lethal mod
mission payload that we now havewritten into requirements.
You know, I made friends withMichael George, a bunch of other
people across the depth andbreadth at Picatinny Arsenal and
then I was kind of in it, right.
And then I was looking at like,okay, well, what do I want to do
in acquisition?
I knew in the acquisition basiccourse that I did not want to

(47:19):
be a CSL product manager.
I knew from day one.
I was like that's not who I am.
I don't want that, I don't wantthat life, to quote varsity
blues.
So I just went out and startedtaking assignments and they were
some of the least sexyassignments to acquisition
officers and one of my hardestthings against acquisition
officers is a lot of times wecan be selfish, we are seen as
selfish for some of the thingswe are given the opportunity to

(47:45):
do, like advanced civilschooling, training with
industry.
You know, whether you're a 51Alpha or 51 Charlie contractor,
some acquisition officers, Ithink, lack intestinal fortitude
and then some acquisitionofficers have egregious amounts
of intestinal fortitude.
You know, I think of.
You know now Colonel PromotableGibbs, who's PM swore you know

(48:06):
that guy, that guy's a meateater, he's going to go places,
he's a, he's a, he's a changeagent.
And I, you know, I've had someacquisition officers that I'm
like good Lord, you are smart,you have an MBA, you have all
these degrees, but good Lord,you don't have a tactical ounce
of knowledge like in your, inyour meat computer between your

(48:27):
ears.
So you know, one of mydownfalls as a leader is I'm
extremely hard on people interms of I expect you to chop
wood and when I don't see that,you kind of lose my trust and
faith and willingness for me tofollow you.
But I mean, good Lord, ifyou're a meat eater and you're
willing to get after it.
Uh, like Colonel DanielMedallia.
But uh, pmuas, mr Ed Gosder andKevin Luman, you know major

(48:49):
Chris Simpkins up there that Iwork with a lot, or major Morgan
Keffer at a PM swore work inshoulder born sensor Like
they're meat eaters.
They're, they're uh, they'recontagious and they want to be
part of that winning team.
So, yeah, having doneeverything in the acquisition
lifecycle, across the full model, all those jobs, you get to a
point and you have to developthat depth and breadth and for

(49:11):
me, it was doing the one thingthat acquisition officers look
down upon, but it's the onething they all need, right,
alpha and omega, but it's theone thing they all need, right,
alpha and Omega.
Everything begins with arequirement yeah, so I know
you're going to be a future.
You know CSL product managerprogram manager, who knows?
you may be really high up in asalt before your career ends

(49:32):
with with your tenacity andwillingness to get after it.
But I was like I really fell inlove with requirements at Fort
Sill learning under Gary Lemonsand a requirements development
directorate.
Um, and I was like I reallyfell in love with requirements
at Fort Sill learning under GaryLemons and a requirements
development directorate, and Iwas like this is where it began.
So you call a product manager,the first thing they're going to
say is what's the requirement,what are the thresholds?
And then they're going to goestablish their acquisition
performance baseline, they'regoing to develop their act

(49:54):
strategy, but you have to beable to hand them a requirement.
And so I came into this job asan acquisition officer, a
program manager, but with anoperational love for the
infantry, for maneuver, and notjust maneuver.
You know, sustainment, support,uh, intelligence, cyber, um,
all the domains right.
Um, I came into it with a loveand a passion and said I'm going

(50:17):
to make requirements, we'regoing to do requirements, and I
think we are the best Cape Devteam in the United States Army
right now and we're doing workat a joint level.
So we've got the Air Forceknocking on our door.
We've got the Marine Corps, wehave the Navy.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Now we have the.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Coast Guard knocking on our door saying, hey, will
you share your requirements withus?
And I'm like it's that humilitypiece right?
I'm like absolutely 100%, giveme your, give me your dot mil.
It's coming to you hot.
So you got to be part ofsomething bigger than yourself
or your team.
So I think we're affectingchange in that capacity and I

(50:53):
think that's about all I have tosay about RME acquisition.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
I think it comes down like deeds not words.
I always go back to this quote.

(51:17):
When I was doing a lot of fireexercise from, he was in the
unit of freezing.
The guys were pretty tired.
We've done several iterationsat that point it's a final
platoon that was going throughtheirs and they I mean lack of a
better term and not beingpolitically correct right, they
sucked.
It was a bad live fire.
And me I've always had a bigheart, right Like especially

(51:39):
when I lead with people like Itend to be, unless there's life,
limb or eyesight issues, rightLike I tend to be a little bit
more forgiving and I was likeall right, we'll pick up
tomorrow morning.
And he looks at me as he doeshis final AR and he says deeds,
not words, josh, and he walksaway and that always has stuck
with me and I think, like whatyou've talked through, like, and

(52:00):
I agree with you, I've workedwith Colonel Medallia Chris
Simpkins.
He took over my position as theSRR.
I really wish I could have hada better rip with him, but I
knew he's he was going to crushit.
We're going to work togethernext to the Pentagon, so that'd
be interesting to kind of workbeside him.
But there's a there's two typesof of acquisition officers and I
personally believe this.
I think that there are ones whoget into the field because

(52:24):
they're selfish and they knowthat it's going to set them up
for success in the civilianworld and that's their end state
.
And there are those, like you,that are selfless.
They choose that positionbecause they believe they could
be a disruptive, change agentand actually benefit the
warfighter, which I hate theterm warfighter, I don't know
why, it just doesn't stick wellwith me but we need more people

(52:48):
like you that can marryexperience with acumen, if that
makes sense.
Right, like you have tacticalexperience being a maneuver
company commander, seek forthand destroying the enemy right.
We need people that lined inthat, especially nowadays with
all the disruptive technologythat's coming out, and I think
this is a perfect place to kindof go into that, like how

(53:10):
robotics is shaping thebattlefield.
If we're looking at, like theflot, the forward line of troops
and future warfare, it's goingto be like Terminator robots
fighting robots, like Ilegitimately believe that.
And we can see in like Ukraineright now, with the disruptive
behavior of technology and thespeed of war of which it is

(53:32):
growing and iterating, I thinkit's kind of really changing the
acquisition model from howrequirements are generated
before.
And I think a good as a Ravenright, we, and I think a good as
a raven right, we'll just use araven as a model, a
requirements generated for thissystem.
It is then going through athree to five to sometimes a
seven year materialdevelopmental solution.
It is filled it and sustainedfor 20 years.

(53:55):
That model is garbage.
I for us at least, it cannot beused because Moore's Law right.
But now it's even doubled.
Technology is going to double,maybe in six months, maybe in
three months because of theiteration that we're doing right
now.
So how can we adapt requirementsto iteratively change and

(54:16):
continue to give capability toour warfighters?
So our sons and daughters and Iknow you and I share this
because now you got me fired upis that they're the greatest
assets that this country has.
I want my son, if he joins themilitary, to have the best
technology possible, so if hehas to meet someone else on the
battlefield he has thatoverwhelming, decisive power to

(54:39):
come home and then also tostrength through power.
I really believe that, like, ifwe have the capability, it
doesn't necessarily mean we needto use it, but when we do use
it, it's going to work and it'sgoing to be devastating.
So I think this is a greatplace to talk about, like the,
what you're currently doingright now in the robotics space.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
Yeah.
So when Rob Ryan hired me July1st 2022, that's when I started
this job at the time, allservice branches were working on
the joint small UAScapabilities development
document and, coming in as aexperienced acquisition officer,
I knew what that meant.

(55:18):
I saw the possibilities and, um, last night, preparing for this
podcast, just really doing a,you know, introspective, deep
dive on uh myself and justasking myself I don't like, hey,
what does leadership mean toyou?
Perhaps?
Um, doing, doing that, doingthose rehearsals, right, so I
didn't come on here and looklike an ass clown.

(55:39):
So, all the digital universe,think about your words.
I said, hey, google, what isconsidered to be the most
difficult leadership challenge?
And I'll read it to you rightnow.
It said according to manyleadership experts, managing
significant change is oftenconsidered to be the most

(56:00):
difficult leadership challenge,as it involves navigating
resistance from employees,adapting to new situations and
effectively communicating thechange process to achieve
positive outcomes.
And I read that and I was likeholy shit, that is the essence
of what we've been doing thelast two and a half years in
Robotics Requirements Divisionand on the Air Branch team at a

(56:25):
joint level across a variety ofkey stakeholders to include, you
know the 75th Range Regiment,our Army Capability Managers for
our formations, you knowInfantry Reconnaissance Striker,
abct.
That's what we're doing here.
We're going to be that changeagent and it's been difficult at
times.

(56:45):
But in the face of adversity,what do you do?
Face everything and rise rightFear.
And we set out to do that.
We did it with lethalitybecause at the time a lot of
people don't know this, butManeuver Center of Excellence is
not the proponent for UAS, it'sAviation Center of Excellence.
So I had to go down to the UASsummit at Fort Novosel and I had

(57:06):
to join their team.
I had to bend the knee and kissthe ring right, to quote, you
know kind of Lord of the Ringsor the Rings of Power.
No, that was a wrong popculture reference, it's the
other one.
I'm drawing a blank right now.
Where is it with?
Uh calise and the dragons.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
That's, uh oh, game of thrones game of thrones.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
Yeah, you got to bend the knee and kiss the ring
right, otherwise you getscorched by the dragon.
Um, I had to go down to fortnovacell and team with you know,
colonel nicholas ryan and hisdeputy, patrick robin, and, and
now you know, colonel ruizsanchez and tyler booth had a
team with them and say, hey,you're our proponent, this is
what we want to do, this iseverything the Raven wasn't.
This is everything ourformations, maneuver formations

(57:47):
want this system to be Buildorganic assets that the ground
force commander, whether you'rea squad leader, company
commander, platoon leader,battalion commander can use when
air goes black.
You know you don't have fixedwing, you don't have rotor wing
in that firefight.
You don't have ISR platformsbecause clouds have rolled into,
uh, into the Hindu Kushmountains of RCE East.

(58:08):
You know what can I do?
How can I, how can I use arobotic system for robotic
enabled maneuver to make contactwith the enemy, maintain
contact and then, you know, notonly find them but fix them and
destroy them.
And that's really the essence ofwhat we're doing with the Joint
SWAT CD and our family ofsystems is we are making what I

(58:29):
think will be very good materialsolutions that the warfighter
will want to use, and because weare change agents and it goes
back to my comments about notonly being an acquisition
officer but doing the J-SITSprocess and writing requirements
, writing good requirements andputting in their precedent,
changing language.
You know, when you talk aboutthings in legal precedence, we

(58:51):
just got the in 2023, summer of2023,.
We got the joint SWAS CDDapproved by Admiral Joyner, you
know, leading the JROC.
We just got long rangereconnaissance, that annex to
the Joint Swaz CDD approved byGeneral George and it's now
going up to Admiral Joyner atthe JROC for approval.
We put language in there thatchallenged the culture.

(59:14):
You know, socrates always saidthe secret of change is to focus
all your energy not on fightingthe old, but building the new,
and that's what we're doing.
We're building, you know.
We're making that new, new.
As my friend James Hamblin atArmy Special Operations
Requirements Directorate says,we're making that new, new right
.
We're chopping wood and we putlanguage in there that got us

(59:35):
out of the status quo of the2013 capabilities production
document.
That gave us the Raven.
It gave us SRR Tronch 1, 2013,and we're sitting in 2025, and
that's still a document.
So I'm in the process as soonas we get next gen short range
reconnaissance written, we willtake that out in the backyard
like old yeller and we'll put abullet in it.

(59:56):
It's being put down.
The 2017 capabilitiesproduction document for soldier
born sensor.
We are writing the next gensoldier born sensor annex to the
joint SWAT CDD and we'll holdthe other that one too and then
we will have ownership at themaneuver center of excellence
for group one and group two.
That's huge.
And then all the modular missioncapabilities, all the modular

(01:00:19):
mission payload capabilitiesthat come along with that EOIR
sensing, comms, extensionnetwork relay, electronic
electronic warfare plus and I'lljust leave it there.
There's a plus next to it for areason, yeah, and last but not
least, my favorite lethality.
And you know you were therewhen we started doing audible on
.
You know we did our firstaudible drop December 5th 2022.

(01:00:43):
And I posted about this lastnight on LinkedIn.
All the haters, all the haters.
They were on your team, theywere on my team at the Maneuver
Center of Excellence.
All the haters.
And I'll just leave it at that,like eat crow, because we
change things.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
I will never forget.
I had a senior leader in myorganization.
He was basically talking Ithink he had like a pathfinder
event, a usa, something likethat and he was like hey, and I
think it was colonel ryan.
At the same time, too, theywent back and forth.
They're like well, our soldiersdon't need kinetic capability
on group one drones.

(01:01:20):
Who are you to say that?
Like right, like, look at whatchina is doing right now.
They have embedded fpv pilotsin their formation and they have
also developed and investedbillions of dollars.
And then they kind of likeframe it to make it a little bit
more personal for us we do nothave have any fully NDA

(01:01:41):
compliant section eight for aout of the 2020 FPV systems.
Like, as a country, the U?
S does not have that.
And why is that important?
Is that that is a huge combatmultiplier for maneuver
formations, because it allowsyou to find, fix and destroy
exactly what you said.
But then it enhances that killchain, like the SBS, the SRR,

(01:02:05):
mrr, lrr, layering those assets,so we have a disruptive
advantage on the battlefield.
So I can find you, I know whereyou are and then I'll choose
how to kill you, in lack of abetter term, because I have the
tools at my disposal to best endyou.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
That's awesome.
100%, man, it's.
It's like operational terms andgraphics.
Right, it's, it's your.
So you take what you learnoperationally, you take what you
learn as a program manager fromacquisition and you have a
series of overlays.
And one of the things I alwayslike to do in acquisition or an
approach model is minimize thenumber of complex components,

(01:02:44):
maximize the number of commoncomponents and that's at the
core of what we're doing for thejoint SWAS, cdd and family of
systems is that modular missionpayload, that modular modularity
to be able to to use thingsacross the hunter killer
spectrum.
And that's why we've tested sowell with with low altitude
stock and strike, why we'veentrenched ourselves with the

(01:03:05):
aviation community.
You know, brigadier generalKane Baker at future vertical
lift and Colonel Nick Ryan andColonel Luis Sanchez down at
aviation center of excellencewith what they're doing, you
know, with with regard to launchdefects.
When you think about it, whenyou look at the sheer quantities
, the basis of issue plan for ajoint SWAS and I'm just going to
talk about the Army it's ajoint document.

(01:03:26):
So when you get the Air Force,navy, marine Corps and Coast
Guard, when they have thesesystems in mass, you will be
able to concentrate that masswith what will be the largest
Air Force per capita in theworld.
So everybody likes to talkabout Russia, ukraine and China,
but you take our war fightersand I hate that term, you know

(01:03:49):
steely eyed killers.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
I'll use that one.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
When you take all those gals and girls out there,
across the joint servicebranches and the army
specifically, and you arm themwith a small UAS that are highly
capable, multi-tools flying inthe sky, like if you fly we, uh,
we fly, you die, you take that.
I think it's on par with things.
Uh, you know, revolution inmilitary affairs, like the
advent of a gunpowder, uh,nuclear, uh, nuclear

(01:04:14):
capabilities, uh, the fear thatbrings um and what, how we, how
we're seeing things unfold onthe battlefield right now and
thank God we're on the benchright.
Everybody else watched us inthe, everybody else watched us
in the GWAT and they learned,they learned our hard lessons
free.
We're learning hard lessons foryou right now, but we're not
stupid.
We're taking all that open andclosed source intelligence, we

(01:04:35):
are putting it into our emergingrequirements documents and we
will give our fighting force thebest systems.
And it goes back to thatlanguage, right, we've
established precedent.
Precedent was set with the longrange reconnaissance annex.
You know these systems shall beupdated every 36 months or as
needed, based on technologymaturation.

(01:04:56):
So it's kind of like the Abramsengineering change proposal
model how they were able toclimb the ladder in terms of
capability with their systemenhancement program efforts to
go from an M1A1 set B1 to a setB3, all those capabilities and
we cannot have a requirementdocument that's over 10 plus
years old with those really lazyacquisition lifecycle models

(01:05:24):
that show like a shadow, goingout to like 2050.
That dog doesn't hunt right.
So a large portion of theaccountability lies on your
capability developers, yourrequirements writers.
Everybody likes to say you know.
The operational force likes tosay acquisition officers are
jacked up.
You know, they don't know whatwe want.
They don't know what we need.
But acquisition officers willsay what's the requirement, say

(01:05:48):
I can only, I'm only charteredto build the threshold.
So that's why we put thatchange language in our documents
.
So we establish a new precedent.
Going back to the Raven army,Senior leaders were like you and
I.
Both faced it.
The Raven's too expensive.
If you lose it, josh, you couldbe fired.
You know you could face, youknow, financial penalties.

(01:06:10):
Soldiers didn't want to fly itbecause they didn't want to, you
know, have their pay cut or,you know, be under 15, six
investigation because theyweren't trained properly.
And or they hit a crosswind andflew 30 miles into pakistan.
You had to change that.
So we put language in that inthat document that said these
systems will be ace compliant.
You know everybody here ismodular, open systems approach
or architecture.

(01:06:30):
We said these systems will beace compliant and that's
attritable, consumable,expendable it's.
It's a tool no different thanany other tool we have on the
battlefield.
Like nobody bats an eye when uhyou eye when a helicopter fires
a hellfire.
Nobody bats an eye when weshoot a tow or a javelin.
Nobody bats an eye when youfire 90 rounds of 60 millimeter

(01:06:51):
mortars in a firefight on theAfghanistan-Pakistan border.
But everyone bats an eye whenyou try to fly a Raven to gain
decision advantage over yourenemy and something happens.
It's like a safety on a weapon.
It's a mechanical device thatcan and will fail and leaders
have to dial back theaccountability through risk

(01:07:12):
mitigation, make sure theirsoldiers across the dot mil PFP
spectrum, the T are trained toemploy and use that tool
spectrum.
The T are trained to employ anduse that tool.
Because my boss, dom Edwards,says this.
I love it.
He says what robots do aremoderately interesting.
Moderately interesting.
It's like the stocking stuff orradio shack.
You know a little quadcopterthat took like a double A

(01:07:34):
battery that you got onChristmas morning and it broke
or the dog ate it within like 30minutes, right, if you get it,
and then you just push it off tothe side.
That's kind of the Ravenmentality.
That's what we did as an armyfor the last 25 years.
Now you have to say, thecompelling piece of robotics are
the effects that they give usand that's decision advantage

(01:07:55):
the ability to make contact,maintain contact and then have
modularity in your payloads toexercise a hunter, killer model,
organically, not calling forsomeone else to come send it to
you, because nine times out of10, you're probably not going to
get it right, but organicallyhave those solutions, those
tools to employ on a battlefield.

(01:08:16):
And going back to the gunpowdernuclear warfare, naval air
power, air force, air power, airdomination.
I would not want to face anarmy or a joint force the UK,
canada, united States, australia, new Zealand, the Five Eyes.
I would not want to face acombined allied force that had

(01:08:40):
mastered robotic enable maneuver.
It will be the scariest thingout there and we know this for a
fact based on what we're seeingin Ukraine and Russia and what
we're watching China do.
That's fact.
It is.
You go from how we fought inthe infantry.
It has not changed much in thelast 200 years.

(01:09:00):
The robotic enable maneuver willbe that leap forward.
That'll be that next plateauthat we ascend to and if we
master it, if our leadersembrace it and our change agents
and, more importantly, the mostthing, the most important thing
, that people forget thetraining piece.
you have to invest in trainingyour operators, advancing and

(01:09:22):
supporting changes in the forcestructure to have robotic and
autonomous system formations.
You know, you know HMI, youknow what we're doing with tech
brigades.
We have leaders right now thatare being change agents and
change is coming and I'm glad tobe a part of that, that change.
But it's it's chopping wood'rechopping wood to arm those
acquisition professionals, ourprogram managers, our

(01:09:45):
contractors, to go out and getthe best material solution,
because we are going toregenerate our requirements in a
way that arms them with thedocuments they need to go do the
spar and the palm cycle andwork with the Hill and the
Pentagon to get the neededappropriations and obligations

(01:10:05):
of funds to execute theseprograms.
It's a coalition of the willingand we've been building it for
the last two and a half years.
I will be extremely proud tosee whoever takes the guide on
for me as the air branch chiefcoming up here in the next seven
months, five days, andcontinues to like to run, run

(01:10:28):
with scissors.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
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Back to the show.
Yeah, I'll do everything in mypower, too, to make sure they're
successful.
Even though I'm transitioningup to the building, I'm still
going to try to keep my pulse onit, and I?
There's one thing that I thinkyou, you hit the nail on the
head that we have to begin tolike change our mindsets around.

(01:11:33):
It's risk tolerance and, withuas specifically and that's a
broad category, right, I think,robotics specifically, like like
ground, group one, group two,group three, all the way up.
We need to change how we viewthose systems and that we have
to become more risk tolerant.
I think that's one of thehardest things that I've had to

(01:11:53):
work with with engineers.
They want to take all the riskout, 100% of the risk out.
They want to take all the riskout, 100% of the risk out.
And then we, as maneuver youknow, background infantry guys
we're okay with having a healthylevel of risk because we will

(01:12:14):
continue to mitigate it as wecontinue to move forward, but we
don't necessarily allow risk todrive our decisions.
We understand what they are andwe'll make the best informed
decisions at the time.
I think we're at this inversepoint as a military,
specifically because we have allthis disruptive technology.
The easy answer is well, wecan't move as fast because we
don't truly know it yet andbecause we don't know it, it's

(01:12:37):
just too risky versus we needthis.
We need it now because we don'tknow what the next year, two
years, three years, four yearslooks like.
We need to begin to get this inour formations.
We need to start organizing, weneed to start training, we need
to make sure they have theright material solutions, that
we have the supply chains allthe way down to the course
material, where it's coming from, set.

(01:12:57):
So if anything were to happenagain and that's not our goal,
we don't want it to happen butif it were to happen, then we
will be in the position to besuccessful.
And I think that's going to bethe next challenge, with a lot
of like the senior leaders andone of you know, I see is that
how do we change that culture ofrisk and acquisitions?

(01:13:18):
It's NASA and SpaceX.
I think that's a perfectexample, looking at it Like Elon
Musk's way of managing risk andjust making decisions on the
fly of where NASA would neverlaunch a rocket if there was any
possibility that it would fail.
Spacex is catching giganticrockets with freaking sticks,
like that's phenomenal and sosimple at the same time.

(01:13:42):
Uh, but yeah, I a hundredpercent agree with you and I'd
love to kind of get into um, theFPV annex that's getting ready
to get released.
When.
When is that?
Cause I'm super pumped about it, and if you could walk me
through FPV too, cause I knowone thing about you is that you
not only do the requirements,you also have your robotics fan,

(01:14:04):
that you like to go drivearound and fly this as a hobby,
which is awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:14:12):
So it's internationally known as first
person view right.
But we adopted USASOC's namingconvention because we're
capability developers, we'rematerial developers and our new
name for fpv is purpose built, atrittable system.
So just in the name and notalone, you got purpose built.
That applies to modular missionpayloads like the common
lethality integration kit.

(01:14:32):
The devcom armament center isworking to transition to colonel
vince morris program managerfor close combat systems, pmccs
up there at Picatinny.
So purpose-built, a treatablesystem.
It goes back to that language inthe document of allowing
leaders to not be afraid to usethe system because the effects,
the return on investment thatyou will achieve at the small

(01:14:56):
unit, tactical level with thatsystem, when augmented and
hyper-enabled by other systemsin the joint swaths family of
systems, and then also groupsthree, four, five, our aviation
brothers and sisters down atNova cell, the systems that that
they're developing and buildingout.
You know, with future verticallift cross-functional team, it's

(01:15:16):
going to be, it's going to be ascalpel.
And one of the most alluringthings about purpose-built
attributable systems is the lowcost.
Yeah, and then you know that'scritical NBA compliance.
And then lethality.
You know you got folks likeBrian Davis out there and
cracking kinetics that are thatare really they are crushing it.

(01:15:37):
They're change agents and I washaving this discussion last
night on LinkedIn.
I was watching some folks goback and forth in a thread, just
being really harsh on eachother.
Even Bob Sakaki says it a lot.
It's going to take a coalitionof the willing, as we stand up
the industrial base and weempower them with these
requirements, to push capabilityto drive capability development

(01:15:59):
, development, not to push it todrive it.
They're going to be thebackbone of this entire effort.
So you got a lot of peoplelooking at the fpv space or the
now the pbass space, and thewealth of opportunity and
benefits, um, that are going tobe shared by all from that
system, and our warfighters wantit too.
I've had a lot of army seniorleaders over the last two and a
half years that were staunchopponents to FPV.

(01:16:22):
You know like, oh, we're notgoing to fight it like the
Ukrainians are going to fight it.
Like yeah, you're damn right,we're not going to fight it like
the Ukrainians are going tofight it.
We're going to fight itdifferently highly capable

(01:16:43):
systems to apply precisioneffects at the point and
position on the battlefield at atime and place of our choosing,
not like the global war onterrorism, where we all had to
ride IED alleys every day, atime and place of the enemy's
choosing.
Guess what?
We're flipping that paradigmthe coin.
The coin just got flipped right.
So we're going to use thesehyper-enabled robotic and
autonomous systems to be used ina precision manner with very

(01:17:03):
good effects, whether that'santi-personnel, anti-materiel on
the battlefield, in conjunctionwith ISR modular mission
payloads.
So February 4th or 11th I'd haveto go look at the calendar we
are entering into Army-widestaffing.
We got the call last week thatthey're like hey, we want an FPV

(01:17:24):
requirement.
Okay, well, first off, it'scalled PBAS now.
So you know, army, I need tomake sure I start using.

(01:17:58):
Hey, you will go buy an FPV.
I gave him some FPVs that wereloaned to me by a friend up in
the Fort Liberty area and I saidgo out and learn this right now
.
I want you to start choppingwood, write this annex.
And people are like why are youdoing that?
You weren't told to do that.
I was like yeah, but it'scoming.
There will come a time and aplace when an army senior leader

(01:18:22):
reaches down and says I wantthis now.
And if we had done that, wewould have been 12 to 15, 18,
almost 24 months behind thepower curve.
It costs the army $0 excepttime your most valuable resource
to write requirements.
And then when I can take thatrequirement and I can give it to
Colonel Medallia, she's thehappiest acquisition officer
program manager in the worldbecause we are doing our job.

(01:18:45):
So, at every seated across thearmy, your capability developers
need to be tased and motivated.
It's that transactionalleadership style, right?
That's.
What it takes is you have tojolt, you have to jumpstart the
engine and get everybody rowingand chopping wood, uh, to do
this, and that's what we didwith pbass.

(01:19:05):
And we have a phenomenal,phenomenal requirement coming
out prepared to go into staffingthat is defendable both from a
modeling and simulation, or sothat or some math right,
everything we do with regards togaps is tied back to uh
modeling and simulation.
Well, I can tell you right nowit's been verified and validated
.
It is going to be an integralpart of our joint small uas cdd

(01:19:29):
strategy and I can't wait to seewhat our operators do with it.
I was just out yesterday at therange watching, uh, some of the
best fpv pilots in the army fromthe 75th Ranger Regiment
building systems, flying systems, integrating systems on.
You know, medium rangereconnaissance material
candidate solutions.
Company PDW is out there withtheir C-100, air dropping five

(01:19:52):
inch FPVs with lethal modmission payload tactical
trainers that could thentransition to tactical solutions
, lethal mod mission payloads.
So our men and women are outthere doing it.
But we just have to get therequirement document into
Colonel Medallia's hands so shecan do the mat dev piece and
turn it into something real.
And then as requirementswriters we regenerate that

(01:20:15):
requirement, we upgrade it basedon technologically maturing
solutions and enemy threatsystems.
So we outpace our enemies andwe maintain that doctrinal three
to one ratio.
You hear us use 10X down herein R&D at the Maneuver Center of
Excellence and MCD.
We need to have that 10Xcapability.
But it all starts withrequirements, and PBAS is one

(01:20:38):
I'm very proud to have our nameon and and give to our program
managers and see what they dowith it.
And then, more so, what oursteely eyed killers and use your
least favorite word there whatthey, what they take the system
and turn it into when thoseleaders get ahold of it and they
say, hey, this thing's atreatable, consumable.
Expendable.
It gives me decision advantage,a time and place of my choosing

(01:20:59):
.
Consumable, expendable.
It gives me decision advantage,time and place of my choosing.
I can invest, I can train myoperators, I can start
formulating robotic andautonomous system experts,
master trainers, 15 series, uasoperators it'll really be looked
at as master gunners.
Now, yeah, in the air ground,the toral, and then get out
there on the battlefield andkick the shit out of our enemies

(01:21:20):
.
That's the driving force.
So yeah, you get me prettyexcited.
Talking about FPV man, it's onenear and dear to my heart
because I know it is.
Out of all the systems, it'sone of the ones that warfighters
want the most.
Our innovation cells across theArmy SOCOM, usasoc, jsoc

(01:21:41):
they're doing this, they'releading the way.
But we have to get thatrequirement documented because
if we don't do that, we don'tfollow acquisition law, policy
and regulation and do the work,chop the wood.
We can't do the other things.
There is no easy button forthis.
There's no radio shack ofdrones.
They have to be heldaccountable and the

(01:22:02):
accountability lies in thethreshold and objectives, in
those documents that can andwill change.
You know, we build a thresholdbut eventually, as systems
mature, those objectives becomethe new thresholds and you
establish new objectives and youand you keep, you keep doing
that it's.
It's going to be cool to watchthis evolve.
Uh, ms Kimberly Newton she's thedirector of integration at army

(01:22:26):
AFC.
She's looking at this now as avignette.
You know, a member of ElonMusk's uh uh transition team
reached out to us and say, hey,how are you doing requirements?
And we showed them our playbookand they're like wow, this is,
this is transformational.
Um, you know, now with uh yeah,now with uh uh Pete Hegseth
getting um uh confirmed, lastnight we got a new sec def.

(01:22:49):
You know, you heard um in inall his words.
He even heard uh, our newpresident, talking about robotic
and autonomous systems.
I would love for them to gettheir hands on our operational
view models at the macro andmicro level.
And then, hey, invest in us,believe in us, and then, more so

(01:23:12):
, let our warfighters go out anduse this tool.
Train them to be scalpels onthe battlefield at the two-way
petting zoo and unleash thebeast and then manage it,
control it and influence, andthen upgrade it.
Them to be scalpels on thebattlefield at the two-way
petting zoo and unleash thebeast and then manage it,
control it and influence, andthen upgrade it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:24):
I think it kind of goes to um, something I've
always used in my I call ittriple h, the rule of head,
heart hand.
If, if I can explain it to you,um head, you could at least
understand it does it createthat emotional response and I
think you got to actually gobegin to do like a training and
then, once you see it and youfeel it, you have that intrinsic

(01:23:44):
motivation, the ability to godo things.
You're just going to go do themright.
So I think, like getting inwith the transition team now,
explaining it to them, bringingthem out so they can start
seeing the users, it'll buildthat intrinsic motivation and
it'll create that all shitmoment, right, like, oh, we need
to do this, because I can seeall the naysayers right now is

(01:24:05):
that it's going to cost too much, it's going to be too risky,
it's too hard.
I had the honor and theprivilege to go through a UMS
course a little time ago.
Never flown a drone other thanlike an SRR things that had a
lot of autonomy, stacks on it,very easy to do, right, like
they basically fly themselves.
But in the FPV space a lot ofit's like maxed visualization,

(01:24:29):
meaning that you're pushing thedrone to its peak performance
and there's really not a wholelot of autonomy, necessarily in
the current FPV space.
So you have to be an expertpilot Two weeks long long,
building the drones up front.
So I can build a drone now withno experience and I learned
that in 96 hours, which wasarguably pretty easy.
The soldering is the hardestpart, but that's that, that's on

(01:24:52):
the far end spectrum, right,like we're going to have vendors
do that.
And then we had 96 hours ofgoing through a training course
of where we started and I'mtelling, telling you like I'm
not even lying I did a powerloop 60 miles an hour down.
I did not increase the throttleand it went straight into the
ground kamikaze.
But what blew me away is thatthe drone didn't break.
The battery flew off, but I putit right back up and started

(01:25:17):
flying again and it was fine.
And then that's when I realized, as a very humble, josh, I'm
the best drone pilot and builderin the world because I just
made the robust drone in theworld.
But but going to that standpointis that, yeah, it is difficult,
but if I can learn it withhaving no background at all in
96 hours and be able to flythrough buildings and stairwells

(01:25:37):
and stuff like that.
Anyone can do it, because I amjust a humble Appalachian from
rural West Virginia and aninfantryman by trade.
Right Like I am not, I'm notthe sharpest tool in the shed
and what you're doing now isgoing to be absolutely critical,
and I love that.
I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:56):
Yeah, one thing we've run into and, um, people that
know me know I'm very articulate, sometimes verbose and graphic
with my descriptions ormetaphors and analogies, but, um
, that's why I love you.
Yeah, it kind of hit me when wewere doing long range
reconnaissance, um, and I wasthinking back to the lessons
learned with raven, right, doyou know?

Speaker 2 (01:26:15):
how much.

Speaker 1 (01:26:16):
Do you know how much a rifle platoon costs?
Think about that for a second.
How much does a rifle platooncost?
So don't think about it withyour head and your heart.
Think about it with analyticsin terms of modeling and
simulation, because everything'sa war game.
Right, you got to quantify it.
Right, it's qualitative andit's very quantitative.
War is about attrition.

(01:26:37):
Let's just talk about soldiersgroup life insurance.
I was watching a band ofbrothers last night and they
were like hey, you know, makesure, before they were doing the
drop, my son was like why does,why is the light red dad?
I was like because when it goesgreen, they're jumping out of
that airplane.
And a band of brothers, thescene before they're loading up
to cross the English channel anddo an airborne drop.
You know, behind the lines inNormandy, they're like hey,

(01:26:58):
everybody, make sure you go overand sign your soldiers group
life insurance.
You know, then it was $10,000.
So now we're getting toquantitative analytics.
Right, right now, if you or medie, that's a $500,000 payout to
our families, if you've donethe smart thing and you're
paying your SGLI every month,right, yep?
So a rifle platoon with thenumbers you know 30 man platoon,

(01:27:21):
$15 million.
So look back at Iraq andAfghanistan.
How many times you lost a Raven?
You sent a platoon out to golook for it.
So however much a Raven costslet's just say 256 K you're
going to send $15 million justin terms of soldier group life
insurance into a combat zone tolook for a piece of equipment.

(01:27:42):
It's stupid.
And so when we were doing longrange reconnaissance, we're like
, well, you know what, what ifit goes down?
You know what are we going todo.
It's like who cares, you lose.
You lose a vehicle in combat.
You say you lose a map he in.
You lose a vehicle in combat.
Let's say you lose a MAPV inAfghanistan.
You hit a deep buried HME IED.
Not only do you lose that MAPV,you lose the crow weapon system

(01:28:04):
, you lose the FPCV2.
You lose every piece ofequipment to include the
operators.
It's a five-man vehicle, rightGunner, tc driver and two
dismounts.
You lose everybody in thatvehicle.
Look at your return oninvestment with robotic and
autonomous systems.
So if I can fly a long rangereconnaissance out or I can take
an FPV and I can hit a highpriority target, what's the

(01:28:28):
cumulative effects of return oninvestment?
Everybody saw that UkrainianFPV operator.
I think he had something like500 kills and they started to
quantify the return oninvestment.
That one man on the battlefieldemploying a PBAS system.
What it added up to Like he wastaking out SAM sites, he was

(01:28:48):
taking out radars, he was takingout logistical supply trains,
he was killing Russian soldiers.
You start adding that up.
Who cares if the FPV costs witha full-up system costs $1,500?
The return on investment fromthat soldier employing that tool
on the battlefield at thetwo-way petting zoo grossly

(01:29:09):
exceeds what you pay for it MSRPin terms of acquisition, like
cost-scheduled performance costspecifically.
So you have to look at roboticsin that way and that's why we
have a treatable, consumable,expendable in there.
It's like hey, leaders, it'sokay If you use this and you're
using it wisely, your operatorsare trained.
What's your return oninvestment and that's really

(01:29:29):
what we try to get people tofocus on when they look at
robotics is it is an investment.
You can fly that investment outbeyond the forward line of
troops.
So now you have a dynamicforward line of sensors, you
have a 10X capability, you arecreating decision advantage and
you are owning and dominatingthe most important piece of key

(01:29:51):
terrain that exists and that'sthe sky and organically.
We haven't done that in thearmy At a tactical maneuver,
echelon level.
We always farm it out tosomebody else.
We got to phone a friend, butwe're not phoning friends
anymore.
Leaders will make the decisionget it in the sky, rotate it

(01:30:21):
based on its performanceenvelope, battery or power
consumption rates, what payloadsit's carrying, make a decision
to use that tool in the bestmanner to give you decision
advantage, and then make adecision what are you going?

Speaker 2 (01:30:26):
to do PL You've made such like we were talking about
before.
You're like a folk hero in alot of the army space.
What leadership styles did youapply to that from all the
experience that you've learnedbefore national guard moving up,
crushing it through rangerschool to uh rotations, iraq,
afghanistan, all these thingswhat type of leadership did you

(01:30:50):
have to adapt from leadingsteely eyed killers I like that
term better in warfighter thanto civilians, engineers like
these big, beautiful brains?

Speaker 1 (01:31:00):
So you have to be eclectic.
You have to be able to lookinto your internal display case
and have a menagerie ofleadership traits, qualities and
tools.
So in preparing for this lastnight I was looking, I was doing
a deep dive on all thedifferent leadership styles and

(01:31:22):
I came to the conclusion therealization learned a little bit
more about myself.
It's like, hey, perhaps you'renot just one type style that
doesn't define you.
You have to be adaptive.
There may be times when youhave to be transactional, like
you have to scuff somebody up,and I've done that too.
I'm very good at it.
I don't like going high order,but sometimes it takes a

(01:31:44):
thermobaric round to somebody'schest to snap them back into
reality.
If you know, mr Bill Sanvillealways said you know he was
deputy program manager at PMManeuver Ammunition Systems.
You know he was deputy programmanager at PM maneuver
ammunition systems.
You know he.
It always made him mad whenpeople like draped themselves in
the flag or they would just usefalse narratives to justify
their lack of give a damn ortheir lack of willingness to to

(01:32:09):
chop wood and do hard work.
So sometimes it's gotta betransactional and people will
make you mad, but then you knowyou go into being a you know,
like I said earlier a coach.
Hey, maybe Josh doesn't havethe depth and breadth that I do.
I got to coach you to get youup to my level.
You know, if your standard islower, I need to coach you.

(01:32:38):
And then also, you just like ademocratic style of hey, josh,
you know, I think I got theanswers, but I'm going to, I'm
going to exercise some humilityhere.
How would you go aboutattacking this problem?
So you know, that's thedemocratic process.
And then where I think a lot ofleaders lack is, uh, is in
their vision.
A vision should change andevolve as you achieve things.
Um, you know it's.
How many organizations have youbeen where you see the vision
statement and it doesn't changefor the entire time you're there
.
It should change, right.

(01:32:58):
It should adapt your prioritiesand your mission will change
based on the needs of yourhigher headquarters or what they
want you to accomplish.
So if you think you're justgoing to sit in a trench and
your mission set isn't going tochange, you're a damn fool and
you're also lazy, you'recomplacent.

Speaker 2 (01:33:17):
Complacent skills.
You're a damn fool and you'realso lazy, you're complacent.

Speaker 1 (01:33:18):
Uh, one thing I, yeah , um, you know I hear a lot of
this.
One's a lot, um, a lot ofpeople hate the word servant
leader.
I think it's a good thing.
Um, you know, uh, two years agoI went through the adult uh
wood badge course.
Um, which is like the the boyscouts of America kind of.
It's the adult leadershiptraining thing.
Right, it's like the rangerschool of uh, of adult
leadership and scouting.

(01:33:39):
So, yeah, I was a scout, I wasan Eagle scout, um, I learned
leadership there.
But to go back and exercisepatience, it's like I was in the
woods last week with my son'stroop.
It was three degrees in a blueRidge mountains, three degrees.
So how do you mitigate risk?
Right, so we found a propertywith a two story barn that we
could have shelter, right, youknow, we got 60 gallons of

(01:34:02):
propane tanks, we bought spaceheaters, so we made a safe
environment so they could goexecute like their snow sports
program.
So it's the guiding, it's theguiding force of leadership.
So how do I, how do I, how do Iprotect my element, my
subordinates, to enable them todo what they need to do, and
that's grow, learn, adapt, failoften, fail early, be challenged

(01:34:26):
.
So that's why I love the BoyScouts of America so much is
because it offers young men andwomen now the opportunity to
learn leadership lessons.
Like you don't really get thatsometimes in a sport.
You know my daughter doesshotgun.
It's an individual sport.
I did, you know I shot.
I shot in high school and Ishot collegiately.

(01:34:47):
It's an individual sport butcollectively it's considered a
team sport.
You know, are you on a footballteam?
Are you the quarterback?
You know, are you the teamcaptain?
There's a lot of leadershiproles layered in into life and
the things we do.
But in doing all of them, oneone, one size doesn't fit all.

(01:35:08):
You have to.
You have to learn.
You know you look at specialmissions, units and USASOC.
You know my favorites, the 75thRanger Regiment, who I consider
to be the standard bearers ofthe United States Army.
Usually if they're doingsomething they are the change
agents for the rest of the Army.
You know what they did withphysical fitness.

(01:35:28):
Look what they've done with.
You know small unit tactics andthen those leaders within that
organization cycle back out intothe operational force.
You know there's there's manygood ones out there.
And then you have operationalguys in the infantry and other
branches that are doing things,they're adaptive, they're
learning and as, uh, I think onething we're fortunate to do as
army leaders is we're never inone spot too long.

(01:35:51):
You know, I think over thecourse of those 25 years I was
moving like almost every twoyears.
So you're getting thrust into anew environment where you have
to change and adapt based onthat organization's mission, its
culture, its people, itsleaders, whether they be good or
weak, and you have to learn.
Like I showed up at Fort Sill,to be as an acquisition officer

(01:36:13):
is my second assignment in theacquisition corps and when I got
there no joke, they asked methey're like, why are you here?
And I was like what do you mean?
Why am I here?
And they're like, well, you'renot a, you're not an air
defender and you're not a fieldartilleryman.
And I thought about it and Isaid, yeah, but I'm an
infantryman and I'm anacquisition officer.
And I was like, at the crux ofwhat I do is maneuver.

(01:36:36):
And last time I checked, bothof those branches work to
support maneuver.
That's why I'm here.
And yeah, colonel KellyLaughlin looked at me.
He was the senior acquisitionadvisor at Fort Sill at the time
when I arrived to FC did, andhe said I'm going to make you
the S&T advisor.
It's a Lieutenant ColonelBillet, I know you're just a
major but I'm'm gonna put you init and um, so I had to.

(01:36:57):
I had to punch above my weightclass right, and I had to learn
quickly because I didn't knowair defense.
Um, I you know I called forfire a lot in afghanistan, like
we rocked the hell out of thoseuh toad triple sevens, shooting
charge eight, uh not you knownine times out of ten.
So I knew a little bit moreabout field artillery, but I was
weak sauce and air defense.
And now look what we're doingwith counter UAS and small UAS

(01:37:19):
and how that now layers into themacro level or operational view
and that architecture, thatsystem of systems.
So leaders rise to the occasionand then losers always talk
about their past.
Winners go out and make newopportunities and are change
agents.
So even with Ranger School, I'mproud of what I did there, but

(01:37:40):
no one cares.

Speaker 2 (01:37:41):
And that's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:37:42):
It doesn't define you .
It's like what next?
How do you take what you'velearned and apply it to the next
target set in life?
Talk about that 25 meter targetand how you hit it, but what
are you doing to change and getout and touch that 300 meter
target and accurately touch that300 target out and touch that
300 meter target and you know,accurately touch that 300 target
consistently.
Uh, you know, touch that, uh,that 300 meter target, knock it

(01:38:03):
down what's beyond the uniformfor you.

Speaker 2 (01:38:07):
So let's kind of get to that point.
Like you, you've served almost25 years probably a little bit
more than that when you getready out, uh, you've made a lot
of disruptive change for thebetter for the army and you're
leaving it a better place thanwhat you probably took it as
what's next for you leadershipbeyond the uniform well.

Speaker 1 (01:38:27):
Finally, at a point in my life where you know we own
our house, we've set conditions, everything I've done, I've
backward.
I always have a backwards plan,right, it's like the
acquisition framework I told you.
It's like find what you want tokill, neutralize, defeat or
destroy and work back from that.
I've had that in my head sinceI enlisted in December of 2001.

(01:38:50):
I always knew this day wouldcome and I gave you kind of the
cancer diagnosis analogy I gotseven months, six days.
I'm really starting to feelthat now.
Or diagnosis analogy I gotseven months, six days.
And like it's really, I'mreally starting to feel that now
I'm also proud that we've beenchopping wood.
As I hand this guy on or batonoff, I feel confident that

(01:39:10):
enough change is in motion now,like there's a bow wave of
change that's built up that Ican take the uniform off and
then stay active in this space.
Um, in 2001, when I enlisted,if you had told me like hey,
you're going to be doing roboticsystems, uh, at the end of your
career, uh, as an acquisitionofficer and, uh, an infantryman,

(01:39:31):
I would have been like you'recrazy, right?
Um, you can't see, you don'tknow what's coming, but to be
here to be next to Fort Benning,which is a place, I'm sorry,
fort Moore.

Speaker 2 (01:39:42):
Yeah, it's a.
It's a tough challenge topronounce the right way.

Speaker 1 (01:39:46):
Yeah, yeah.
And my mind is, when I thinkback in time, like, well, I can
I call it Benning, because itwas Benning at the time I was
there, and now it's Moore, andGeneral Moore was great, great
man, and so was his wife.
So now that we're here at FortMoore for the fifth time you
know we live up north of thebase, it's a place near and dear
to my heart, and just yesterdayI was out on a range and I was
like holy cow In the summer of2002, I was out here on Sand

(01:40:11):
Hill digging foxholes.
I was out there, you know,talking to Rob Ryan and kind of
brought it all home.
I was like, wow, this is prettycool man, it's a walk down
memory lane.
And other guys that were outthere still in uniform and then
out in uniform working forindustry, demonstrating
capabilities for the upcomingarmy expeditionary warfighter
experiment that we're gettingready to go deep into, they were

(01:40:32):
all walking down memory lanetoo.
So I'm at a place in my lifewhere, you know, we actually
hang pictures on the wall nowbecause we know we're not moving
in 18 months.
So that's, that's comforting myfamily settled, my kids have
friends.
We're part of a community youknow we're actively involved in
scouting and the sports thatthey're doing.
And you know working with locallaw enforcement up here in

(01:40:53):
Harris County to try to try toteach them about small UAS, not
in a tactical capacity, but youknow, extend that sphere of
influence and take a skill setthat you've learned and become
intimately ingrained andintertwined with and and teach
them, make them better as theyserve and protect the community
as something I look forward to.

(01:41:13):
And then you know I talked abouthaving done every job across
the acquisition lifecycle.
You know, from conceptdevelopment, capability
development, program managementacross.
You know milestones A, b and C,science and technology, working
with Army Futures Command andnow five cross-functional teams.

(01:41:35):
You know air and missiledefense, long range precision
fires, future vertical lift,soldier lethality
cross-functional team.
Close combat lethalitycross-functional team.
You know taking that experience,operational test, big one that
a lot of acquisitions like shyaway from because they're
cowards.
You know I don't want to go toFort Hood, I don't want to be a

(01:41:56):
test officer.
You know the, the OER profilesaren't there from from leaders
it's like, hey, man, quit beinga coward, like why don't you go
down there and take what yougive back, give back to one of
those, those test directorates,with your operational basic
branch knowledge and make thembetter.
Test the stuff that you knowour Cape devs and Matt devs are
turning into material solutions.

(01:42:16):
Go test it.
You know, quit being a coward.
You know, quit.
Quit trying to hide out PEOsfor your entire career.
And and dodge operational testcommand.
Get down there, take that step,go learn testing, cause you'd
be surprised how manyacquisition officers call me and
ask me for a test experience.
Like, hey, how do I, how do Inavigate?

(01:42:38):
Like the T-SART process ofgetting you know soldiers
assigned.
You know what are the steps inoperational testing within a
tech and operational testcommand or AEC, cause they don't
know, cause I've never beenthere.
There's a lot of value in ittoo.
And when you go to industry,what's one thing you have to
navigate with a program manageris going into operational tests.
That's like your final check umbefore a full material release.

(01:43:02):
Um, you know, first unitequipped like it's a condition
setter, right, it's a milestoneum with embedded within the
acquisition lifecycle and if youdon't pay attention to it or
you're not knowledgeable aboutit, you're probably going to
fail.
Or your system is going to failUm, because you know, know you
didn't build in your systemevaluation plan, your uh, your
temp, um, if you don't knowthose things, if they're in
words only, you don't have thatexperience.

(01:43:23):
Um, that's a gap.
That's a capability gap, right,we talk gaps and modeling and
simulation, the foundationalstructure of which we build
requirements off of, that's agap in your own depth and
breadth skill set.
So when I retire, retire, allthose things said, you know
everything I just mentioned.
I want to transition to industry.

(01:43:45):
It's the one part of the lifecycle that I haven't experienced
.
So I got a gap Right.
But I think I have a lot tooffer and bring to the table in
terms of program management,operational experience and then
working across that entireacquisition lifecycle.
I want to go there.
I want to do program management,I want to work on systems that
I believe in.
So I want to stay in therobotic and autonomous system

(01:44:07):
realm.
I want to maintain positiveinfluence and be a contributor.
I want to be a giver and not ataker across the joint small UAS
CDD family of systems.
And so, you know, focus reallydown on that group, one group,
two level, where you know thatpulls on my heartstrings and
that's, you know, doing, doingthings for doing things, for the

(01:44:30):
maneuver force.
So I'm going to stay here atFort Benning.
I want to be expeditionary andI want to work with a company
that's working in that jointSWAS CDD strategy space and
continue to work with capabilitydevelopers across the DoD
enterprise to continue to shapethis Right, cause you know you

(01:44:51):
can talk about it.
Talking about it One thing isone thing, but you got to
actually be about it.
Yep, deeds not words.
Deeds not words, heart, what'dyou say?
Head, heart hand.
Head, heart hand.

Speaker 2 (01:45:02):
Triple H, yeah, triple H.

Speaker 1 (01:45:05):
Mine was the undertaker actually, so he was
more transactional.
But yeah, that's, that's what Iwant to do, josh, and I
appreciate you asking me thatman, not a lot, not a lot of
people ask that I think it'simportant because, I mean, this
podcast is all about trying tohelp people on their leadership
journey and life, in my opinion,is an entire journey.

Speaker 2 (01:45:31):
It is a marathon.
We have self-leadership.
We have to learn to leadourselves.
We have a family.
We have to learn to lead ourfamilies, lead our work.
At some point we all hang up theuniform, we put up our uniform,
but we're still going tocontinue to lead our families,
lead our work.
And it's some point we all hangup the uniform, we put up our
uniform, but we're still goingto continue to serve and in
whatever position is luckyenough to have you, whatever
organization is lucky enough tohave you, they're going to get a
disruptive leader but anamazing motivator at the same

(01:45:54):
time.
And that's hard like havingsomeone who can motivate and be
disruptive at the same time.
And that's hard like havingsomeone who can motivate and be
disruptive at the same time,because usually it's a bold
personality.
But you have that humblepersonality and that's learned
through experiences, usuallytough experiences, that we both
share.
So I'm excited to see where youtake it next and how you
continue to advance, like whatyou're passionate about, what

(01:46:16):
I'm passionate about and thenpotentially, you know still
working together.
I'd love to have you on theshow a year from now just to see
that experience, like how youwent through the skill bridge
process, how you got aligned toa company, how you continue to
work to advance this and whereyou're at and what you're still
passionate about.
So I I genuinely am appreciativefor people like you who have

(01:46:38):
that selfless service.
You've already served 25 yearsand now you're getting ready to
go do that again in the privatesector, but it's still towards
the same purpose and you'rebuilding that momentum.
So I appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you.
I'd love to kind of get now.
So you've just broke a recordon Tales of Leadership.
By the way, I don't think I'veever had a podcast over an hour.

(01:46:58):
I've just realized that we'vebeen filming for an hour and 48
minutes.
It's like the Joe Rogan shownow.

Speaker 1 (01:47:03):
I know it kind of feels like Protect Our Parks
without the bourbon.

Speaker 3 (01:47:10):
It's time for our final show segment that I like
to call the Killer Bees.
These are the same fourquestions that I ask every guest
on the Tales of Leadershippodcast Be brief, be brilliant,
be present and be gone.

Speaker 2 (01:47:27):
Question one what separates a good leader from an
extraordinary leader in youreyes?

Speaker 1 (01:47:33):
Doing more than your fair share of the task and that
internal acknowledgement that,hey, if I need to cross the line
of departure at at zero five,I'm probably up at zero three
doing what I need to prep as aleadership, as a as a leader,
and then I'm.
You know, when are you wakingup?
When are you waking up the men?
They don't.
How are you giving them theirtime?

(01:47:54):
It's the one third, two thirdsrule, right, right, but it all
boils back to doing more thanyour fair share of the task, and
that's hard for a lot of peopleto do, and I'd be a liar if I
said, even this morning I waslike why in the hell did I
choose the 08 time slot?
But I was like I got up early,man, I got up at 04.
I prepped my workstation, gotmy associated materials for

(01:48:21):
things I want to talk aboutthat's doing more than your fair
share of the task.
It's also respecting you,running this podcast and trying
to kick out a really goodproduct and have dialogue with
folks and help people on theirtransformational path of
improving their leadership.
It all boils back to doing morethan your fair share of the
task and chopping wood.
I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:48:38):
It all boils back to doing more than you're
appreciated at task and choppingwood.
I love that.
Always goes back to a quotethat I've lived my life by from
Aristotle we are what werepetitively do.
Excellence, then, isn't an act,it's a habit.
I love that, dude.
All right, so question two whatis one resource that you could
recommend to our listeners?
It could be a book, anything.

Speaker 1 (01:49:00):
Yeah, so I'm, uh, I'm reading tipping point, uh,
right now.
And then also, you heard me saythe 11 points of leadership, so
you can Google it.
Google 11 points of leadership,uh, boy Scouts of America,
scroll down and you'll find them.
Uh, that was very, that wasvery cutting and informative for
me, learning leadership earlyin life, and I've always kept it
with me.
So if you don't have that inyour toolkit, I'd recommend that
.
Another one is Dr AnthonyRandall.

(01:49:22):
You know, ex army chaplain.
He's an assistant scout masterwith me.
I just had a new book come out.
Read his book as well andalways be on that path of
learning, because if you thinkyou got it figured out, you're
so wrong.
You're so wrong right, you canalways learn, constantly,
inspired by my, my team andothers.

(01:49:44):
You know you, uh, you as well.
You know major Chris Simpkinsand major Matt Huff at it, the
fire center.
You can always learn.
So, uh, yeah, I'd say um yougotta kind of you learn, you
learn to be either the salesman,the Maven or the connector,
Right, and then what percentageof each of those you know?
Boil it back down to analytics.

(01:50:04):
You know, uh, dom Edwards, myboss the other day, he's like I
really see you as like a 50%connector, you know, uh, and
then maybe like 25% Maven, andyou know 25% salesman.
Um, you know to to make that ahundred percent and he goes.
But the thing with you, brad,you fluctuate, you know, you
know, you, you is that youfluctuate.
You can go all in to that piechart in one piece if you need

(01:50:24):
to, but he goes.
I always see you coming back tobeing the connector in that
triad.
So, yeah, those are threethings I would say, tipping
point, 11 points of leadership,and then Dr Anthony Randall's
new book.

Speaker 2 (01:50:38):
I love it.
So third question if you couldgo back in time and give your
younger self a piece of advice,what would it be?

Speaker 1 (01:50:45):
Don't be so quick to rush to a red light.
I think oftentimes we got a lotof tenacity and audacity and
risk-taking when we're younger.
Don't rush to a red light.
Take your time.
As I look back on a 25-yearcareer and where I am now, I
probably wouldn't have been ableto be as successful in this job

(01:51:05):
if I hadn't gone through thegauntlet of all the other jobs
that I've done over those 25years.
So it's developing depth andbreadth and experience.
So if you're in a job, even ifyou're the leader or, more so,
the follower, learn why you'rethere.
Learn everything you can aboutthat job.
It's the next man up drill,right?

(01:51:27):
What are you going to do if I'myour platoon leader and I get
killed?
You have to rise to theoccasion.
So take all those experiences.
Life is an experientiallearning model with leadership
inflection points sprinkled inalong the way where you will
grow.
You know my.
My dad always told me you know,if I did something wrong or

(01:51:47):
whatever, he's always likeMichael.
He's like age, and treacherywill always overcome youth and
exuberance.
He's like I brought you intothis world.
I can take you out of theirstud, so tread lightly.
My Scott master, Greg Tozer,always said I was an equivocator
, right.
They'd tell me where the linewas and I'd get up on the line,
and when they weren't looking,I'd step over the line and I'd
push the envelope.
So be an equivocator, take riskand all those other things I

(01:52:11):
just said I love it, man.

Speaker 2 (01:52:13):
So the last question anyone who's listening to this
podcast, they want to reach out.
How can they add value to youor what you're trying to do?
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:52:20):
now I'm going to be self selfless on this one.
If you're in a space across theDOD enterprise, take time out
of your day to learn what we aredoing with the joint small UAS
capabilities developmentdocument.
You're not helping me, you'rehelping those steely eyed
killers.
Uh, our war fighters, oursoldiers, our airmen, our

(01:52:41):
sailors, our special operationsforces, um, our, our Coast
Guardies.
You're helping them.
So, um, take a deep look intothis, this robotic and
autonomous system space, andthen look at what avenues of
approach you have, seems you canexploit with the codified
requirements, documents in theexisting framework, law, policy

(01:53:04):
and regulation andappropriations.
Beef us up, help us go faster,hold us accountable to
regenerate those requirementsand then, more so, take those
lessons learned, if they'redeemed to be of value, and share
them with other teams.
They may not know what theydon't know or they may have

(01:53:25):
never been pushed to this extent, but you have to find
opportunities in life and I wasvery fortunate to find this
opportunity and RRT and have RobRyan believe in me and who I
was and what I can bring to theteam.
No man, no man is an Island.
Right, help, that's, that'sreally what I want.

(01:53:46):
Don't help me help enable theadvancement of robotic and
autonomous systems.
I'll be fine, I'll find.
I'll find my own way.
I always do.
I'm like a cat, I always landon my feet.
But yeah, I really want helpacross that space, especially
with regard to the Joint SmallUAS CDD, because I truly believe

(01:54:07):
in it.
I believe in the work we'vedone and I think once we start
rolling out these systems, westart regenerating and upgrading
these systems.
The United States and the FiveEyes are going to be a
powerhouse, a world powerhouse,and how we are going to
fundamentally change the way wefight wars.

Speaker 2 (01:54:25):
This has probably been, selfishly, one of the best
podcasts that I've been able tofilm, because one I get to
reconnect with you, which hasbeen absolutely awesome, and
then two we're cut from the samecloth, so it's always
refreshing to have someone onthat shared the same life
experiences and then we're soaligned with what we're
currently doing right now.
But again I leave it here isthat I am appreciative of

(01:54:49):
everything that you've done andcontinue to do, and it's been a
pleasure to kind of know you, myfriend.
So thank you for being a gueston Tales of Leadership, and if
there's anything I can ever dofor you more than willing, just
phone call away.

Speaker 1 (01:55:03):
Yeah, let's go fly FPVs, man.
Or, I'm sorry, let's go flypurpose-built detritable systems
.

Speaker 2 (01:55:09):
Yeah, I'm going to try to unlearn the term FPV, so
I use PBAS from Nolan.
Thank you, appreciate it, josh.
Awesome it, josh.
Yeah, have a good one.
Thank you.
All right, team.
That was an absolute amazingepisode.
I really never filmed anepisode for almost two hours.

(01:55:30):
I feel slightly like Joe Rogan,I guess, in a way, and I could
have easily went way beyond twohours, but I want to go get a
workout and Brabs needs to goshoot Right.
So this has been an absolutelyamazing.
So now it's time for our afteraction review.
What are the top three takeawaysthat I wrote down from this
episode?

(01:55:50):
And I think the first one isleadership is not a set style,
it's adaptive.
So what does that mean?
Is not a set style, it'sadaptive.
So what does that mean?
We have tools in our toolkitthat we gain through experience
and that were put into aposition of influence or title
is given to us.
We choose the right leadershiptools to inspire and direct and

(01:56:14):
provide that motivation forother people.
However, I really believe, andat the core of Lieutenant
Colonel Brabner, we all havecore values.
Those core values are what areconsistent throughout our lives.
Humility is definitely one,brabner, and I think another one
is radical candor.
But we have those core valuesaligned to us.

(01:56:36):
All the rest of our leadershiptraits and skills are adapted to
the environment we have.
So you need to understand thatthat you're going to continue to
get new leadership challenges,new positions in your career.
It's okay to adapt differentskill sets to those, but make
sure you always hold your corevalues to who you are.
But make sure you always holdyour core values to who you are

(01:57:01):
so you're showing up as yourtrue, present self, never as
someone fake with arterialmotives.
The second one is do your fairshare of the tasks.
That is something that Ibelieve a lot of people need to
hear, because leadership isselfless, not selfish.
What does that mean?
It means that you are going togo.
Need to hear because leadershipis selfless, not selfish.
What does that mean?
It means that you are going togo.

(01:57:21):
Need to do the hard things, dothe hard rights over the easy
wrongs.
It's easier said than done, butwhen you're faced with a
problem, are you going to takeon your fair share of the tasks
or are you just going to try todelegate?
Or are you going to wait untilthe next person comes in your
position and not even solve theproblem.
If you are a purposeful,accountable leader which I know

(01:57:42):
you are because you listen tothis podcast you do your fair
share of the tasks.
Do not deviate from those ortry to get away from your own
responsibilities.
And the last one is risk.
We are in a place and time inour world where we are seeing
amazing technological feats, andI go back to what SpaceX is
doing right now.

(01:58:03):
We landed on the moon, we wereable to do that, and we didn't
have another successful one foralmost over 40 years until this
man from South Africa came hereand decided he was going to be a

(01:58:27):
disruptive agent.
It takes risk.
He had three failed rocketattempts before he finally had a
first fourth one.
Risk is incremental andengineering right, like, if we
fail it doesn't mean that wefailed, it just means that we've
learned.
So next time it can becomebetter and it would come better
and it come better.

(01:58:48):
So, where that learning curve,efficiency applies.
But you, as a leader, onefundamental truth is probably
the most important, regardlessof where we are on our phases of
leadership right, it's ourability to absorb information
quickly, determine the risk,then move out.

(01:59:10):
Do not allow risk to paralyzeyou in your decision making.
And both Brabs and myself we'vecome from a different cloth.
We're both infantry officers,we've both been in combat, we've
both led troops in combat.
We've had to make decisionsthat means life or death on the

(01:59:31):
spot.
A lot of people don't do that,and that's okay.
That doesn't mean that you'reany less of a leader than we are
, but we are adapted makingthose types of decisions and
quickly weighing risk.
You need to learn how to dothat if you're going to continue
to be a purposeful, accountableleader in this world.
All right, team.
Hey, do me a favor.
Make sure that you do a couplethings.

(01:59:51):
Make sure you like this podcast, make sure you subscribe on
whatever platform you choose tolisten and, if you so choose,
make sure you share this podcast.
Leave a comment if you're able,and if you would like to donate
to the show, you can go totells a leadership on
buzzsproutcom and there'sabilities to do that, and I
promise you, everything that Imake from this podcast helps me

(02:00:14):
continue to make good contentfor you guys, because it's not
easy as an active duty armyofficer and I'm financing this
all myself and if you listen tothis and you want to be a show
sponsor and you align with mycore values.
Reach out.
I'm absolutely open to tryingto find the right show sponsor
for this podcast so I cancontinue to make the best
content possible for you guys inthis world.

(02:00:35):
As always, team, I'm your host,josh McMillian, saying every
day is a gift, don't waste yours.
I'll see you next time.

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#109 Michael Brabner - From Infantry to Innovation

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#109 Michael Brabner - From Infantry to Innovation