March 3, 2024 • 50 mins
Guest Introduction:
- Retired Naval aviator Charles McKinney joins the podcast, emphasizing the importance of planning in military aviation.
- Early Influences and Career Beginnings:
- Born into a Navy family, McKinney's childhood aspirations of becoming an astronaut steered him towards a career in naval aviation.
- Despite setbacks, such as not being selected for the Tactical Jets pipeline, McKinney adapted his goals and found fulfillment in flying the CH-53 helicopters.
- Relationship Between Pilots and Maintenance Crew:
- McKinney highlights the critical partnership between pilots and maintenance crew, emphasizing shared responsibility for aircraft care and safety.
- He shares insights from his experience as a maintenance officer, underscoring the importance of professionalism and proficiency in aircraft maintenance.
- Aviation Mindset and Leadership:
- McKinney discusses the mindset required for working in an high risk job, including a commitment to mission success, attention to detail, and constant learning.
- Reflecting on his leadership journey, McKinney emphasizes the evolution of leadership principles and challenges faced during transitions to civilian life.
- Conclusion:
- The episode offers valuable insights into military aviation, leadership principles, and their applicability to beyond military service
If you like the MFREE Podcast, be sure to give us a review on your favorite podcast platform to help others find us and leverage the knowledge and experience our hosts and guests have to offer. We greatly appreciate you for tuning in and see you in the next episode!!
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (00:00):
Welcome all you multifamily maniacs and
(00:02):
veterans to the another episodeof the multifamily real estate
experiment podcast.
Season three is going to beexciting because that's where
we're going to dive into theminds of our military veterans
and give you some informationthat we think is valuable for
you.
So today we have Mr.
Charles McKinney, who is aretired naval aviator and if you
(00:25):
know anything about navalaviation.
One thing you will know is theimportance of planning.
So everything we do is a plan,for example, for me, and on a
maintenance side, we do whatmaintenance means, which is a
part of our planning.
We all, but all that stems fromthe things that a commander I've
put into motion working withoperations, and then bring it
down to us, the maintenance toexecute and all that ties into
(00:48):
the flight schedule.
So, we are hoping to get someinformation today from Mr.
Charles about his involvementwith planning.
And the importance andimportance of that in the
military and how it can betransitioned into your civilian
life.
So without further do, Mr.
McKinney, how are you doingtoday, sir?
Charles McKinney (01:07):
Good morning.
Good morning to you.
Doing great.
Thank you for the invitation.
A pleasure to be here.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (01:12):
Absolutely.
Appreciate you joining us today,sir.
Let me ask you this before weget into a little bit more about
yourself.
Do you have a favorite realestate quote or mantra that
drives you?
Charles McKinney (01:22):
Wow.
If you're talking about realestate, one thing that's been
hammered home time and timeagain, to me, even since I was a
little kid.
Is location, like the first, andlast rule of real estate.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (01:36):
I appreciate that.
Location.
Mr.
Charles 20 years in themilitary.
I don't think my shortintroduction did your bio any
service, right?
So can you tell us a little bitmore about yourself?
Where you started?
Before we started recording, youmentioned that you gave a
military background.
So, I'd like to hear a littlebit more about how you started
and what brought you to themilitary and a little bit more
about your military journey.
Charles McKinney (01:55):
You're right.
It's quite a long story and Idid start in the military quite
literally.
My father was in the Navy, so Iwas born into a Navy family and
we moved around a lot.
And I can't tell you where I'mfrom.
That's my question.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But whenever someone asks methat question, I tell them I'm
from a military family, and thathad a lot of influence.
Of course, my dad was a civilengineer in the US Navy, and I
(02:18):
like that lifestyle of livingnear beaches, and growing up in,
in different locations.
We spent some time in Guam inthe Pacific as well.
And that was great.
I'll tell you 1, 1 thing thatshaped me.
My trajectory, aside from allthe nice pop culture science
fiction movies and aviation andnot what you think, not what
(02:41):
many people might think.
Actually, I have a soft spot forthe final countdown.
Look that one up.
That's a pretty cool movie aboutus Navy.
All right.
After that, I got interested inthe space program back then.
Columbia launched and it wasgreat.
And I thought, Oh, I love to dothat.
And then actually, we had thedisaster, the challenger
(03:02):
disaster.
And that cemented in my mind, Ineed a plan if I'm going to do
this and not just because notthe danger didn't draw me to it.
It was just, I thought, thoseastronauts were such brave
people and they were willing torisk it all to punch through
that sky and get out there.
And I'm like, we need to keepthis going.
So I thought, how do you becomean astronaut?
(03:24):
And this is planning.
This is the first planning.
Some of the first thing I everdid was, okay, you begin with
the end in mind.
Okay, the goal is astronaut.
What do you have to do to becomethat?
Okay, you probably need someadvanced science degrees and
some experience.
To fly it, the only people I seeflying it are military aviators,
jet pilots, from the Air Force,the Marine Corps, US Navy.
(03:47):
So I thought, okay how do youbecome one of those?
You gotta get selected andbecome, go through the flight
program.
How do you do that?
You have to get your degree andget into the Navy into that
program.
What goes before that?
Okay, there I was, about to getthrough, high school and I
thought, Okay just continue ongetting those good grades,
concentrate on science and mathand go and apply to a good
(04:11):
school that will help mecontinue that.
And I ended up going to GeorgiaInstitute of Technology, got a
degree in civil engineering.
And got into the Navy aviationpipeline through Officer
Candidate School.
So I went down to Florida forthe, the Aviation Officer
Candidate School.
And got through that, got myeyes commissioned and off to
(04:33):
flight school.
I went and, got through flightschool that was, and here's now
is when your plan doesn't go toplan and you have to divert and
go through go to a little branchplan.
So I didn't get selected for theTactical Jets pipeline.
It was crushing, you think, Oh,just wait, that's all I want to
(04:53):
do.
So I got to select somethingelse and I ended up deciding,
Okay, I'm going to flyhelicopters.
Because that was like the nextthing.
If I couldn't be an astronaut,then I wanted to always Fly like
Airwolf or something like that.
Yeah, Okay let's do this.
When you, all these influenceswhen you're a child, right?
You think, okay, that's what Iwant to do.
(05:13):
And so I did the pivot, mentallyand, physically and went through
that pipeline and came out theother end and selected the H 53
in Sicily.
That's I wanted to go overseas.
It's like the 1 thing that themilitary child is drawn to for
myself is to continue thatlifestyle.
That means travel, seeing theworld, experiencing different
(05:36):
cultures.
So I want to go overseas endedup going to Sicily and that was
a great beginning to my career.
Great flying, great locationsall around the Mediterranean and
the Middle East.
I had a great time.
People back then told me itdoesn't matter what you fly, but
when you fly, you're going tolove flying.
And I absolutely loved flying.
(05:56):
Didn't matter what it was, aslong as it got off the ground,
right?
Through a couple of tours flyingthat aircraft, I did a
transition in the middle thereand flew.
A newer aircraft that had comeout back in those days called
the MH 60 Sierra.
It's an upgraded Seahawk that atthe time was supposed to be the
(06:18):
future multi mission platformalong with the Romeo aircraft.
And now we're living those days,but back then it hadn't even
come off the assembly line andwe were, it was the newest
thing.
So I did a tour with thataircraft.
And then bounced back to my oldsquadron, and we deployed out to
the Middle East, did a combatzone, combat support mission,
(06:42):
which was the highlight of myflying career really got to do
some tactical flying, which welearned.
1st from the United StatesMarine Corps, the core knows how
to do it.
And we were just, breaking intothis new area with all the new
gear and the armor plating andthe weapons.
(07:02):
And it was, a little daunting,but Marine Corps took care of us
and they can't think enough.
The the Marine Corps reservesand the active duty Marines that
helped us out from Camp Lejeuneall the way out up to
Pennsylvania, even out in Yuma,Oh, best flying ever, best
instructor,
SECOND SIR HUTCH (07:22):
it was great.
Yeah.
Yuma is definitely a good placefor us to build some real good
pilots, so I like hearing yourjourney and your focus on what
brings you what fuels yourpassion, and flying is your
passion.
And I think what most people dois that whenever they hit a
obstacle or a fork in the road,something that's going to divert
(07:44):
them from.
What they think they wantedeventually then they give up and
do something totally outside ofwhat their initial plan was, I'm
trying to get your ability totransition your thoughts from,
okay, I did everything that Icould to be able to fly jet, but
it didn't work out.
Okay, what's next?
What is it that I truly want?
(08:05):
Okay.
I want to fly.
And the acceptance of flying theCF, 53, which is actually my
background, I work in a CF 53deltas back in the days,
actually.
There's one right here.
That's two.
Yeah.
It is three.
Yeah.
Flying along the volcano out inthe big Island, it says one of
my favorite picture and I makesure that it went on my plaque,
(08:26):
so 53, he's an amazing.
Platform.
It has been a heavy liftcapability for a very long time
and it done some significantgood in the combat environment
and also humanitarian relief aswell.
happy to hear that youcontributed to contribute it to
the overall mission of the heavylift capability.
That's good.
Charles McKinney (08:44):
That's right.
And I'm envious now of the thenew next generation.
That's going to bring the kilooh my gosh, that's a really
capable airframe.
And like you said, you look atwhat you really want to do, the
flying, and that's what reallymade it worth the effort in the
end.
The payoff was great, and towear those wings of gold is
(09:05):
truly unbelievable.
And I also learned along the waythat, oh, you don't have to be a
tactical jet pilot to end upbecoming an astronaut.
You can still become anastronaut.
Back then, there was anotherhelicopter pilot that had become
an astronaut.
I believe when and as long asyou can make yourself relevant
to the program with advanceddegrees or a certain line of
(09:29):
study, you can still break intoit.
So that dream hadn't fizzled outat that point, but when I was
finished doing those type that.
Flying at that level, I had tomove on to different types of
jobs.
As the career progresses, movedmore into operational planning
roles, helped bring riveriansback.
(09:52):
To the rivers in Iraq, and then,yeah, and the small boat
operations that we used to havein Vietnam.
We basically that we revive thatcapability in the Navy and with
some really high speed, smallwater craft and new tactics and
techniques and procedures andput them on those.
Rivers back then.
(10:12):
This is about this is 2006, 2008time frame.
And then I was able to go backto school, which is great.
Never stop learning, continue toeducate yourself.
So I was very fortunate to beable to get in residence
education at the Naval WarCollege.
That was a great time up in theNortheast, got to learn some
different culture up therebecause I'd never lived in the
(10:34):
Northeast of the United States,got to dig my car out of the
snow a couple times, that wasfun, and then I got to go back
overseas, which was reallyanother thing that I love about
the military and what I reallycrave, that, that travel, living
in, in different cultures, andBasically went to a NATO command
in Italy, which was great.
I got to work with people fromall, all over the NATO
(10:56):
enterprise and a couple ofpartner nations and learned a
lot.
And after that, I was able towork with our shipmates in the
fifth fleet out in Bahrain for ayear.
And then another highlight ifyou could call a short tour
highlight was when I was theexecutive officer of Naval Air
Station Sigonella.
(11:17):
in Sicily.
So like full circle.
Great leadership position,taking care of sailors and even
Marines with special MAGTF thatwas out there.
And it was great.
Even the Air Force was on thatbase and doing a bunch of really
good strategically capableroles.
And I love that tour and to keepthe the kind of the magic alive.
(11:40):
And for personal reasons, familyreasons, I stayed in, I could
have retired.
I thought about it at thatpoint, really.
Really heavily.
I thought maybe that was thehigh point and I wasn't gonna be
flying anymore.
Maybe I could, go and take thoseskills out and do it
commercially.
But we, I remained in and wentto another NATO tour for
planning, real time planning,right?
(12:00):
Real time planning, J five,planning in Broomstone the
Netherlands for three years.
And at that point I was reallyconsidering, okay, that's it.
My I, we had.
We've got the one child that Imentioned to you before, and she
was graduating high school, andI thought, okay that's it.
We're empty nesters, and now wecan just, do our own thing, but
(12:23):
she decided to go to school inLondon, and I had one more tour
left, and We decided, okay we'llfollow her.
Yeah.
And it was it was another greattour being embedded with the
Royal Navy and good kind of wayto cap it off, internationally
(12:44):
with the kind of background thatI had doing a lot of
international tours.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (12:49):
So before we get into your transition, I want
to talk about fear, right?
So before you join a Navy, youexperience in probably in real
time, the crash of thechallenger crash.
You still want it to fly.
And as of today, which is almostmid February a few days ago, we
had a CH-53 that went down about50 miles outside of San Diego.
(13:12):
So we know that our platform oraviation, the things that we do
is dangerous.
Now, what was your thoughtprocess being in that
environment every time you getin the cockpit or through the
planning and also getting intothe cockpit, what was the
mindset that you had to be in asa aviator?
Charles McKinney (13:34):
You have to be in the mindset that first and
foremost, you're wearing thecloth of the nation and you're
doing something that's going tobe in support of our strategic
directives.
And supporting the mission,which is overall national
defense.
So when it everything comes backto service to the country, to
(13:55):
defending the nation in 1 way oranother, whether it's, your
presence helps deter or you'reactually bringing aid or
supplying or putting steel ontarget, whatever, you those,
it's that mission focus.
Apart from that, it's attentionto detail.
And another thing, gotta creditthe Marine Corps.
(14:18):
A lot of things come back for mepersonally to the Marine Corps.
Because I did a lot of time,especially in high school, in
Jacksonville, North Carolina.
And we know.
What was in Jacksonville, NorthCarolina?
Great souls ready to do God'swork in Jacksonville, North
Carolina.
And from that, Aviation OfficerCandidate School, what do you
get?
(14:38):
Everyone who's seen Officer anda Gentleman, you know what
you're going to get.
It's real instructor who knowstheir craft and that's what they
punched in daily attention todetail discipline, spirit
teamwork, all of that just comesflooding in and especially the
attention to detail when you flyplan.
(14:58):
When you breathe, when you getdown to the every single minute
of the flight that you'regetting ready to do of the
mission, and then you go and youtalk to the maintenance, you
talk to people, to professionalslike yourself, and you're like,
okay, what has this bird beenthrough?
What do I need to expect?
And then you go together out tothe bird and you look at
(15:19):
everything like, almost as ifyou are carrying that,
magnifying glass and just goingover every single piece and make
sure, okay, we're gonna do this.
And then the system is built to,to, to baby step you up and you
go through a checklist to startup.
Everything is to check and makesure everything's working just
right before you get airborne.
(15:40):
And then from then on it's up toyou if you're in the front seat
and you got a, you got a solidcrew in the back.
Experience levels may vary, butyou're all in it together and
you just, that's where the,that's where all the training
kicks in from the date from dayone, all the way through to
where you are at that moment.
It's all been training.
It's everything's been buildingup to that moment, even if it's
(16:02):
your 40th flight or, yourhundreds, whatever, still
everything builds upon itself.
And then, when mishaps happen,you learn from them.
And you hold them tight and yougot to keep them close right
there so that you can also keepthat mindset of, I don't want to
get complacent.
(16:24):
This is for real.
This isn't old hat.
Every flight is the first, likethe first flight, and you just
got to bring your A-game if youwill, cliche, but it's got to be
that you have to be the top ofyour performance every single
time.
You can't let yourself down.
You can't let your crew down.
Can't break that aircraft andlet the nation down.
(16:44):
So that's, those are the kindsof things that they get in that,
so it seems like a lot, but itreally happens in five seconds,
just to your brain.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (16:52):
Oh, man.
Just listening to that justbrings me back to the days of,
grinding on the flight line.
And it is so fulfilling everysingle day.
Whether you fly on one aircraftor your commanding officer
decided that on a Friday, threemonths from now, we're going to
fly the entire barn, it's a lotof work that a lot of work that
goes into that.
A lot of planning that goes tothat.
But I think one of the thingsthat I really admire You've seen
(17:16):
the relationship that hasdeveloped between the
maintainers, those guys and galswere fixing the aircraft and the
pilots, those guys and gals,those officers, guys and gals
were flying the aircraft, right?
To your point, walking out tothe aircraft, having, small talk
conversation, learn, learningthe pain points and also just
developing a comfort.
(17:36):
About the person who just workon the aircraft or the crew
that's getting ready to go fly,right?
Because as in, in naval andmarine aviation crew resource
management is a big part of ourof our structure.
And it's important that the guyand the gals in the back is just
as important or in the samelevel, the same team, same fight
as those guys and gals up frontwho are flying a plane.
(17:56):
No.
So I really admire thoserelationship and the way they
created.
Charles McKinney (18:01):
It was fun too.
It seems a little retro, but youget through maintenance
controllers.
Look, can I borrow youraircraft, for a couple hours?
We're going to take it out.
I promise.
I won't break your air.
Don't worry.
Because a lot of people thinkit's a different, pilots and air
crew get a, sometimes get a badrap.
And vice versa, and it's allgood tongue in cheek fun.
(18:23):
But the reality of situation isthe aircraft is a piece of
equipment that really belongsto, in my opinion, belongs to
maintenance and they care for itand maybe and make it perfect
and it's our job to take care ofit.
We're signing for it.
I'll take care of it.
I promise.
And then you give you andeverything's good when you come
back.
(18:43):
We did this.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (18:45):
I appreciate when Adam did God's work and
brought the aircraft back.
And if the aircraft for somestrange reason have some wear
and tear in it you will payattention to the detail during
flights and you're able toassess and give us the
information that we need to fixthis aircraft appropriately, so
let's, if you listen to thispodcast episode and you want to
know what we're talking aboutthe aircraft belonging to
maintenance control, look,there's a Facebook page called
(19:06):
maintenance control.
It's funny.
It's one of the funniest pageyou ever read on about
maintenance.
It's all about looking at thingsfrom a maintenance control
perspective, because to yourpoint, Charles, that they
really, maintenance control ownthat aircraft because that's
what they do.
It's in their name.
Maintenance control.
Every.
(19:27):
Swinging dog tag that touchesthat aircraft, right there, the
approval has to go throughmaintenance control, so they
treat it as if there's a apristine we call it classic car
in their grandfather's garage,right?
Our grandma's garage in thegarage, right?
That need care for, and that'show we treat that aircraft,
right?
So we get, we feel some kind ofway whenever a pilot bring
(19:48):
aircraft back, that is not ingood condition.
Charles McKinney (19:51):
And that was one of my most, most, that was
one of my most humblingpositions was I had the
privilege of being themaintenance officer for my
squadron.
And that was so humbling.
I learned so much in such aquick time, in a short amount of
time, I learned a lot.
That's awesome.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (20:10):
Yeah.
Mainly from you.
Yeah.
So that brings me one of thethings I like about, before we
get into that, one of the thingsI like about your maintenance
master chief, I had the luxuryof working with these folks.
When I was going through themaintenance, when I was an
instructor at the maintenanceofficer school down in
Pensacola.
And The proficiency level ofyour senior chief and master
chief is admirable.
(20:30):
I don't think, I don't thinkthere's another word I can use
to describe it, but theirproficiency in their craft is
100 percent admirable.
So I can imagine.
The level of professionalism youhad in your maintenance
department with trainingsailors, how to hone their craft
and make their drop, make theirjobs, their profession, kudos to
(20:50):
you for your, the privilege ofserving as a maintenance
officer.
So thanks.
Thanks a lot.
It was great.
Yeah.
What comes with that is, you'vebeen in for a little while,
longer than myself, and you'veseen a transition amongst a
young man and a young woman as aleader in the, say, for example,
(21:11):
in the maintenance departmentwhat are some of the, what are
some of the transition that youyourself had to adapt to, to
ensure that you was the bestleader that these sailors
deserve?
Yeah.
Charles McKinney (21:24):
One of the first things that pops in my
mind immediately is the wordtrust, and it goes right back to
what you said about themaintenance master chief, senior
chief, and we also employed awarrant officer in our
maintenance our maintenance teamit's that, it's a level of
trust, when we're going throughsome of the, our other, we'll
(21:44):
call them upbringing jobs whenyou're a very junior lieutenant
and then become a in the MarineCorps, a captain for us an
actual lieutenant.
You have these jobs, yeah, whereyou think, okay, this is my
fishbowl and I own everything init.
And you're really just, of thetraining officer or the
assistant operations officer.
You get the right to schedule.
(22:05):
Wow.
Thank you very much.
When you get to that point whereno kidding your department head,
and you have those lieutenantsworking for you, and you can't
be everywhere at once.
You definitely can't.
I don't know any maintenanceofficer who's, who lives and
works at the squadron to bethere 24 hours a day to see all
(22:26):
the different shifts that comethrough there and do their job.
And everyone needs attention.
And it seems day check gets themost love because everyone's in
the house during the day, nightshift.
Oh, night check is left on theirown devices.
But it's that there is a balancethat comes where you have to get
around and make sure thateveryone is aware.
(22:50):
Of what your expectations are,and then once you deliver that,
you have to just trust them thatthey're going to do their job
that they're going to live up tothe training and the level that
they are.
And when I was telling you aboutbeing humble part of that was
learning what the experiencelevel and the expertise level of
each of the pay grades withinthe maintenance and, and each of
(23:16):
the trades that everyone did.
We call them rates.
I think you still have militaryspecialty, right?
So it was all also learning howto put all those together and
understand why certain peopledid certain things and then to
also be able to ride the juniorofficers.
So that they were accountableand learn that, because they
(23:39):
have to be trained as well tothen later on replace you, when
they're doing their divisionofficer tours or quality
assurance, which was a big one.
Yeah.
But then, yeah, trust is the bigone that pops up.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (23:53):
Mr.
Charles, at one point we have totransition from the military,
right?
So when you start gettingpromoted, Staff NCO Field grade
officer officers you get a lotof responsibility and it's, it
brings a lot of value, right?
When you get to make an impacton a couple of hundred, at some
(24:15):
point a thousand Marines andsailors, it's a huge
responsibility that comes withso much fulfillment.
And then at one point you haveto transition into the civilian
sector.
What would that look like foryou?
The transition from the militaryto the civilian sector?
Charles McKinney (24:33):
Yeah, it was different.
I'd say that's the first, partof it.
Why?
Because I was overseas anotherthing.
I was embedded in a foreignmilitary's military, and I was
in my final tour, I was workingin the air cell as the director
of the aviation air cell on abattle staff, part of the Royal
(24:57):
Navy in England in Portsmouth.
And I was 1 of U.
S.
Navy officers.
we were alone and not afraid ifyou will.
And that's the main point thatmade my transition a little bit,
I wouldn't say unique.
I'm not the first person to everdo this, but I sure did feel
(25:18):
like I was the first persontransitioning overseas.
And then with the ideal ofremaining overseas, I had to do
a lot of reading and research.
Literally had to dig through thepub some a process that I
thought was just going to be logstep pretty easy.
Okay, pack everything up, shipit to home record or wherever,
(25:38):
we're going to live, go throughthe out processing, place with
personnel, they run the, theirprocedures, assign some papers
and, That's it.
No, I had to actually I'll sayapply for the ability to stay in
place and retire.
(25:59):
I had to do a lot of networkingand negotiating with personnel
at different hierarchies withinmy chain of command, which was
an odd chain of command becauseI literally had a split of
operational and administrativein two different countries, and
I was displaced.
Geographically from the closestunit that I could get to 3 hours
(26:23):
away.
So admin was a little bit of achallenge.
But, because I called around andunderstood who were the decision
makers, I was able to addressthem directly and get help So I
had to be a little bit of a,admin jockey myself, but it was
for me.
And that's the one thing that Iwould, espouse to anyone who's
(26:46):
considering leaving.
It'll all happen.
It'll happen to all of us.
We're all not going to stay inthe military forever, right?
We're going to have totransition out is to learn as
much as you can about theprocess as early as you can.
So that you're familiar withwhich buttons to press when the
time comes and.
(27:06):
Knowing people is reallyimportant.
You need to research and learnall the topics.
And I do dove into Milpers Manfor us.
And I, my mind was blown in someareas because there're just
things that I didn't know andhadn't even considered and
thought, oh great, this issomething else I have to plan
for someone else I have to talkto.
I have to figure out where thepeople are and stay in touch.
(27:27):
And I was like.
It took time, but I was able todo it, and in my case I've, I
had a little bit of experiencein that I have Was thinking in
my mind, I was going to retiretwice before, after Sigonella
and after the Netherlands.
So I had already done, forexample, what is commonly
referred to as TAP, what we calla transition GPS in the Navy.
(27:50):
So I'd done that twice alreadyand then did it for a third time
in England with the Air Forceand So I had that experience
already and was able tofacilitate the kind of the look
into the civilian side.
But I will tell you, if I wereretiring and heading back to the
(28:13):
United States, it would be a lotdifferent because it's a more
familiar area.
A lot of support resources thereand.
Veterans are thought of in amuch different way.
Military is thought of in a muchdifferent way.
I, I believe I read for manyyears, and probably even still
that a list of the most trustedorganizations In the country and
(28:37):
time again, military was number1, and then it was like, a lot
of space and a lot of space.
And then it was like, maybe acouple of services, like a fire
department, law enforcement,there, and then it went down,
but it's always been a top, wetrust our military because we're
not the type of country that'sgoing to have a military coup.
And we go out and risk our livesall the time.
(29:00):
So it was different adjusting toa different country.
To be thought of as a militaryveteran from another country
trying to break into a civilianworld.
That's, that, that really at thetime and still ongoing is
suffering from some economicwoes and like the world really
for last few years.
(29:20):
So it's a challenge, no harderthan say.
going through flight school or,flying in a combat zone or
anything else that every singleperson in our military faces on
a daily, on a daily basis.
So that's one thing about beingin the military is you come out
of it with a lot of resilienceand a lot of know how, we call
(29:42):
it salt,
SECOND SIR HUTCH (29:43):
both shoulders.
Yes, sir.
So how did your background as aplanner help you to transition?
Charles McKinney (29:52):
Oh, it helped dearly.
I will say it's nothing special.
A lot of it people underestimatethemselves.
People know how to plan.
If you didn't, really, how wouldyou celebrate your kid's
birthday, party it's that it canbe that simple.
It's just, it's it's kinda likeYoda, that, that movie Star
Wars, right?
When the guy Luke is like, oh Ican't, use my magic and lift the
(30:15):
ship and, the little green guyYoda is the size doesn't matter.
You just think of it and do itis kinda like planning, oh
you're planning a major campaignor versus oh, you're planning,
your daughter's birthday partystill going through the same
steps.
You still have to identify yourend state, your objective, you
(30:36):
have to, where you are, youstill have to have decision
points and milestones to get youto that end.
And in those milestones, youhave to have actions and
support, you have to identify,factors, key factors, you still
have to do that.
Operational risk management isnot dead.
(30:58):
I love everything I do and Ilook as I look at it and I think
of what are the top five thingsat least you could have
hundreds.
But what are the top five thingsthat could go wrong and why?
And then you judge them by howsevere would damage be if it
went wrong?
And what's the probability of ithappening?
So probability and severity.
(31:19):
And for example, birth birthdaysomeone could forget the
candles.
What's the probability?
High.
Cause you only have two peoplerunning around and what's the
severity?
Big severity.
When your little daughter can'tblow out those candles and make
a whip, you're done, same thingwith a major plan.
What's the worst thing thatcould happen?
Oh, the enemy could drop a bombover here on the headquarters.
(31:42):
Probability and maybe if theycan get through our defenses,
severity, you just decapitated,our HQ, so better plan for that.
Better make sure it doesn't gowrong.
It's the same kind of model.
So the planning really did helpout and why?
Because in order to plan well,you have to start early.
You have to think about thesethings.
(32:03):
So you're not going to forgetthings.
And I got to tell you I when mygoal in military was to at least
stay in to retire so that Icould have retirement benefits,
I saw that my father, did 20years, he got his benefits etc.
Okay, that's the goal.
At least if I'm going to doservice, I'm not going to leave
(32:24):
before 20 years.
Okay, so around the 20 yearmark, even before the 20 year
mark, I'm thinking 20 years iscoming up.
Maybe I should start thinkingabout what's going to happen to,
to, to, for the exit strategy.
Oh I stay in.
I made the decision to stay in.
Okay maybe the next tour.
So I better start thinking aboutthat exit strategy.
And it just kept perpetuating.
(32:44):
So I, really I'd been thinkingabout retiring for a period of
probably 12 years.
But a little bit before 20 andthen definitely all the way
through to the end of the 20because I did 28 actually.
Yes.
So I really every single tourafter from before 20 years and
on thinking, okay, what can Ido?
(33:05):
How can I prepare?
And I'm sure you're going towant to talk about kind of those
areas of preparation, likefinancial the answer to the
question of where What, you wantto for and for how much you want
to do it for those kinds ofthings did pop up and they
changed every single time.
I thought about it because we'rein a different location.
(33:25):
Yeah, we had assets.
We had, aging parents.
There are all kinds of things toconsider.
In
SECOND SIR HUTCH (33:31):
that.
Yeah.
So let's dive into that becauselook it sounds like we have a
very similar trajectory and a,kinda like a milestone.
We call it the plan of actionand milestone, but the plan of
action and milestone for medidn't really start until we
call it PO and a and M didn'treally start until about, 18 and
a half, 19 years in the MarineCorps.
(33:53):
Then when it dawned on me Ohshoot, retirement is right
around the corner, man, it'slike a year and a half, so what
is it I'm going to do afterretirement?
So when Athena and I, we satdown at the table, we realized
that we together, we can createsome really amazing things in
our thoughts.
We can put some, a lot ofamazing things on paper that is
executable, right.
But in order to do that.
(34:14):
It comes with the timeline,right?
What are some of the things thatyou had to factor into your
timeline to plan for asuccessful retirement up to the
28, 28 years that gives you theconfidence of your ability to
continue on in the future?
Okay,
Charles McKinney (34:32):
I do have a checklist, because I can't
remember everything all the timeand I don't want to.
So I'm a checklist.
I'm a checklist guy, but I willsay off the top of my head.
Definitely on the checklist.
This is an easy 1 that's beenchecked off annually ever since
before I even got my commission.
And it's something my fathertaught me.
(34:53):
He said, when you get paid, payyourself first.
So you get money from whateverjob you're doing, let's say you
have 100 for that period oftime, you got to take a
percentage of that and payyourself.
And what does that mean?
You got to put it in a savingsaccount some kind of, you have
to do something with it whereit's not used, where it's not
(35:14):
consumed.
I have started long, like Isaid, all the way in the
beginning of having automaticdiversions for a certain amount
of money that comes in certainpercentage of money that comes
in to emergency fund.
And that's no kidding.
It's it goes into this account,which I don't see except for
once every month to see how muchit's grown and make sure nothing
(35:37):
happened to it.
And it just keeps building.
Oh, but you can invest that.
That's a different conversation.
Then you got your investmentplay money.
Okay.
You can, you can take that andgo and play in the stock market
or whatever.
Then you've got the money thatcomes in and just bounces right
out into the IRA.
That's, this is way back, IRA.
Then it turned into the RothIRA, but then gone, that money's
(35:59):
in in there.
Max it out.
Every year, right?
And don't even think about it.
And then the, then TSP camealong.
Oh, there you go.
Percentage automatic, gone.
So what I see in the bankgrowing in my checking account
is just what's left over frompaying myself.
And then from that goes thebudget of, okay, rent or
(36:23):
mortgage, school or whatever,fuel, groceries, all that,
bills, all those kinds ofthings.
That all gets sectioned off.
And then what's really left, wecan decide, Oh, do we want to do
something fun like go out todinner?
Or do we just throw it in theother account, for safekeeping
and build that up for fun later,bigger fun later on?
(36:46):
And I'm, this is a personalthing.
People have their vices andtheir hobbies go at it, minor
are what are somewhat we'll calllimited and not very expensive.
With that, the idea is to beingdebt free.
So another thing that I learnedis Get that good credit and
(37:08):
maintain it.
Don't use a credit card forcredit.
Use it as a means to not depleteyour liquid cash and then pay it
off in full because you're notspending money that you don't
have with a credit card.
So you're building credit and mycredit is amazing.
It's in the little, little dial.
(37:29):
It's in the green.
It's way over.
It's good.
Unfortunately, I can't really dotoo much with it because I live
in a different country, you gotto maintain it because you never
know.
But yeah, being debt free is thefirst thing, paying things down
so that when you, so that youdon't owe when you're leaving,
because you don't know.
What your stream is going to beyour incoming stream is going to
be.
(37:49):
So that's 1 of the 1st things onthe checklist.
The other 1 is or the other 3 ina row are you have to decide and
we talked about this already alittle bit about you have to
decide.
These 3 things, at least 2 ofthem, you have to decide where
you want to live.
What area you want to live, whatyou want to do.
(38:11):
That's a big one.
You have to decide what you wantto do.
It can't be five differentthings.
It has to be like one or twopick one, and focus on it.
And we'll get to a little bitwhy later on.
And then the other one is howmuch money you need.
Now there's how much money youneed.
And there's how much money youwant.
And then there's like acombination of needs and wants.
(38:32):
And, you come up with yournumber.
How much are you worth a month?
How much do you need to be wortha month?
And then that may answer whereyou need to go to do it.
And what you need to, and whatyou do in order to get that.
Because say I want to, go backto Seattle and be a mechanic.
But I need to make,$250,000 ayear, something's not gonna work
(38:54):
there.
right?
Something needs to adjust.
So probably the what, probablyneed to change that from
mechanic to senior projectmanager and get like a pm, an
8:00 PM certificate, whateverelse you need to get some
experience and build it.
And then apply for a good joband go for that goal, maybe you
can promote in a couple years.
Th those are all things thatneed to be considered.
(39:16):
When you're before you, youpunched that button and that all
goes into the mix for theplanning 2 to 3 years, 36
months.
I say at least 36 months andit's not just, oh, I picked that
out of the air.
That's just experience and howlong it takes to get things
done.
It just takes a long timesometimes to get things done,
especially when you're workingin the military and in a senior
(39:39):
role because you're over 20.
Years, right?
You just don't have it.
Or if you have a family, youjust got it.
Life happens.
So you need to spread it out andbe realistic.
You can't say I can knock thatout and in eight days, good to
go.
Maybe you can by yourself if youhave all the resources, but
likely you're going to bedepending on somebody else.
Who may be in the hospital for aweek or may have to go on some
(40:04):
travel or, whatever we allalways have to depend on some
kind of institution, some kindof resource, which is usually
tied to people.
And when that happens, yourtimeline just has to spread out
a ways.
I'll give you an example.
One of the things you reallyneed to get squared away, in my
opinion, before you retire isyour medical status, your
(40:28):
medical record, and, servicerecord as well.
And that, oh gosh, that takes,that can take forever.
It took me more than 15 years toget certain things.
Changed and updated in myservice record over my career.
I started something and it justnever would never get done.
I'd get go back and forth withthe Bureau.
Those things take time.
(40:48):
You really got it.
That's something that needs tobe on an annual tickler.
Really?
If you're in the military.
But medical it could take a yearto get things sorted out with
your record.
And when you go to file for a VAclaim, which is going to be, at
the very least, 180 or 80 daysbefore your exit date, if you
(41:12):
want to participate in certainprograms.
But in order to be ready to meetthat 180 day gate, you need to
start months in advance torequest all of your records from
other, whether it's thehospital, military, or you've
got some services out in town orprivate doctors, whatever dental
it, it took me for eachinstitution and there are five
(41:34):
involved a month for each oneand I didn't know this.
Until after the 2nd, 1, I shouldhave requested all 5 records at
the same time.
And it would have just taken 1month, but I requested 1.
It took a month, and I waswondering why the other weren't
a part of it.
And they said, you had to dothat separately.
(41:54):
And guess what?
Each 1 of those was a month aswell because of privacy rules
and how the system works.
So I, luckily, I clicked on andapplied for the rest of the
other 4 at the same time, andthose didn't all take a month.
But still, again, that's anexample.
Takes time.
That makes
SECOND SIR HUTCH (42:10):
sense.
Yeah that's definitely one ofthe big struggle and one of the
things that we, what I tellpeople a lot is even tell my
children, that's look we will dothings whenever they become
important to us, so one of thereasons for diving this deep
into our veterans background isto, and also some of the
planning and exit strategy.
(42:31):
It's to ensure that we can givethis information to the younger
version of herself, or, thosepeople we have trained to
replace us, so they can plantheir transition a lot smoother
and a lot earlier, to make surethat whenever they go in a
civilian world, they leave themilitary and they leave in a
good standing, so that's
Charles McKinney (42:48):
good.
That's right.
And also on that point, I willsay, and I know, this it's
better to teach someone how tofish than to give them that fish
for a day, which is basicallysaying, give them the resources
and the materials and then tellthem, hey, you need to read
this.
I can't tell you everything.
(43:09):
You need to read all of thesethings.
Yeah.
Yeah,
SECOND SIR HUTCH (43:12):
you're 100 percent correct, Mr.
Charles.
Alrighty.
So Mr.
Charles to podcast, we're goingto go into the focus round,
which is, the we love ouracronym, right?
So it's five, it's the acronymof five letters, FOCUS, and we
talked about them earlier.
Mr.
Charles, what do you do for fun?
What I do for
Charles McKinney (43:29):
fun I used to Go to the beach now, where I
live soccer is my number 1sport.
So if I could ever get, but thatrequires a group of people.
If I can ever work in that'sgreat.
But at this point it's a.
Really, truly taking care of myfamily in a way that I haven't I
wasn't able to throughdeployments and missions and
(43:50):
working in the military we'reenjoying a little puppy that we
got, a couple of years ago,which is great to raise a little
puppy and spending time eitherhelping people out or trying to
get a sustainable life going bygrowing plants.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
So
SECOND SIR HUTCH (44:07):
what is one opportunity that was a game
changer for you?
Charles McKinney (44:10):
It, at, in, in the military or like before?
In my whole life
SECOND SIR HUTCH (44:14):
overall for me I had the opportunity to be the
director of the Corpus courseat, in Miramar.
And what I, that provided meopportunity to work with a
unique set of individual, the.
I think the, what I think wasfive of the best sergeant in the
mall and what that did for me toyour point earlier, we're
talking about trust, right?
I trust them to carry on themission.
(44:35):
And that gave me a lot of timeto become the leader that they
deserve.
And that was a game changer forme.
And I noticed that whenever Istarted to improve myself, I can
now serve them better, so thatwas a major opportunity for me.
And I became a better leader,better father, better husband,
better Marine, better.
Son, it was all encompassingbecause I had time to work on me
Charles McKinney (44:56):
You just reminded me of a really good
game changer that I had.
And it was definitely anexercise in learning humility.
And it was when I was a veryjunior officer.
I only had, I still only haveone bar and it was still silver,
but I only have one bar and I, Imade a mistake in getting ready
to go flying.
I I made a mistake and my chiefpetty officer of my detachment
(45:20):
that I was the division officerfor, he pulled me aside.
And he did it in the right way.
And oh, my gosh, I felt sosmall, but at the same time, he
basically gave me a bunch oftools in that discussion where I
held on to him and they helpchart my course as a leader
(45:41):
going forward.
And they always say that thechief will train the junior
officer and I got trained.
Yes.
I got
SECOND SIR HUTCH (45:48):
it.
And I trust that conversationpaid it forward to your, to the
value that you placed on yourenlisted leaders, right?
Yes.
Absolutely.
Mr.
Charles, what would you say isyour most important
communication tip?
Charles McKinney (46:04):
My most important communication tip is
to always be authentic.
That's the one, look people inthe eye.
Give the firm grip when youshake their hand.
A lot of communication is nonverbal, and if you bring the
presence that you want to beunderstood in a way, you won't
even need to speak.
You'll get that first, you'llgive the first impression and
(46:26):
people will feel a certain wayabout you and hopefully you'll
be able to put them at ease.
I'm not saying walk in andintimidate people.
I'm saying you'll be able tocome into people and they'll
come into a room and people willlook and go, okay, I feel
comfortable with this person.
And then when you speak and youtreat that person as an equal or
higher, not even, I'm not sayingbelittle yourself, but just you
(46:47):
speak in a way.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (46:50):
That's difficult
Charles McKinney (46:52):
to explain, but like Japanese there's
honorific and there's like anormal kind of common way.
If you just bend a little bit,people will return it in spades
and it's yeah, that's a goodthat's it.
All right.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (47:03):
So what is one thing you wish you understood
earlier?
Charles McKinney (47:07):
As much as we've spoken about finances and
being prepared in that way.
I wish I would have understoodthe value of compounding
interest earlier and how todiversify, investments and a
little bit more about theinvestments that I hadn't
learned until later.
Why?
Because I didn't take the timeto read about it.
And, now I'm kicking myself, butat the same time, I know where
(47:30):
to go for the knowledge.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (47:32):
Like I said we will do things when they become
important to us on the same wayto some of the things that for
example my, my buddy Nathapolsyrup, Gunny Siriup.
He retired several years ago andhe told me to read this book,
rich dad, poor dad, like back, Iwant to say back in 2000, 2009
(47:52):
ish it's a long time ago.
And I did not read the bookuntil 2017.
So when I was thinking about atransition and thinking about
what I'm going to do for it tofix my income, and he did it, he
did his through real estatewhere they buy property from
different places, but he alsoinvests in a stock market to
your point earlier, pay yourselffirst, I finally read that book,
(48:13):
understand the differencebetween assets and liability,
and that was a game changertowards the goals that Athena
and I, we sit down and we said,because we now thought with more
clarity.
Of what is assets, what's aliability, and it challenges, it
challenged a lot of societalnorms that we were taught, so
that was a good thing.
(48:33):
So Mr.
Charles to what do you attributeyour
Charles McKinney (48:36):
success?
I attribute any success that Ihave to all the others that have
supported me throughout my life,and I credit first parents,
grandparents who are librarieswho need to, that need to be
utilized as much as possible.
I'm talking like reading thebooks until they're rubbing
(48:57):
fine.
Because when they're gone, thatlibrary burns to the ground.
And then those great friendsalong the way, those mentors and
teachers, those chief pettyofficers, that gunnery sergeant
pulls you aside and says, andtwist your ear makes you listen.
Those people are the ones thatevery little dose they give you
(49:17):
builds and builds and you becomethis superhero of a person to
someone, maybe just yourself,but yeah any success that I
have.
To those people.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (49:31):
Mr.
Charles, I know we met onLinkedIn for the most part.
If our listeners want to get intouch with you, how did it go by
doing that?
Charles McKinney (49:39):
Oh, definitely.
Get in touch with me.
I'm on LinkedIn.
Charles McKinney let's see my,my, if you put in the the
linkedin URL, I'm C.
G.
McKinney.
I, for the 2nd, and can bereached at.
My, my business email, which ischarles.
g.
mckinney2 at gmail.
(50:01):
com.
Yeah.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (50:02):
With that, listeners thank you for joining
the multifamily real estateexperiment podcast and catch you
in the next episode.
I'm Hutch The Marine Investorout.
Welcome all you multifamily maniacs and
(00:02):
veterans to the another episodeof the multifamily real estate
experiment podcast.
Season three is going to beexciting because that's where
we're going to dive into theminds of our military veterans
and give you some informationthat we think is valuable for
you.
So today we have Mr.
Charles McKinney, who is aretired naval aviator and if you
(00:25):
know anything about navalaviation.
One thing you will know is theimportance of planning.
So everything we do is a plan,for example, for me, and on a
maintenance side, we do whatmaintenance means, which is a
part of our planning.
We all, but all that stems fromthe things that a commander I've
put into motion working withoperations, and then bring it
down to us, the maintenance toexecute and all that ties into
(00:48):
the flight schedule.
So, we are hoping to get someinformation today from Mr.
Charles about his involvementwith planning.
And the importance andimportance of that in the
military and how it can betransitioned into your civilian
life.
So without further do, Mr.
McKinney, how are you doingtoday, sir?
Charles McKinney (01:07):
Good morning.
Good morning to you.
Doing great.
Thank you for the invitation.
A pleasure to be here.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (01:12):
Absolutely.
Appreciate you joining us today,sir.
Let me ask you this before weget into a little bit more about
yourself.
Do you have a favorite realestate quote or mantra that
drives you?
Charles McKinney (01:22):
Wow.
If you're talking about realestate, one thing that's been
hammered home time and timeagain, to me, even since I was a
little kid.
Is location, like the first, andlast rule of real estate.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (01:36):
I appreciate that.
Location.
Mr.
Charles 20 years in themilitary.
I don't think my shortintroduction did your bio any
service, right?
So can you tell us a little bitmore about yourself?
Where you started?
Before we started recording, youmentioned that you gave a
military background.
So, I'd like to hear a littlebit more about how you started
and what brought you to themilitary and a little bit more
about your military journey.
Charles McKinney (01:55):
You're right.
It's quite a long story and Idid start in the military quite
literally.
My father was in the Navy, so Iwas born into a Navy family and
we moved around a lot.
And I can't tell you where I'mfrom.
That's my question.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But whenever someone asks methat question, I tell them I'm
from a military family, and thathad a lot of influence.
Of course, my dad was a civilengineer in the US Navy, and I
(02:18):
like that lifestyle of livingnear beaches, and growing up in,
in different locations.
We spent some time in Guam inthe Pacific as well.
And that was great.
I'll tell you 1, 1 thing thatshaped me.
My trajectory, aside from allthe nice pop culture science
fiction movies and aviation andnot what you think, not what
(02:41):
many people might think.
Actually, I have a soft spot forthe final countdown.
Look that one up.
That's a pretty cool movie aboutus Navy.
All right.
After that, I got interested inthe space program back then.
Columbia launched and it wasgreat.
And I thought, Oh, I love to dothat.
And then actually, we had thedisaster, the challenger
(03:02):
disaster.
And that cemented in my mind, Ineed a plan if I'm going to do
this and not just because notthe danger didn't draw me to it.
It was just, I thought, thoseastronauts were such brave
people and they were willing torisk it all to punch through
that sky and get out there.
And I'm like, we need to keepthis going.
So I thought, how do you becomean astronaut?
(03:24):
And this is planning.
This is the first planning.
Some of the first thing I everdid was, okay, you begin with
the end in mind.
Okay, the goal is astronaut.
What do you have to do to becomethat?
Okay, you probably need someadvanced science degrees and
some experience.
To fly it, the only people I seeflying it are military aviators,
jet pilots, from the Air Force,the Marine Corps, US Navy.
(03:47):
So I thought, okay how do youbecome one of those?
You gotta get selected andbecome, go through the flight
program.
How do you do that?
You have to get your degree andget into the Navy into that
program.
What goes before that?
Okay, there I was, about to getthrough, high school and I
thought, Okay just continue ongetting those good grades,
concentrate on science and mathand go and apply to a good
(04:11):
school that will help mecontinue that.
And I ended up going to GeorgiaInstitute of Technology, got a
degree in civil engineering.
And got into the Navy aviationpipeline through Officer
Candidate School.
So I went down to Florida forthe, the Aviation Officer
Candidate School.
And got through that, got myeyes commissioned and off to
(04:33):
flight school.
I went and, got through flightschool that was, and here's now
is when your plan doesn't go toplan and you have to divert and
go through go to a little branchplan.
So I didn't get selected for theTactical Jets pipeline.
It was crushing, you think, Oh,just wait, that's all I want to
(04:53):
do.
So I got to select somethingelse and I ended up deciding,
Okay, I'm going to flyhelicopters.
Because that was like the nextthing.
If I couldn't be an astronaut,then I wanted to always Fly like
Airwolf or something like that.
Yeah, Okay let's do this.
When you, all these influenceswhen you're a child, right?
You think, okay, that's what Iwant to do.
(05:13):
And so I did the pivot, mentallyand, physically and went through
that pipeline and came out theother end and selected the H 53
in Sicily.
That's I wanted to go overseas.
It's like the 1 thing that themilitary child is drawn to for
myself is to continue thatlifestyle.
That means travel, seeing theworld, experiencing different
(05:36):
cultures.
So I want to go overseas endedup going to Sicily and that was
a great beginning to my career.
Great flying, great locationsall around the Mediterranean and
the Middle East.
I had a great time.
People back then told me itdoesn't matter what you fly, but
when you fly, you're going tolove flying.
And I absolutely loved flying.
(05:56):
Didn't matter what it was, aslong as it got off the ground,
right?
Through a couple of tours flyingthat aircraft, I did a
transition in the middle thereand flew.
A newer aircraft that had comeout back in those days called
the MH 60 Sierra.
It's an upgraded Seahawk that atthe time was supposed to be the
(06:18):
future multi mission platformalong with the Romeo aircraft.
And now we're living those days,but back then it hadn't even
come off the assembly line andwe were, it was the newest
thing.
So I did a tour with thataircraft.
And then bounced back to my oldsquadron, and we deployed out to
the Middle East, did a combatzone, combat support mission,
(06:42):
which was the highlight of myflying career really got to do
some tactical flying, which welearned.
1st from the United StatesMarine Corps, the core knows how
to do it.
And we were just, breaking intothis new area with all the new
gear and the armor plating andthe weapons.
(07:02):
And it was, a little daunting,but Marine Corps took care of us
and they can't think enough.
The the Marine Corps reservesand the active duty Marines that
helped us out from Camp Lejeuneall the way out up to
Pennsylvania, even out in Yuma,Oh, best flying ever, best
instructor,
SECOND SIR HUTCH (07:22):
it was great.
Yeah.
Yuma is definitely a good placefor us to build some real good
pilots, so I like hearing yourjourney and your focus on what
brings you what fuels yourpassion, and flying is your
passion.
And I think what most people dois that whenever they hit a
obstacle or a fork in the road,something that's going to divert
(07:44):
them from.
What they think they wantedeventually then they give up and
do something totally outside ofwhat their initial plan was, I'm
trying to get your ability totransition your thoughts from,
okay, I did everything that Icould to be able to fly jet, but
it didn't work out.
Okay, what's next?
What is it that I truly want?
(08:05):
Okay.
I want to fly.
And the acceptance of flying theCF, 53, which is actually my
background, I work in a CF 53deltas back in the days,
actually.
There's one right here.
That's two.
Yeah.
It is three.
Yeah.
Flying along the volcano out inthe big Island, it says one of
my favorite picture and I makesure that it went on my plaque,
(08:26):
so 53, he's an amazing.
Platform.
It has been a heavy liftcapability for a very long time
and it done some significantgood in the combat environment
and also humanitarian relief aswell.
happy to hear that youcontributed to contribute it to
the overall mission of the heavylift capability.
That's good.
Charles McKinney (08:44):
That's right.
And I'm envious now of the thenew next generation.
That's going to bring the kilooh my gosh, that's a really
capable airframe.
And like you said, you look atwhat you really want to do, the
flying, and that's what reallymade it worth the effort in the
end.
The payoff was great, and towear those wings of gold is
(09:05):
truly unbelievable.
And I also learned along the waythat, oh, you don't have to be a
tactical jet pilot to end upbecoming an astronaut.
You can still become anastronaut.
Back then, there was anotherhelicopter pilot that had become
an astronaut.
I believe when and as long asyou can make yourself relevant
to the program with advanceddegrees or a certain line of
(09:29):
study, you can still break intoit.
So that dream hadn't fizzled outat that point, but when I was
finished doing those type that.
Flying at that level, I had tomove on to different types of
jobs.
As the career progresses, movedmore into operational planning
roles, helped bring riveriansback.
(09:52):
To the rivers in Iraq, and then,yeah, and the small boat
operations that we used to havein Vietnam.
We basically that we revive thatcapability in the Navy and with
some really high speed, smallwater craft and new tactics and
techniques and procedures andput them on those.
Rivers back then.
(10:12):
This is about this is 2006, 2008time frame.
And then I was able to go backto school, which is great.
Never stop learning, continue toeducate yourself.
So I was very fortunate to beable to get in residence
education at the Naval WarCollege.
That was a great time up in theNortheast, got to learn some
different culture up therebecause I'd never lived in the
(10:34):
Northeast of the United States,got to dig my car out of the
snow a couple times, that wasfun, and then I got to go back
overseas, which was reallyanother thing that I love about
the military and what I reallycrave, that, that travel, living
in, in different cultures, andBasically went to a NATO command
in Italy, which was great.
I got to work with people fromall, all over the NATO
(10:56):
enterprise and a couple ofpartner nations and learned a
lot.
And after that, I was able towork with our shipmates in the
fifth fleet out in Bahrain for ayear.
And then another highlight ifyou could call a short tour
highlight was when I was theexecutive officer of Naval Air
Station Sigonella.
(11:17):
in Sicily.
So like full circle.
Great leadership position,taking care of sailors and even
Marines with special MAGTF thatwas out there.
And it was great.
Even the Air Force was on thatbase and doing a bunch of really
good strategically capableroles.
And I love that tour and to keepthe the kind of the magic alive.
(11:40):
And for personal reasons, familyreasons, I stayed in, I could
have retired.
I thought about it at thatpoint, really.
Really heavily.
I thought maybe that was thehigh point and I wasn't gonna be
flying anymore.
Maybe I could, go and take thoseskills out and do it
commercially.
But we, I remained in and wentto another NATO tour for
planning, real time planning,right?
(12:00):
Real time planning, J five,planning in Broomstone the
Netherlands for three years.
And at that point I was reallyconsidering, okay, that's it.
My I, we had.
We've got the one child that Imentioned to you before, and she
was graduating high school, andI thought, okay that's it.
We're empty nesters, and now wecan just, do our own thing, but
(12:23):
she decided to go to school inLondon, and I had one more tour
left, and We decided, okay we'llfollow her.
Yeah.
And it was it was another greattour being embedded with the
Royal Navy and good kind of wayto cap it off, internationally
(12:44):
with the kind of background thatI had doing a lot of
international tours.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (12:49):
So before we get into your transition, I want
to talk about fear, right?
So before you join a Navy, youexperience in probably in real
time, the crash of thechallenger crash.
You still want it to fly.
And as of today, which is almostmid February a few days ago, we
had a CH-53 that went down about50 miles outside of San Diego.
(13:12):
So we know that our platform oraviation, the things that we do
is dangerous.
Now, what was your thoughtprocess being in that
environment every time you getin the cockpit or through the
planning and also getting intothe cockpit, what was the
mindset that you had to be in asa aviator?
Charles McKinney (13:34):
You have to be in the mindset that first and
foremost, you're wearing thecloth of the nation and you're
doing something that's going tobe in support of our strategic
directives.
And supporting the mission,which is overall national
defense.
So when it everything comes backto service to the country, to
(13:55):
defending the nation in 1 way oranother, whether it's, your
presence helps deter or you'reactually bringing aid or
supplying or putting steel ontarget, whatever, you those,
it's that mission focus.
Apart from that, it's attentionto detail.
And another thing, gotta creditthe Marine Corps.
(14:18):
A lot of things come back for mepersonally to the Marine Corps.
Because I did a lot of time,especially in high school, in
Jacksonville, North Carolina.
And we know.
What was in Jacksonville, NorthCarolina?
Great souls ready to do God'swork in Jacksonville, North
Carolina.
And from that, Aviation OfficerCandidate School, what do you
get?
(14:38):
Everyone who's seen Officer anda Gentleman, you know what
you're going to get.
It's real instructor who knowstheir craft and that's what they
punched in daily attention todetail discipline, spirit
teamwork, all of that just comesflooding in and especially the
attention to detail when you flyplan.
(14:58):
When you breathe, when you getdown to the every single minute
of the flight that you'regetting ready to do of the
mission, and then you go and youtalk to the maintenance, you
talk to people, to professionalslike yourself, and you're like,
okay, what has this bird beenthrough?
What do I need to expect?
And then you go together out tothe bird and you look at
(15:19):
everything like, almost as ifyou are carrying that,
magnifying glass and just goingover every single piece and make
sure, okay, we're gonna do this.
And then the system is built to,to, to baby step you up and you
go through a checklist to startup.
Everything is to check and makesure everything's working just
right before you get airborne.
(15:40):
And then from then on it's up toyou if you're in the front seat
and you got a, you got a solidcrew in the back.
Experience levels may vary, butyou're all in it together and
you just, that's where the,that's where all the training
kicks in from the date from dayone, all the way through to
where you are at that moment.
It's all been training.
It's everything's been buildingup to that moment, even if it's
(16:02):
your 40th flight or, yourhundreds, whatever, still
everything builds upon itself.
And then, when mishaps happen,you learn from them.
And you hold them tight and yougot to keep them close right
there so that you can also keepthat mindset of, I don't want to
get complacent.
(16:24):
This is for real.
This isn't old hat.
Every flight is the first, likethe first flight, and you just
got to bring your A-game if youwill, cliche, but it's got to be
that you have to be the top ofyour performance every single
time.
You can't let yourself down.
You can't let your crew down.
Can't break that aircraft andlet the nation down.
(16:44):
So that's, those are the kindsof things that they get in that,
so it seems like a lot, but itreally happens in five seconds,
just to your brain.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (16:52):
Oh, man.
Just listening to that justbrings me back to the days of,
grinding on the flight line.
And it is so fulfilling everysingle day.
Whether you fly on one aircraftor your commanding officer
decided that on a Friday, threemonths from now, we're going to
fly the entire barn, it's a lotof work that a lot of work that
goes into that.
A lot of planning that goes tothat.
But I think one of the thingsthat I really admire You've seen
(17:16):
the relationship that hasdeveloped between the
maintainers, those guys and galswere fixing the aircraft and the
pilots, those guys and gals,those officers, guys and gals
were flying the aircraft, right?
To your point, walking out tothe aircraft, having, small talk
conversation, learn, learningthe pain points and also just
developing a comfort.
(17:36):
About the person who just workon the aircraft or the crew
that's getting ready to go fly,right?
Because as in, in naval andmarine aviation crew resource
management is a big part of ourof our structure.
And it's important that the guyand the gals in the back is just
as important or in the samelevel, the same team, same fight
as those guys and gals up frontwho are flying a plane.
(17:56):
No.
So I really admire thoserelationship and the way they
created.
Charles McKinney (18:01):
It was fun too.
It seems a little retro, but youget through maintenance
controllers.
Look, can I borrow youraircraft, for a couple hours?
We're going to take it out.
I promise.
I won't break your air.
Don't worry.
Because a lot of people thinkit's a different, pilots and air
crew get a, sometimes get a badrap.
And vice versa, and it's allgood tongue in cheek fun.
(18:23):
But the reality of situation isthe aircraft is a piece of
equipment that really belongsto, in my opinion, belongs to
maintenance and they care for itand maybe and make it perfect
and it's our job to take care ofit.
We're signing for it.
I'll take care of it.
I promise.
And then you give you andeverything's good when you come
back.
(18:43):
We did this.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (18:45):
I appreciate when Adam did God's work and
brought the aircraft back.
And if the aircraft for somestrange reason have some wear
and tear in it you will payattention to the detail during
flights and you're able toassess and give us the
information that we need to fixthis aircraft appropriately, so
let's, if you listen to thispodcast episode and you want to
know what we're talking aboutthe aircraft belonging to
maintenance control, look,there's a Facebook page called
(19:06):
maintenance control.
It's funny.
It's one of the funniest pageyou ever read on about
maintenance.
It's all about looking at thingsfrom a maintenance control
perspective, because to yourpoint, Charles, that they
really, maintenance control ownthat aircraft because that's
what they do.
It's in their name.
Maintenance control.
Every.
(19:27):
Swinging dog tag that touchesthat aircraft, right there, the
approval has to go throughmaintenance control, so they
treat it as if there's a apristine we call it classic car
in their grandfather's garage,right?
Our grandma's garage in thegarage, right?
That need care for, and that'show we treat that aircraft,
right?
So we get, we feel some kind ofway whenever a pilot bring
(19:48):
aircraft back, that is not ingood condition.
Charles McKinney (19:51):
And that was one of my most, most, that was
one of my most humblingpositions was I had the
privilege of being themaintenance officer for my
squadron.
And that was so humbling.
I learned so much in such aquick time, in a short amount of
time, I learned a lot.
That's awesome.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (20:10):
Yeah.
Mainly from you.
Yeah.
So that brings me one of thethings I like about, before we
get into that, one of the thingsI like about your maintenance
master chief, I had the luxuryof working with these folks.
When I was going through themaintenance, when I was an
instructor at the maintenanceofficer school down in
Pensacola.
And The proficiency level ofyour senior chief and master
chief is admirable.
(20:30):
I don't think, I don't thinkthere's another word I can use
to describe it, but theirproficiency in their craft is
100 percent admirable.
So I can imagine.
The level of professionalism youhad in your maintenance
department with trainingsailors, how to hone their craft
and make their drop, make theirjobs, their profession, kudos to
(20:50):
you for your, the privilege ofserving as a maintenance
officer.
So thanks.
Thanks a lot.
It was great.
Yeah.
What comes with that is, you'vebeen in for a little while,
longer than myself, and you'veseen a transition amongst a
young man and a young woman as aleader in the, say, for example,
(21:11):
in the maintenance departmentwhat are some of the, what are
some of the transition that youyourself had to adapt to, to
ensure that you was the bestleader that these sailors
deserve?
Yeah.
Charles McKinney (21:24):
One of the first things that pops in my
mind immediately is the wordtrust, and it goes right back to
what you said about themaintenance master chief, senior
chief, and we also employed awarrant officer in our
maintenance our maintenance teamit's that, it's a level of
trust, when we're going throughsome of the, our other, we'll
(21:44):
call them upbringing jobs whenyou're a very junior lieutenant
and then become a in the MarineCorps, a captain for us an
actual lieutenant.
You have these jobs, yeah, whereyou think, okay, this is my
fishbowl and I own everything init.
And you're really just, of thetraining officer or the
assistant operations officer.
You get the right to schedule.
(22:05):
Wow.
Thank you very much.
When you get to that point whereno kidding your department head,
and you have those lieutenantsworking for you, and you can't
be everywhere at once.
You definitely can't.
I don't know any maintenanceofficer who's, who lives and
works at the squadron to bethere 24 hours a day to see all
(22:26):
the different shifts that comethrough there and do their job.
And everyone needs attention.
And it seems day check gets themost love because everyone's in
the house during the day, nightshift.
Oh, night check is left on theirown devices.
But it's that there is a balancethat comes where you have to get
around and make sure thateveryone is aware.
(22:50):
Of what your expectations are,and then once you deliver that,
you have to just trust them thatthey're going to do their job
that they're going to live up tothe training and the level that
they are.
And when I was telling you aboutbeing humble part of that was
learning what the experiencelevel and the expertise level of
each of the pay grades withinthe maintenance and, and each of
(23:16):
the trades that everyone did.
We call them rates.
I think you still have militaryspecialty, right?
So it was all also learning howto put all those together and
understand why certain peopledid certain things and then to
also be able to ride the juniorofficers.
So that they were accountableand learn that, because they
(23:39):
have to be trained as well tothen later on replace you, when
they're doing their divisionofficer tours or quality
assurance, which was a big one.
Yeah.
But then, yeah, trust is the bigone that pops up.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (23:53):
Mr.
Charles, at one point we have totransition from the military,
right?
So when you start gettingpromoted, Staff NCO Field grade
officer officers you get a lotof responsibility and it's, it
brings a lot of value, right?
When you get to make an impacton a couple of hundred, at some
(24:15):
point a thousand Marines andsailors, it's a huge
responsibility that comes withso much fulfillment.
And then at one point you haveto transition into the civilian
sector.
What would that look like foryou?
The transition from the militaryto the civilian sector?
Charles McKinney (24:33):
Yeah, it was different.
I'd say that's the first, partof it.
Why?
Because I was overseas anotherthing.
I was embedded in a foreignmilitary's military, and I was
in my final tour, I was workingin the air cell as the director
of the aviation air cell on abattle staff, part of the Royal
(24:57):
Navy in England in Portsmouth.
And I was 1 of U.
S.
Navy officers.
we were alone and not afraid ifyou will.
And that's the main point thatmade my transition a little bit,
I wouldn't say unique.
I'm not the first person to everdo this, but I sure did feel
(25:18):
like I was the first persontransitioning overseas.
And then with the ideal ofremaining overseas, I had to do
a lot of reading and research.
Literally had to dig through thepub some a process that I
thought was just going to be logstep pretty easy.
Okay, pack everything up, shipit to home record or wherever,
(25:38):
we're going to live, go throughthe out processing, place with
personnel, they run the, theirprocedures, assign some papers
and, That's it.
No, I had to actually I'll sayapply for the ability to stay in
place and retire.
(25:59):
I had to do a lot of networkingand negotiating with personnel
at different hierarchies withinmy chain of command, which was
an odd chain of command becauseI literally had a split of
operational and administrativein two different countries, and
I was displaced.
Geographically from the closestunit that I could get to 3 hours
(26:23):
away.
So admin was a little bit of achallenge.
But, because I called around andunderstood who were the decision
makers, I was able to addressthem directly and get help So I
had to be a little bit of a,admin jockey myself, but it was
for me.
And that's the one thing that Iwould, espouse to anyone who's
(26:46):
considering leaving.
It'll all happen.
It'll happen to all of us.
We're all not going to stay inthe military forever, right?
We're going to have totransition out is to learn as
much as you can about theprocess as early as you can.
So that you're familiar withwhich buttons to press when the
time comes and.
(27:06):
Knowing people is reallyimportant.
You need to research and learnall the topics.
And I do dove into Milpers Manfor us.
And I, my mind was blown in someareas because there're just
things that I didn't know andhadn't even considered and
thought, oh great, this issomething else I have to plan
for someone else I have to talkto.
I have to figure out where thepeople are and stay in touch.
(27:27):
And I was like.
It took time, but I was able todo it, and in my case I've, I
had a little bit of experiencein that I have Was thinking in
my mind, I was going to retiretwice before, after Sigonella
and after the Netherlands.
So I had already done, forexample, what is commonly
referred to as TAP, what we calla transition GPS in the Navy.
(27:50):
So I'd done that twice alreadyand then did it for a third time
in England with the Air Forceand So I had that experience
already and was able tofacilitate the kind of the look
into the civilian side.
But I will tell you, if I wereretiring and heading back to the
(28:13):
United States, it would be a lotdifferent because it's a more
familiar area.
A lot of support resources thereand.
Veterans are thought of in amuch different way.
Military is thought of in a muchdifferent way.
I, I believe I read for manyyears, and probably even still
that a list of the most trustedorganizations In the country and
(28:37):
time again, military was number1, and then it was like, a lot
of space and a lot of space.
And then it was like, maybe acouple of services, like a fire
department, law enforcement,there, and then it went down,
but it's always been a top, wetrust our military because we're
not the type of country that'sgoing to have a military coup.
And we go out and risk our livesall the time.
(29:00):
So it was different adjusting toa different country.
To be thought of as a militaryveteran from another country
trying to break into a civilianworld.
That's, that, that really at thetime and still ongoing is
suffering from some economicwoes and like the world really
for last few years.
(29:20):
So it's a challenge, no harderthan say.
going through flight school or,flying in a combat zone or
anything else that every singleperson in our military faces on
a daily, on a daily basis.
So that's one thing about beingin the military is you come out
of it with a lot of resilienceand a lot of know how, we call
(29:42):
it salt,
SECOND SIR HUTCH (29:43):
both shoulders.
Yes, sir.
So how did your background as aplanner help you to transition?
Charles McKinney (29:52):
Oh, it helped dearly.
I will say it's nothing special.
A lot of it people underestimatethemselves.
People know how to plan.
If you didn't, really, how wouldyou celebrate your kid's
birthday, party it's that it canbe that simple.
It's just, it's it's kinda likeYoda, that, that movie Star
Wars, right?
When the guy Luke is like, oh Ican't, use my magic and lift the
(30:15):
ship and, the little green guyYoda is the size doesn't matter.
You just think of it and do itis kinda like planning, oh
you're planning a major campaignor versus oh, you're planning,
your daughter's birthday partystill going through the same
steps.
You still have to identify yourend state, your objective, you
(30:36):
have to, where you are, youstill have to have decision
points and milestones to get youto that end.
And in those milestones, youhave to have actions and
support, you have to identify,factors, key factors, you still
have to do that.
Operational risk management isnot dead.
(30:58):
I love everything I do and Ilook as I look at it and I think
of what are the top five thingsat least you could have
hundreds.
But what are the top five thingsthat could go wrong and why?
And then you judge them by howsevere would damage be if it
went wrong?
And what's the probability of ithappening?
So probability and severity.
(31:19):
And for example, birth birthdaysomeone could forget the
candles.
What's the probability?
High.
Cause you only have two peoplerunning around and what's the
severity?
Big severity.
When your little daughter can'tblow out those candles and make
a whip, you're done, same thingwith a major plan.
What's the worst thing thatcould happen?
Oh, the enemy could drop a bombover here on the headquarters.
(31:42):
Probability and maybe if theycan get through our defenses,
severity, you just decapitated,our HQ, so better plan for that.
Better make sure it doesn't gowrong.
It's the same kind of model.
So the planning really did helpout and why?
Because in order to plan well,you have to start early.
You have to think about thesethings.
(32:03):
So you're not going to forgetthings.
And I got to tell you I when mygoal in military was to at least
stay in to retire so that Icould have retirement benefits,
I saw that my father, did 20years, he got his benefits etc.
Okay, that's the goal.
At least if I'm going to doservice, I'm not going to leave
(32:24):
before 20 years.
Okay, so around the 20 yearmark, even before the 20 year
mark, I'm thinking 20 years iscoming up.
Maybe I should start thinkingabout what's going to happen to,
to, to, for the exit strategy.
Oh I stay in.
I made the decision to stay in.
Okay maybe the next tour.
So I better start thinking aboutthat exit strategy.
And it just kept perpetuating.
(32:44):
So I, really I'd been thinkingabout retiring for a period of
probably 12 years.
But a little bit before 20 andthen definitely all the way
through to the end of the 20because I did 28 actually.
Yes.
So I really every single tourafter from before 20 years and
on thinking, okay, what can Ido?
(33:05):
How can I prepare?
And I'm sure you're going towant to talk about kind of those
areas of preparation, likefinancial the answer to the
question of where What, you wantto for and for how much you want
to do it for those kinds ofthings did pop up and they
changed every single time.
I thought about it because we'rein a different location.
(33:25):
Yeah, we had assets.
We had, aging parents.
There are all kinds of things toconsider.
In
SECOND SIR HUTCH (33:31):
that.
Yeah.
So let's dive into that becauselook it sounds like we have a
very similar trajectory and a,kinda like a milestone.
We call it the plan of actionand milestone, but the plan of
action and milestone for medidn't really start until we
call it PO and a and M didn'treally start until about, 18 and
a half, 19 years in the MarineCorps.
(33:53):
Then when it dawned on me Ohshoot, retirement is right
around the corner, man, it'slike a year and a half, so what
is it I'm going to do afterretirement?
So when Athena and I, we satdown at the table, we realized
that we together, we can createsome really amazing things in
our thoughts.
We can put some, a lot ofamazing things on paper that is
executable, right.
But in order to do that.
(34:14):
It comes with the timeline,right?
What are some of the things thatyou had to factor into your
timeline to plan for asuccessful retirement up to the
28, 28 years that gives you theconfidence of your ability to
continue on in the future?
Okay,
Charles McKinney (34:32):
I do have a checklist, because I can't
remember everything all the timeand I don't want to.
So I'm a checklist.
I'm a checklist guy, but I willsay off the top of my head.
Definitely on the checklist.
This is an easy 1 that's beenchecked off annually ever since
before I even got my commission.
And it's something my fathertaught me.
(34:53):
He said, when you get paid, payyourself first.
So you get money from whateverjob you're doing, let's say you
have 100 for that period oftime, you got to take a
percentage of that and payyourself.
And what does that mean?
You got to put it in a savingsaccount some kind of, you have
to do something with it whereit's not used, where it's not
(35:14):
consumed.
I have started long, like Isaid, all the way in the
beginning of having automaticdiversions for a certain amount
of money that comes in certainpercentage of money that comes
in to emergency fund.
And that's no kidding.
It's it goes into this account,which I don't see except for
once every month to see how muchit's grown and make sure nothing
(35:37):
happened to it.
And it just keeps building.
Oh, but you can invest that.
That's a different conversation.
Then you got your investmentplay money.
Okay.
You can, you can take that andgo and play in the stock market
or whatever.
Then you've got the money thatcomes in and just bounces right
out into the IRA.
That's, this is way back, IRA.
Then it turned into the RothIRA, but then gone, that money's
(35:59):
in in there.
Max it out.
Every year, right?
And don't even think about it.
And then the, then TSP camealong.
Oh, there you go.
Percentage automatic, gone.
So what I see in the bankgrowing in my checking account
is just what's left over frompaying myself.
And then from that goes thebudget of, okay, rent or
(36:23):
mortgage, school or whatever,fuel, groceries, all that,
bills, all those kinds ofthings.
That all gets sectioned off.
And then what's really left, wecan decide, Oh, do we want to do
something fun like go out todinner?
Or do we just throw it in theother account, for safekeeping
and build that up for fun later,bigger fun later on?
(36:46):
And I'm, this is a personalthing.
People have their vices andtheir hobbies go at it, minor
are what are somewhat we'll calllimited and not very expensive.
With that, the idea is to beingdebt free.
So another thing that I learnedis Get that good credit and
(37:08):
maintain it.
Don't use a credit card forcredit.
Use it as a means to not depleteyour liquid cash and then pay it
off in full because you're notspending money that you don't
have with a credit card.
So you're building credit and mycredit is amazing.
It's in the little, little dial.
(37:29):
It's in the green.
It's way over.
It's good.
Unfortunately, I can't really dotoo much with it because I live
in a different country, you gotto maintain it because you never
know.
But yeah, being debt free is thefirst thing, paying things down
so that when you, so that youdon't owe when you're leaving,
because you don't know.
What your stream is going to beyour incoming stream is going to
be.
(37:49):
So that's 1 of the 1st things onthe checklist.
The other 1 is or the other 3 ina row are you have to decide and
we talked about this already alittle bit about you have to
decide.
These 3 things, at least 2 ofthem, you have to decide where
you want to live.
What area you want to live, whatyou want to do.
(38:11):
That's a big one.
You have to decide what you wantto do.
It can't be five differentthings.
It has to be like one or twopick one, and focus on it.
And we'll get to a little bitwhy later on.
And then the other one is howmuch money you need.
Now there's how much money youneed.
And there's how much money youwant.
And then there's like acombination of needs and wants.
(38:32):
And, you come up with yournumber.
How much are you worth a month?
How much do you need to be wortha month?
And then that may answer whereyou need to go to do it.
And what you need to, and whatyou do in order to get that.
Because say I want to, go backto Seattle and be a mechanic.
But I need to make,$250,000 ayear, something's not gonna work
(38:54):
there.
right?
Something needs to adjust.
So probably the what, probablyneed to change that from
mechanic to senior projectmanager and get like a pm, an
8:00 PM certificate, whateverelse you need to get some
experience and build it.
And then apply for a good joband go for that goal, maybe you
can promote in a couple years.
Th those are all things thatneed to be considered.
(39:16):
When you're before you, youpunched that button and that all
goes into the mix for theplanning 2 to 3 years, 36
months.
I say at least 36 months andit's not just, oh, I picked that
out of the air.
That's just experience and howlong it takes to get things
done.
It just takes a long timesometimes to get things done,
especially when you're workingin the military and in a senior
(39:39):
role because you're over 20.
Years, right?
You just don't have it.
Or if you have a family, youjust got it.
Life happens.
So you need to spread it out andbe realistic.
You can't say I can knock thatout and in eight days, good to
go.
Maybe you can by yourself if youhave all the resources, but
likely you're going to bedepending on somebody else.
Who may be in the hospital for aweek or may have to go on some
(40:04):
travel or, whatever we allalways have to depend on some
kind of institution, some kindof resource, which is usually
tied to people.
And when that happens, yourtimeline just has to spread out
a ways.
I'll give you an example.
One of the things you reallyneed to get squared away, in my
opinion, before you retire isyour medical status, your
(40:28):
medical record, and, servicerecord as well.
And that, oh gosh, that takes,that can take forever.
It took me more than 15 years toget certain things.
Changed and updated in myservice record over my career.
I started something and it justnever would never get done.
I'd get go back and forth withthe Bureau.
Those things take time.
(40:48):
You really got it.
That's something that needs tobe on an annual tickler.
Really?
If you're in the military.
But medical it could take a yearto get things sorted out with
your record.
And when you go to file for a VAclaim, which is going to be, at
the very least, 180 or 80 daysbefore your exit date, if you
(41:12):
want to participate in certainprograms.
But in order to be ready to meetthat 180 day gate, you need to
start months in advance torequest all of your records from
other, whether it's thehospital, military, or you've
got some services out in town orprivate doctors, whatever dental
it, it took me for eachinstitution and there are five
(41:34):
involved a month for each oneand I didn't know this.
Until after the 2nd, 1, I shouldhave requested all 5 records at
the same time.
And it would have just taken 1month, but I requested 1.
It took a month, and I waswondering why the other weren't
a part of it.
And they said, you had to dothat separately.
(41:54):
And guess what?
Each 1 of those was a month aswell because of privacy rules
and how the system works.
So I, luckily, I clicked on andapplied for the rest of the
other 4 at the same time, andthose didn't all take a month.
But still, again, that's anexample.
Takes time.
That makes
SECOND SIR HUTCH (42:10):
sense.
Yeah that's definitely one ofthe big struggle and one of the
things that we, what I tellpeople a lot is even tell my
children, that's look we will dothings whenever they become
important to us, so one of thereasons for diving this deep
into our veterans background isto, and also some of the
planning and exit strategy.
(42:31):
It's to ensure that we can givethis information to the younger
version of herself, or, thosepeople we have trained to
replace us, so they can plantheir transition a lot smoother
and a lot earlier, to make surethat whenever they go in a
civilian world, they leave themilitary and they leave in a
good standing, so that's
Charles McKinney (42:48):
good.
That's right.
And also on that point, I willsay, and I know, this it's
better to teach someone how tofish than to give them that fish
for a day, which is basicallysaying, give them the resources
and the materials and then tellthem, hey, you need to read
this.
I can't tell you everything.
(43:09):
You need to read all of thesethings.
Yeah.
Yeah,
SECOND SIR HUTCH (43:12):
you're 100 percent correct, Mr.
Charles.
Alrighty.
So Mr.
Charles to podcast, we're goingto go into the focus round,
which is, the we love ouracronym, right?
So it's five, it's the acronymof five letters, FOCUS, and we
talked about them earlier.
Mr.
Charles, what do you do for fun?
What I do for
Charles McKinney (43:29):
fun I used to Go to the beach now, where I
live soccer is my number 1sport.
So if I could ever get, but thatrequires a group of people.
If I can ever work in that'sgreat.
But at this point it's a.
Really, truly taking care of myfamily in a way that I haven't I
wasn't able to throughdeployments and missions and
(43:50):
working in the military we'reenjoying a little puppy that we
got, a couple of years ago,which is great to raise a little
puppy and spending time eitherhelping people out or trying to
get a sustainable life going bygrowing plants.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
So
SECOND SIR HUTCH (44:07):
what is one opportunity that was a game
changer for you?
Charles McKinney (44:10):
It, at, in, in the military or like before?
In my whole life
SECOND SIR HUTCH (44:14):
overall for me I had the opportunity to be the
director of the Corpus courseat, in Miramar.
And what I, that provided meopportunity to work with a
unique set of individual, the.
I think the, what I think wasfive of the best sergeant in the
mall and what that did for me toyour point earlier, we're
talking about trust, right?
I trust them to carry on themission.
(44:35):
And that gave me a lot of timeto become the leader that they
deserve.
And that was a game changer forme.
And I noticed that whenever Istarted to improve myself, I can
now serve them better, so thatwas a major opportunity for me.
And I became a better leader,better father, better husband,
better Marine, better.
Son, it was all encompassingbecause I had time to work on me
Charles McKinney (44:56):
You just reminded me of a really good
game changer that I had.
And it was definitely anexercise in learning humility.
And it was when I was a veryjunior officer.
I only had, I still only haveone bar and it was still silver,
but I only have one bar and I, Imade a mistake in getting ready
to go flying.
I I made a mistake and my chiefpetty officer of my detachment
(45:20):
that I was the division officerfor, he pulled me aside.
And he did it in the right way.
And oh, my gosh, I felt sosmall, but at the same time, he
basically gave me a bunch oftools in that discussion where I
held on to him and they helpchart my course as a leader
(45:41):
going forward.
And they always say that thechief will train the junior
officer and I got trained.
Yes.
I got
SECOND SIR HUTCH (45:48):
it.
And I trust that conversationpaid it forward to your, to the
value that you placed on yourenlisted leaders, right?
Yes.
Absolutely.
Mr.
Charles, what would you say isyour most important
communication tip?
Charles McKinney (46:04):
My most important communication tip is
to always be authentic.
That's the one, look people inthe eye.
Give the firm grip when youshake their hand.
A lot of communication is nonverbal, and if you bring the
presence that you want to beunderstood in a way, you won't
even need to speak.
You'll get that first, you'llgive the first impression and
(46:26):
people will feel a certain wayabout you and hopefully you'll
be able to put them at ease.
I'm not saying walk in andintimidate people.
I'm saying you'll be able tocome into people and they'll
come into a room and people willlook and go, okay, I feel
comfortable with this person.
And then when you speak and youtreat that person as an equal or
higher, not even, I'm not sayingbelittle yourself, but just you
(46:47):
speak in a way.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (46:50):
That's difficult
Charles McKinney (46:52):
to explain, but like Japanese there's
honorific and there's like anormal kind of common way.
If you just bend a little bit,people will return it in spades
and it's yeah, that's a goodthat's it.
All right.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (47:03):
So what is one thing you wish you understood
earlier?
Charles McKinney (47:07):
As much as we've spoken about finances and
being prepared in that way.
I wish I would have understoodthe value of compounding
interest earlier and how todiversify, investments and a
little bit more about theinvestments that I hadn't
learned until later.
Why?
Because I didn't take the timeto read about it.
And, now I'm kicking myself, butat the same time, I know where
(47:30):
to go for the knowledge.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (47:32):
Like I said we will do things when they become
important to us on the same wayto some of the things that for
example my, my buddy Nathapolsyrup, Gunny Siriup.
He retired several years ago andhe told me to read this book,
rich dad, poor dad, like back, Iwant to say back in 2000, 2009
(47:52):
ish it's a long time ago.
And I did not read the bookuntil 2017.
So when I was thinking about atransition and thinking about
what I'm going to do for it tofix my income, and he did it, he
did his through real estatewhere they buy property from
different places, but he alsoinvests in a stock market to
your point earlier, pay yourselffirst, I finally read that book,
(48:13):
understand the differencebetween assets and liability,
and that was a game changertowards the goals that Athena
and I, we sit down and we said,because we now thought with more
clarity.
Of what is assets, what's aliability, and it challenges, it
challenged a lot of societalnorms that we were taught, so
that was a good thing.
(48:33):
So Mr.
Charles to what do you attributeyour
Charles McKinney (48:36):
success?
I attribute any success that Ihave to all the others that have
supported me throughout my life,and I credit first parents,
grandparents who are librarieswho need to, that need to be
utilized as much as possible.
I'm talking like reading thebooks until they're rubbing
(48:57):
fine.
Because when they're gone, thatlibrary burns to the ground.
And then those great friendsalong the way, those mentors and
teachers, those chief pettyofficers, that gunnery sergeant
pulls you aside and says, andtwist your ear makes you listen.
Those people are the ones thatevery little dose they give you
(49:17):
builds and builds and you becomethis superhero of a person to
someone, maybe just yourself,but yeah any success that I
have.
To those people.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (49:31):
Mr.
Charles, I know we met onLinkedIn for the most part.
If our listeners want to get intouch with you, how did it go by
doing that?
Charles McKinney (49:39):
Oh, definitely.
Get in touch with me.
I'm on LinkedIn.
Charles McKinney let's see my,my, if you put in the the
linkedin URL, I'm C.
G.
McKinney.
I, for the 2nd, and can bereached at.
My, my business email, which ischarles.
g.
mckinney2 at gmail.
(50:01):
com.
Yeah.
SECOND SIR HUTCH (50:02):
With that, listeners thank you for joining
the multifamily real estateexperiment podcast and catch you
in the next episode.
I'm Hutch The Marine Investorout.
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