Breaking Barriers: From Nuclear Reactors to Corporate Leadership (John Broschak)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning.
Today is Monday, august 4th2025.
We're talking with JohnBroschak, who served the United
States Navy.
So good morning, john.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Good morning Bill.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Full disclosure.
John and I have known eachother for a couple of years.
We even worked together for alittle while, so this is going
to be kind of catching up for me.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Fantastic.
I love to catch up with oldfriends All right, so we're
going to start out.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Real simple, john when and where were you born?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Real simple, john.
When and where were you born?
Oh, allentown, pennsylvania.
It was actually Whitehall,pennsylvania, technically
Fullerton, a little bit norththere, but eastern Pennsylvania,
in the heart of theAllentown-Bethlehem-Easton area
back in 1964.
So March 18th, my mom alwaysused to say.
If I had been born the daybefore, my name would have been
Patrick.

(00:42):
I wasn't born on March 17th, soMarch 18th 1964.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Are you a saint anyway?

Speaker 2 (00:49):
We were raised in a very strong, strict Catholic
household.
So I am the youngest of fiveMike, mary, tom, joe and John
and middle names are all saintsas well, so I guess that's the
closest I've come to sainthoodokay, well, one way or the other
right.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
So did you, did you then?
You grew up right there inPennsylvania.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Then yes, okay absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
What was it like?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
well, it was, uh, pretty much a uh, blue collar
working class, uh, community.
I community, I mean football,basketball, baseball was what
you did as a kid growing up, um,if you had any athletic prowess
.
Um, very stable familyenvironment.
My mom and dad, you know.
I think we're married close to50 years by the time dad passed

(01:38):
back in 2001.
Um, he designed and built hishome as part of coming out of
the World War II era.
He served in World War II inthe army.
Stability, I would say my dadwas a very risk-averse man,
always watched his pennies, worethe same suit for 30 years.

(02:01):
His dream in life was to sendall five of his kids to college.
The deal was he would pay forany school as long as it was a
Pennsylvania State school.
For me that meant Penn State.
But being the youngest of five,I would say my parents made all
their mistakes with the olderkids.

(02:22):
By the time they got around tome, um, my, I was maybe a little
bit.
They figured some things out.
I was able to get away with alittle bit more than the other
brothers and sisters and I didbetter in school than they did,
and my dad would hang that overthe heads of the other kids in
the in the household, whichmeant they would take me out
back and tell me how they feltabout that from time to time.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
But not only the baby but the star.
So, yeah, that's got to begreat, that's just got to be
wonderful.
You know, speaking of sports,like you had almost a sports
team right there in your housethen uh, yeah, we could have
played five on five basketballfor sure.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Um, like I said, because because of the, you know
the nature of the community.
Um, I'm 100 ukrainian uh,ukrainian, and I went to
Ukrainian Catholic grade schoolup through fourth grade and then
transitioned to public school.
A lot of it was built aroundthe church and activities with
the church and other Ukrainians.
There was definitely an EasternSlavic sections of the

(03:21):
community and visiting familyand friends and cousins and
aunts and uncles and all thatkind of stuff.
Because of my age, I neverreally had grandparents, which
was a little bit odd experience.
Three of them died the year Iwas born and the other one died
when I was eight and he spokevery little English so I didn't

(03:41):
really have much of a connectionwith him, but other than that,
it was a dandy childhood.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Sounds like it.
Now, what did your dad do for aliving?

Speaker 2 (03:53):
He interesting story with him, so he was fascinated
by aviation and when he got outof the service he was one of the
first enrollees at what wascalled Parks Air College in St
Louis.
It was the forerunner to muchof the aviation industry and he
had a full ride scholarshipthere.
He was very, very goodacademically.

(04:13):
His mom broke his hip duringhis freshman year at college so
he had to move back home to geta job to support the family and
basically give up his dream ofbeing an aviation engineer.
He then went back, uh, workingodd jobs.
He was a fuller brush guy doorto door and went to night school

(04:35):
to get his engineering degree.
He was a civil structuralengineer, uh, and ended up
getting a job with Bethlehemsteel.
That he was there for 30 plusyears until they stumbled into
bankruptcy back in the early 80s.
But yeah, he was your classicpocket protector, slide rule
engineer, Wore his white buttondown shirt and tie every day to

(04:58):
the office, Only had one fieldassignment and his career kind
of leads into some decisions Imade about joining the service
in the first place.
But very good academically, buthe would never get his hands
dirty.
This is a guy who wouldn'tchange the oil on his car.
He took his lawnmower in to getserviced on his schedule and
had meticulous notes of what wasdone.

(05:20):
But he was your classic pocketprotector and slide rule
engineer.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
Well, I smiled when you said Fuller Brushman because
when I was a kid here inMichigan when cable TV first
came out, we could watch thisWKBD TV in Detroit and they
would play these movies late atnight.
They were like the only channelstill on late at night.
And I remember one nightwatching a movie called the
Fuller Brushman channel, stillon late at night.

(05:45):
And I remember one nightwatching a movie called the
fuller brush man and it is thefunniest movie I've ever seen,
bar none in my entire life.
So anyway, I digress, but whenyou said that it brought a smile
to my face, interesting yeah,mom was a registered nurse.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Um, she worked in a hospital setting for a while and
then took time off when thekids were born and by the time I
got around to school age shewent back and worked for our
family doctor as one of hisnurses for many, many years
through her.
Her eventual retirement fromfrom that as well.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Oh, okay, so interesting Cause I uh listening
to the story, I'm like in mymind assuming oh, mom was a stay
at home mom and but she kind ofwas, but she wasn't, she had a
career she stayed home forraising the kids.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
And then, once she was able to, she went back and
worked, I would say, you know,20, 30 hours a week around the
rest of the family schedule.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Just enough to keep her sanity right.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
Very good, so you talked about sports in your town
.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Did you play all of those sports yourself?
I did, I did, I.
You know one point I was goingto be, uh, the point guard for
the north carolina tar heels.
Um, phil ford I'm dating myselfa little bit, um, but you know
phil ford, back in those days hewas an inspiration to me.
So I love basketball.
Uh, played all three sports.
Um, I was not big enough toreally excel at football.
I was quarterback up througheighth grade.
But then when I got to highschool and the times were just

(07:08):
starting, then when you kind ofhad to pick a sport right, right
Now you definitely have to picka sport at age four if you want
to have that dream of reallymoving on.
But back then you could stillplay multiple sports, but I
ended up settling on givingbasketball a run.
Of course I didn't grow to beas tall as I needed to be to

(07:28):
make the North Carolina TarHeels, but focused on that
through a sophomore year, rantrack as a way to stay in shape.
But my musical prowess kind oftook off.
I was a drummer percussioniststarting in the fifth grade.
My oldest brother was my banddirector in high school and I
ended up going on to beall-state percussionist and

(07:49):
played in a number of drum andbugle corps kind of a little
niche activity, but a rudimentaldrummer and percussionist and
had an aspiration in mesomewhere about should I go into
a musical career and pickengineering instead?

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, you know it's interesting, though I don't
think music is that muchdifferent from engineering.
You can't play music like anengineer, but I think that
thought process helps peopleplay music.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah, they told us when we were very young, like
third, fourth grade, because Iwanted to, like, from my
earliest memories, I wanted toplay the drums.
I just thought that was cool.
They said, well, to play thedrums you have to be good at
math.
Well, I happen to be good atmath too.
So finally, by fifth grade, momand dad said okay, because they
didn't want me to, they didn'twant to invest in an instrument.
And then have me change my mind.

(08:39):
But no, I was set since early,early age and ended up being
quite successful in the musicarena too.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Do you have a favorite style of music?

Speaker 2 (08:49):
I really focus on rudimental drumming because I
was fascinated by the whole drumand bugle, core, marching band
kind of stuff and playing inthat kind of a setting.
But I did some drum set typestuff and just a variety of
cover tunes and all that stuff.
I think I was in a what was itcalled back in the day A punk
rock band for a short period oftime back in high school.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
I would love to see pictures of that.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Oh, no, no, no, we don't bring any of those out
anymore.
Oh darn it.
And everything from that upthrough full orchestra and more
of the, I would say, classictraditional music settings.
But I played all differentgenres.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
I'm always amazed by drummers because they're doing
something different with every,every appendage.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
Right, you're doing something different with your
foot, and your two hands areoperating independently, and it
just amazed me yeah, part of itis, uh, you know you're running
these people and and really thatmy decision making around not
going to music.
If, if you want to go to musicperformance, you have to be like
that top .001% of naturaltalent, I mean you have to work
at it.
But beyond that and I was good,I was okay.

(09:53):
But everybody else goes intomusic education, right, and then
maybe plays gigs on the side,but to really excel at music
performance, there's someGod-given gifts, just like
professional athletes of anysort.
Um, and I wasn't quite thatgifted yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Well, I have a younger brother, or had a
younger brother, who had thatgift for, for music.
In fact, behind you were abunch of guitars that used to
belong to him but uh, yeah, he,uh.
I always told him he got thetalent and I got the looks,
which was a lie, because he wasa good looking guy too.
Hated him for it, for it, justhated him for it.
But yeah, so it sounds like agreat childhood.

(10:29):
You get through high school andwhat happens next?

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Oh geez, well, I mean the planting of the seed,
because we heard a talk about mymilitary experience.
I love to read and I becamefascinated by this guy called
John Paul Jones, who had foundedthe Navy back in 1775 or
whatever the year was, and readthese really thick books on him

(11:01):
and there were others, but thatone really kind of stood out for
me and I was a bit of arebellious child in my teenage
years, one that you would notpoint to and go oh, he's
definitely going into theservice.
And so my introduction to itwas I was going to school for
chemical engineering at PennState, and a classic tale of a

(11:21):
guy and a girl.
Right In between my sophomoreand junior year I met my current
wife, kelly Been, together over40 years now.
Back in 1984, I met her andcame back from that summer
because we were in a musicalgroup together traveling the
country.
And then she was in Michigan,going to school at Western

(11:42):
Michigan in Kalamazoo, and I wasgoing to Penn State, so it was
about 500 miles away.
I had really no money becauseeverything was going into school
.
My dad was on my back aboutgetting a job and helping to pay
for school, although he wascovering tuition and the
majority of it, and I met thisguy in one of my classes.
So mentally I was kind of lost.
I had this love of my lifeeight hours away how am I going

(12:05):
to make this work?
Kind of thing.
Didn't have any money, um, anduh, one thing that uh had always
bothered me was I was goodacademically studying out of
books and like engineering study, like formulas and equations
and all this stuff.
But I I, because of my dad'supbringing with not a lot of
exposure, like we weren't, youknow, breaking down motorcycles

(12:30):
and putting them back together,we weren't doing any of that
stuff.
Um, I really was was wantingthis practical application.
I'm a very pragmatic person andif I see something like that's
a learning style for me.
But I was sick of studying outof books, to be honest with you,
so that that was kind of runthrough my mind in the
background.
So I had this girlfriend that'sneed for income.
I, I had kind of this desirethat school was going fine.
But I ran into this guy and andhe said, uh, and, and he told me

(12:52):
about the navy nuclear programand he had, he had just gotten
in at the end of his sophomoreyear in this program called
nuclear propulsion officercandidate, which is the the
third way the Navy at that timewas getting prospective nuclear
candidates.
You can either go the ROTCroute or the academy route.

(13:12):
But this was the othersupplement and he told me about
the situation where if you gotreally good grades and I had
good grades you go through thebackground security check and I
was pretty confident I could getthrough that and you pass the
interview down in DC.
They pay you to finish school.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
What a concept, yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
You actually become on active duty, starting as an
E3, and they pay you to finishschool on time.
That's all you have to do.
Once a month, you go into therecruiting office and, of course
, you talk to the recruiter andwe know what they're all about
and he's like, oh my God, you'regoing to love this, this is
fantastic, and you're going tosee the world, all that kind of
stuff.
But the thought of submarines,even back then, was just

(13:54):
fascinating to me.
That you make your own water,you make your own.
I'll finally be able to takeall this stuff I've been
learning in books and see it inpractice.
This is great, and I'm going tohave money and I'm going to be
able to see my girlfriend.
I'm going to get my dad off myback.
And it was six weeks from theday I talked to this guy and
this is just a classmate.
He's going to the recruiterfilling out all paperwork rushed

(14:17):
me down to DC and when you getdown to DC was an interesting
day as well, um, you know,because it's still part of the
rick over nuclear navy.
Uh, he, he had left, I think, ayear or two before them,
because this was back in, uh,1984, fall of 84 um, but it was
still the same rick over nuclearnavy and and went through.
You know the interview processnot quite as as uh grueling as

(14:40):
some of the stories that peopletell about it, because it wasn't
with him, uh, but that day,like if you make it through and
it's funny, they take you intothis room after all the
interviews and I can tell youexactly how I answered.
Quite, you know we don't needto get to that level detail.
I remember vividly every.
They take you to this holdingroom and and, like your, your
life direction is on a pinhead,right, like either they're going

(15:01):
to call you back and say, yes,you got in, or they're going to
call you back and say, yes, yougot in, or they're going to call
you back and say, no, I'm sorry, the, the United States Navy
decided not to, not to, uh, uh,take advantage of your services.
You know, god bless Um.
And they call me and they said,yes, you've been accepted,
right.
Well, then they, they hustleyou back before you can change
your mind in any way.
They hustle you back to thehotel and they take you into a

(15:22):
room and you basically sign yourlife away.
You know the equivalent ofsigning your life away.
We've all done that, right Um,and so mine was five years after
.
The completion of officercandidate school was my initial
commitment, but back then I hadno idea what that meant.
I didn't even know what I'dsigned up for.
Right Um, I was just like Holycow, I got money, I got a
girlfriend.

(15:43):
Right Right, you read the wholebrochure.
And I don't have to go throughthat whole interviewing thing
that my friends were allstarting to talk about.
You know, oh, I got to decidewhich company I'm going to work
for.
You know, will somebody hire me?
I'm like man, I can just focuson school.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
My life was perfect after that day for a while
Perfect for a while, yeah, but Ican't imagine like there's a
period of time right where dad'snot on your back.
Oh my god, you got money inyour pocket I got a raise after
a year.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
I got.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
They promoted me to e4 after a year yeah, so not
only are they paying for yourcollege, but they're paying you
to be in school yes, all I hadto do was graduate on time but.
But let's be honest.
So the the because I came intothe navy in 1984 as well um,
getting into the nuclear powerprogram is no joke like, and
that's why they have you signedthat contract right, because

(16:33):
it's so hard to find people whomeet all the criteria yeah, um,
but yeah, I had no concept.
No, not at all.
So you said for a while so what?
What happens next?
I can't wait to hear the restof this story.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
Well, you're living like a king, finishing out
school right and you don't haveto worry about any of these
other things.
All your other classmates areworrying.
So you know it.
I guess you know it worked onthe relationship side because
I'm I'm still with the personthat was.
It wasn't of that and and forher I mean this was like.
I call her up, I said, yeah, Ijust joined the Navy, she's, she

(17:07):
was like what we don't.
I know each other for literally, you know, three months at the
point that I did this.
But you know the rest of school.
I, I finished on time and thenwe had a little bit of a break
and then you had to report toOfficer Canada School, newport,
rhode Island.
And again we're talking about aguy, and it reminds me a lot of

(17:31):
our reservists that signed upfor a variety of reasons pay for
education, whatever and thenall of a sudden they're shipped
over to Iraq or Afghanistan, toan active theater, and like,
holy crap, like what?
What did I get myself into?
So my story is maybe a milderversion of those because I never

(17:52):
ended up in in active theaterin that sense.
But um, you show up at Newport,rhode Island, and from day one,
people are screaming at youlike holy cow.
You know, you park your car inthe parking lot, you go in to
check in and all of a suddenpeople start screaming at you
Like holy cow.
You park your car in theparking lot, you go in to check
in and all of a sudden peoplestart screaming at you and it's
like man, things got realserious, real quickly.
Right, and it's a 16-weekofficer candidate school.

(18:13):
It's knife and fork school, notquite like the aviators go
through.
But your first week's your hellweek.
And then you settle in and Iwas a bit overweight when I got
there.
And the joke for me was settlein and I was a bit overweight
when I got there.
And the joke for me was theytake you after that first week
to get your uniform fittingsright and of course you're
indoctrinated into all therequirements, all the rules and

(18:34):
regulations about how youruniform has to look, how you
have to look.
Well, I think I dropped 30pounds because they got you up
at 4.30 am every day and youwent out and you did your two to
three mile and then your forcefeeding and a lot of physical
activity there.
So I dropped quite a bit ofweight.
Well, I got fitted at the endof the first week.
And the fitters?

(18:55):
Let's be honest, the fitterswere not professional tailors,
right, right right.
So the measurements were too bigto begin with.
So you get your set of uniformsand I had to go back like three
times over the course of that16 weeks to take in the pants
and, you know, buy somedifferent uniform parts.
But you know, the first eightweeks you're the junior class

(19:15):
member and the second eightweeks you're the senior class
member.
And it was, I guess,interesting being in the Newport
area and being now part of thisthing they call.
You know, on your pathway tobecoming an officer and going in
town, you were kind of treatedlike, you know, mini royalty a
little bit.

(19:35):
But running into the differentpersonalities, and I think
that's one of the greatest joysI had coming out of the military
is the variety and diversity ofpeople that you meet across the
country different backgrounds,and that to this day feels my
passion for loving to haveconversations with people I
don't know and all that kind ofstuff.
But I joined the band there Ofcourse.

(20:00):
And so I was really goodacademically in the classes that
we had, because basically it'san immersion into all things
Navy, right, right, all thingsNavy.
But because I joined the band Iwas pulled out of a lot of the
activities with your company.
We were a papa company and soyou didn't get really that bond
with your neighbors.

(20:21):
So when it came, you know yourranking in the class because my
military experience was allabout where you ranked out in
the competitive sphere and Ithink we had 260 people in our
class but also Canada schoolclass I was like top 10, I think
, academically.
But because the other half ofyour ranking was how people

(20:43):
thought about you and I wasn'tthere to, I don't know, clean
the latrine kind of thing,people didn't rate me as high
from a teamwork standpointbecause I was out doing the band
thing.
But you know I got through thatand quite an experience, you
know, when we became seniorclass members I remember that
and there's many movies aboutthis like now you're in charge
and now you can take out allthat anger of people treating

(21:06):
you like crap on somebody else,right.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
In a in a in a minor way but but you know that
indoctrination into into theNavy and we were planning to.
Kelly and I were planning toget married right after officer
candidate school.
She came up for a visit once,once or twice, but we had the
date set.
So I got through OfficerCandidate School and I got to

(21:31):
tell this part of the story.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
Oh, please, please do .

Speaker 2 (21:34):
After that first week you go through your whole week
and then they run you throughall your medical stuff, right?
So they take you in the bus tothe hospital and, uh, you get
your blood drawn and, you know,get checked out for everything
to make sure you know you'restill suitable to be a be a
service member.
And, um, we go, we go back and,uh, the next week, monday, um,

(21:58):
we're in class and there's aknock on the door you know,
infamous knock on the door andsomebody sticks their head in,
uh, officer candidate Brochak,uh, you need to come with us.
I'm like, oh, okay, um, so Iget in a van by myself with one
of the petty officers and hedrives me back to the hospital.
I said, what's, what's going on?

(22:18):
Uh, well, we, there's somefollowup on on your medical
right.
And, uh, and I'm starting toget, you know, I don't know,
curious.
So they sit me down in front ofa doctor and he says Osterkenned
, at Brochek, you have syphilis.
I said what?
And he has this little grin onhis face, right, you know,

(22:41):
because the classic, you know,sailor kind of thing, right, and
I'm like, and running throughmy mind is like all the venereal
diseases that you were trainedin health class, you know, in
high school.
Uh, and I couldn't, I couldn'tremember what, what syphilis is
right, and I'm just like, oh mygod.
And he goes.
And you know, we need a recordof all your sexual partners so

(23:05):
we can report it to the state ofrhode island.
Um, and I'm like literally inshock, like because the honest
guy truth was my only sexualpartner had been my fiancee, who
I knew hadn't been with anybodyelse either.
Right, yeah, so how'd thishappen?
And, and you know, he's liketelling me, you know, basically
telling me what a bad person Iam, but who I knew hadn't been
with anybody else either.
Right, yeah, so how'd thishappen?
And, and you know, he's liketelling me, you know, basically
telling me what a bad person Iam.

(23:25):
But now I got to come clean andyou know, we got to inform all
your other partners because, youknow, whatever, right and uh,
before I could get my bearing,they sent large black nurse came
out with two syringes ofpenicillin and you know, assume
the position, and in each sideof my, my rear, um, pumps me

(23:48):
with penicillin to take care ofthis thing.
Right and uh, like I, my head'sstill swirling, um, and then,
you know, this drags on, causethere's weights in between.
They sent me to the socialworker, right and um, I sit down
for the social work, and so shestarts showing me pictures of
stage four syphilis and what mylifestyle is going to lead me to

(24:11):
.
And by now I'm, I'm, I'm likesomething is not right here,
something is not right.
Um and uh, I she's telling me,you know, blah, blah, blah, you
got to do this, you got to dothat.
And I said, look, I know Ididn't get this from anyone else
and I'm pretty sure my fiancedid not give it to me.
What do you expect me to tellher?

(24:32):
And she goes.
Well, that's your problem.
You're going to have to figurethat out.
I go back and I'm likeemotionally distraught, right.
So I I call kelly and shestarts laughing because it was
laughable to her that this couldhappen, because it's impossible
, right, right, uh, well, shehadn't gone through the day, I

(24:52):
had just gone through, right,the humiliation and all of these
supposed medical professionalstelling me that, uh, that I had
this venereal disease.
Um, but I, I just had likesomething's just not right here
in the back of my mind, right.
So that weekend, the nextweekend, was, um, my, my
sister's wedding and my familydoctor was going to be there,

(25:12):
right.
So I show up and had a chatwith my family doctor and he
goes well, what, what test didthey give you?
And I and I knew back then Idon't remember what they were I
told him he goes well, that hasa false positive rate of like 2%
.
And he said that's like aninitial screening test and what
they're going to end up doing issending it to the state of

(25:32):
Rhode Island or whatever, andthey're going to do the real
test, which has a false positiveof 0.01%.
More than likely that's goingto come back negative.
And he said honestly, I alwaystake a person's history into
mind because this test has sucha high false positive rate,
right?
Well, sure enough, three weekslater they call me back in, not

(25:54):
to apologize but to tell me that, yes, indeed, uh, it came back
negative, but that was myintroduction to uh naval or
military medical care, um, andmy blood, for whatever the
reason it, every time it tripsthat test false positive.
Um, and I, I can't give bloodbecause the american red cross

(26:16):
uses the same uh test, but thatwas my, uh, my first
introduction into thehigh-quality medical care we all
sometimes got through ourmilitary service.
So anyway, a little aside,there.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
Well, I thought you were going to tell me, oh,
there's another, john Broschek.
I mean, the odds of that areyou might as well buy a lottery
ticket.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
When I reported down to Orlando for nuclear power
school, the same thing happened.
But now I knew what was goingon.
I was able to tell them veryquickly no, nothing has changed.
Put an asterisk in my charthere.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
I do want to say something, though.
At the end of that story andthat is when we started out you
said my current wife.
I think you've been marriedlong enough and gone through
some interesting things.
You could probably drop thecurrent and just say your wife
at this point.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
I probably drop the current and just say your wife
at this point I could.
Yes, very good, thank youanyway, somehow I was putting it
in context.
Yes, um left there uh.
We got married in between andthen uh arrived down in orlando.
Uh, I took uh uh because youhad to wait for the classes to
start.
You know the class schedule andour class was scheduled to
start uh right first week ofjanuary.
Uh took a short assignment attorpiedeman's A school down in
Orlando at the time and I thinkthey've since closed that base
and moved things elsewhere.
So Orlando no longer has this.

(27:27):
But we were there for a fullyear.
I did the Torpeneman's A schoolon the front end Again.
Another interesting introductionto another aspect.
This was a non-nuclear part butthen nuclear power school, six
months of just um weekly testsand watching people get, you
know, tapped out because theycouldn't pass the tests.
We had a lieutenant commanderactually a full commander uh,

(27:53):
who was set to take over commandof an aircraft carrier uh,
coming out so he had beennon-nuclear and was going
through uh this.
So they had the bestinstructors in that section I
was not in that section the bestinstructions in that section
and he passed but there wasanother full bird lieutenant who
was making the switch.
He ended up failing the lasttest of the whole 26-week

(28:13):
program and washed out.
We had one guy that hadfalsified his resume.
They finally figured that outby then and tapped him out.
But the competition and that wasthe tone of my whole nuclear or
Navy experience the sheerpitting of you against your
human peers.
Every test you took the rankingwould go up, both for your

(28:36):
section and we had threesections and your class rank and
your section rank, your classrank, what score you got, and it
was posted right there andeverybody would run to it.
I remember the stomach problemsI started having, just due to
stress.
We had one comical day wherethe RC Cola machine because you
were living out of the vendingmachine, right, the RC Cola

(28:58):
machine had a malfunction.
So whatever coin you put inwould produce an RC Cola.
So guys were going out thereand putting all the pennies in
the machine and stacking likesix in front of them in class
just to get their fix becausethis machine had malfunctioned.
And for me, with the engineeringbackground, it wasn't so much

(29:21):
the difficulty of of thematerial, it was the pace and
the volume of the material and Ihad just so much compassion or
pity for the English majors, thejournalism majors, the non
technical majors that hadsomehow gotten, you know,
accepted into the program thatthat really struggled mightily
with the academic portion of it.
But I remember every everythingwas was labeled.

(29:42):
Everything was labeled, noforeign restricted data, right.
So basic math equations likewater, h2o, you know, chemistry
equation, everything was labeled.
No foreign restricted data, youknow.
And it was just fascinating tome how the Navy had take
commandeering addition andsubtraction and other.
You you know, basic mathformulas were now restricted to

(30:03):
foreign nationals, you know.
You couldn't discuss any ofthat with anything else highly
classified.
No, doing math problems at lunch, yeah uh, but that was six
months of classwork.
On the back end, again, due totiming of classes, we we tacked
on another I don't know who Igot assigned to then, um, and
then showed up in Boston Spa,new York.
We actually got an apartment inClifton Park and now it was

(30:26):
mid-September Moved into thiskind of half underground
apartment and all I rememberfrom that was that it was a
complete blur, because nowyou're at prototype training,
which is the hands-on training.
So you had about six weeks ofmore classroom on that
particular reactor design.
I was on the MARF plant upthere, which is a very unique
design on their control rodsystem.

(30:47):
You can read all about it, butit was basically the classic
power plant design of thatvintage of the older fast
attacks and ballistic missilesubmarines built in the 60s,
with a whole different reactorcontrol system.
And again from the competitivenature it was all about are you

(31:09):
going to beat all of yourclassmates?
So the goal there was to be thefirst person to get through, and
I remember many days and onceyou get through the classroom
portion, you had these qualcards.
We all remember our qual cards,right, and you had this qual
card with literally hundreds andhundreds of signatures that you
had to get.
Well, part of it was everysystem of the plant.
You had to go through acheckout with a petty officer,

(31:34):
lead petty officer, one of yourtrainers, and that was within an
hour session.
You had to draw a one-linediagram of the system.
You had to be able to discussall the basic facts and
statistics and important valuesand describe how that particular
system functioned and operated.

(31:55):
And you had to do it for everysingle system on the plant.
And you had to do it for everysingle system on the plant.
Well, I would go in somemornings and the other guy that
I was with, who was the guy whowe drove in every day, was the
guy that got me into the programway back in our Penn State days
.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Oh, that's kind of cool.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Kind of cool, but the bad part was the competition
drove us to not be friendsanymore.
Oh, because I ended up winningthat round.
Yeah, he won the round ofnuclear power school.
He was number one, uh person innuclear power school.
I think I was, uh, I don't knowuh, top 10 again, but not quite
at his level.
Um, but we were competing sohard.

(32:31):
I would literally walk in somemornings and I would have eight
hours ahead of me, cause theywere 12 hour shifts, but I have
eight hours ahead of me.
I would sign up for eightcheckouts on systems I had not
even looked at yet, and so thegame was getting in early to
study for the first one, gettingthrough that fast enough so
that you had 15 minutes tomaster the next system, and do

(32:55):
that eight times in the courseof a day.
You talk about stress.
And I got to the end and therewas one individual that went for
his final checkout with a board.
You had a board of three peoplea naval officer, one of the
lead instructors and thenanother civilian, and they would

(33:18):
grill you for several hours todetermine that you had met the
final requirements.
And he failed his.
So I was the second one to getall my requirements done, to be
able to sit for my final board,and in that board and I passed.
But so I was the first one outof all four prototypes up there
to get through.

(33:39):
But uh, it was in that process,uh, the, the, my friendship with
my, my buddy, like got severelyand we didn't talk to each, we
wouldn't talk, wouldn't talk toone another for like a couple
years.
Um, uh, and from so got throughthat that that was a blur, uh,
through the winter, uh, and then, uh, they shipped us all off to

(33:59):
Groton, connecticut, where Iended up being stationed for the
next four years to go tosubmarine school.
Now, submarine school was aparty compared to the nuclear
training that we had beenthrough.
So it was another 16-week schoolwhere you learned all things
about submarines and again didvery well academically there.
We were living out in GrotonLock Point.

(34:21):
We weren't in one of themansions but the guys that were
getting per diem because theywere going to be shipped off to
somewhere else, we were going tobe stationed out of Groton they
were on per diem.
They were buying these five,you know, renting these 5,000
square foot mansions out inGroton Lock Point, which is a
very unique community.
You know people's third andfourth and fifth homes out there
.

(34:42):
So it was fun.
It was actually a party.
It was kind of the first fun wehad in quite a long time and
you were with a lot ofclassmates that you had gone
through various parts of thetraining with.
So you knew a lot of folks andmy culture shock and really kind
of the summation of the seriesof culture shocks I had.
Uh, so think of me as this newpot guy who didn't know anything

(35:03):
about the navy got through thisinitial pipeline training.
I graduated from submarineschool on a friday.
I flew to scotland on saturdayand monday.
I went underway for 82 straightdays underwater I can't even
wrap my head around that.
Yeah, that's, yeah, wow neverbeen on an active submarine
before.
I mean, I'm not like one ofthese rats here and academy guys
that did a summer tour, youknow, and even knew what it was

(35:26):
like, right, um, but I went fromrelaxed, calm, you know, fun,
to get on that plane and thentwo days later, um, they hand me
the stack of qual cards andwhat they said to me was you are
worthless to us.
You, all you are doing isbreathing our air and eating our
food until you get this uh, youknow, foot deep stack of cards

(35:47):
done so you can actually standwatch and be a productive, uh,
part of the crew you know, whatI find interesting in all of
this is that you went to thoseschools where they really taught
you to eat your young right andand didn't teach you how to get
along with people.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
Uh, you got a little break at groton but then, all of
a sudden, now you're out on asubmarine with a bunch of other
people who went to the sameschool to not learn how to be
nice to people.
You know what I'm saying.
Like, how does that work?
Like now you're on a sub and inI took a tour of a submarine.
I'm a.
I'm a.
I'm a destroyer sailor all day.
I'm a tin can sailor all daylong.

(36:22):
I enjoyed my tour of the sub,but I couldn't wait to get off
it.
Um, but I can't imagine.
Like no soft skill training atall, and now you're all crammed
in this sub together yeah, andthe submarine force back then.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Uh, I think it's changed some since then, but it
it was a very, all male, verytestosterone driven, who can
withstand the most pain type ofenvironment and to the point
that you tried to break yourshipmate psychologically,
physically, whatever way youcould.

(36:55):
I used to describe it as anyweakness you had or showed.
It was like they would peck.
If they found out about itanybody, they would start
pecking at it.
If you were sensitive tocomments about your mother, oh
my gosh, then people would comeout of the woodwork to just say

(37:18):
the most absurd things aboutyour mother to try to break you.
I mean it was about breakingyou, um, and and so I mean
people are human, we all haveour points, but you learn very,
very quickly.
If you showed any weakness, umor um talked about any weakness
or any sensitive point you had,the rest of the males, um, in

(37:39):
that environment would peck atyou until they broke you on some
level.
The other thing I learned isthat leadership because this is
the foundation of my leadershipjourney leadership is born of
the respect, the competence youshow and how you treat other
people quite honestly.
How you treat other peoplequite honestly, and on the

(38:00):
submarine with.
You know I was.
So I was on the Ulysses S GrantSSB in 631.
It's now decommissioned but oneof that early vintage of
ballistic missile submarines wewere based out of Holy Lock,
scotland, went back when we hada tender there that served as
the base for us because themissiles couldn't reach, you
know, from all the way back inContinental US at that time.

(38:22):
And it didn't matter your rank,really Outside of, I would say,
the commanding officer, maybethe XO, but even I have stories
of where the XO, because of hisincompetence, was treated rather
uniquely, but it was all aboutthe respect you earned.
So because you were an officerand it didn't come home to me

(38:46):
until I got some exposure to thesurface fleet and saw how the
ward room was different andpeople were treated differently
and really you were a different.
I reached out to my enlisted,who knew way more than I did

(39:06):
about what was going on and whatto do.
If I had not embraced them andtreated them with respect and
then earned their trust andrespect, I never would have
survived.
And we had an officer thatstarted just a little bit ahead
of me.
He had a master's in nuclearengineering from MIT, super
smart guy, no people skills,none, and they roasted him, I

(39:28):
mean, and we had one emergencyevent where he locked up,
literally locked up I had to gointo maneuvering, which was our
control center for the engineplant, and basically take over
from him, probably broke everyrule in the book.
There was no passing of theguard here, but he was so locked
up it was dangerous and had topull the book out of his hand

(39:49):
and guide the watch team throughthe response, the emergency
response to what was going on,because he just did not have the
ability to function in thatkind of a setting.
But yeah, as much it it, andyou know, as much as you want to
think, you can withstand any,any amount of stress or any
amount of of of that it, itwears on you, right.

(40:11):
So you've got the isolation ofbeing in the community.
You've got this super I call itmacho, pain inflicting
environment, um, you you had todefend yourself constantly
against the herds and yourmother and your sister, yeah,
and, and really that isolation.
So that first 82 day patrol,that I was completely unready
for it.
Like you get to like week seven.

(40:32):
So do the math seven timesseven is 49, right you're.
You're a little bit overhalfway.
You get out to week nine and 10.
And now, so now I'm qualified.
After about six weeks I gotqualified to stay and watch.
So now you're in the routineand submarines operate on an
18-hour day because there is noday and night.
So six hours of watch, sixhours of paperwork, whatever,

(40:55):
six hours of sleep Well, itdoesn't work that way.
It's basically sleep deprivationthe entire time because they're
running either fire controldrills or missile drills or
reactor plant drills nonstop.
I remember one point I was upfor 40 straight hours and I had
gone through my third or fourthwave right, and where your

(41:15):
vision starts to narrow and getand get darker and darker and
darker, and then a cup of coffee, uh, you know, whatever.
All of a sudden you get thatthat burst and wave right, and
now colors are brighter andyou're like, oh I, I feel great,
now right.
Well, that duration on thesecond and the third one lasts
shorter and shorter and yourvision gets narrow.

(41:36):
I was on, I think, my fourthwave by by the 40 hour mark and
you're operating a nuclearreactor while you're doing this
right with other 17 and 18 yearolds and psychosis is going to
set in at some point, right?
oh, but yeah, just uh, atorturous experience.
Um, and, and our engineer wassuper lazy engineering officer

(41:57):
was super late.
His uh I think we called him uh, buddy I won't even mention any
last names, but his nicknamewas buddy.
Well, buddy liked to sleep alot.
Um, and uh, probably not your,your highest performing and
engineering officer, uh, on anuclear-powered submarine.
So what ended up happening was,um, after my third and into

(42:20):
fourth patrol, I started takingover more of his
responsibilities and we had anORS Operational Reactors
Safeguards Exam where the teamfrom Naval Reactors comes in and
grills you and I had so manyresponsibilities by that point.
I was the main propulsionofficer, mpa.
I was a ship's QA officer.
The main propulsion officer MPA.

(42:42):
I was a ship's QA officer.
I was supporting basically theentire engineering department
that the ORS team made a commentabout.
We think you might have thisguy a little bit too heavily
loaded Stretched a bit thin,maybe Stretched a bit thin.
My only way out was to eitheragree to another year of this
until I could roll to my shoreassignment, or I had the
brilliant idea of if I passed myengineer officer exam, I could

(43:04):
do a split junior officer tourand I could go to another
submarine, a different submarine, and I decided to go to new
construction Because my thinkingwas and my wife hated every
minute of the service experience.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
To be honest with you , I can say, yeah, this is
probably not the she's.
She's seeing it from a wholedifferent perspective.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Oh yeah, the, the, the time away, of which we
picked the, the ballisticmissile submarines, to have more
of a regular schedule.
Um, so the time away, uh, shehated that, she hated the whole
officer, climb, I.
I mean, she hated every episode.
So I'm like, well, if I, if Iswitch to new construction, then
I'll be home every night andthat'll be so much better, right
so much better for a smart guy.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
You have an interesting thought process.
I'll just say that maybe it's,maybe it's the experience really
teaches you a few things, butyeah, so how'd that work out for
you?

Speaker 2 (43:55):
um, it worked out okay for about the first week or
two.
Um, so I, I went and I I, youknow, self-studied passed the
engineer officer exam and I showup um on, uh, I guess back then
it was pcu 738, the marylandbrand new trident submarine,
okay, and uh, the headcommanding officer, um, and I
will say his name is jackfrancis.

(44:16):
He was known in the new lond,london, groton area as one of
the top commanding officers towork for Just great guy, right,
and he was, he was fantastic.
So he showed up and because I'mengineering officer, qualified
and able to send seniorsupervisory watch, which very
few of the officers were able todo, my first experience there

(44:38):
was the XO coming up to me andhe was a good guy too.
He was actually my neighbor inNavy housing up the up the Hill.
Uh, he says, hey, john, we're,we're gonna, we're gonna, uh,
we've got this.
Um, you know, real shortevolution, we've got, we got a
man at for senior supervisorywatch, right, and I said, okay,
cool, and he goes.
You know, you and I are some ofthe only ones that are

(44:58):
qualified to do that.
So we're going to go into portand starboard.
You'll take night, night shift,I'll take day shift.
Okay sure, probably a couple ofdays, right, great, two weeks
later I'm like is this going toend Like?
The whole shipyard experiencewas a treadmill that never
stopped slowing down?
Yeah, the whole shipyardexperience was a treadmill that

(45:18):
never stopped slowing down, yeah, uh.
So I got there six months afterinitial Manning, um, right
right at the time that we werestarting to stand watches, uh,
and they build the submarinefrom the back to the front, so
the reactor plants built first,and then they move forward.
Uh, there's really no creaturecomforts there at all.
You have this little shack downby the water and through the
winter it's just, you know, it'sjust brutally freezing down

(45:40):
down on the water, uh, but itwas just a treadmill that just
never stopped speeding up.
And so the worst part was, eventhough I had the capability to
see my wife every day, I saw herprobably less.
Once you start man on thewatches, you have 24 hour duty
days.
So now you're, you're spending24 hours as the, as the Navy
representative on theconstruction project which is

(46:02):
your submarine.
Well, you were expected to workthe next day, and I had a buddy
had a phrase that one showerequals four, meaning four hours
of sleep, but two showers do notequal eight, that's true.
So those are some very longdays of 24-hour duty day.
And what would happen as theconstruction schedule moved on
and now they were working on allaspects of the sub at the same
time, uh, early on you couldprobably get some sleep if you

(46:25):
went and hid somewhere, but byby nearing the end of the
construction, get closer to seatrials, uh, there were three
full ships of shipyard folksthat were coming in every eight
hours and you, you were, youwere, you know, hard line to
approval of anything they neededto do to get done, and so they
were constantly trying to findyou.

(46:46):
And I remember, probably sixmonths before sea trials, there
was so much activity going onthat you literally had to hide
to get an hour of sleep betweenlike 11 pm and midnight, when
they had the night shiftturnover, if you were going to
get any sleep.
And of course, there are noracks or beds on the sub.

(47:08):
There are metal pans that aregoing to be the ward room or
whatever the officer quarters,and you would hide, literally
hide, and they would find you,of course.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
You learned to sleep in a lot, of, a lot of odd
places, though, didn't you?
Yes yeah, yeah, wow so this isso you're, you're, this is like
a four year stretch.
Then is that what we're talking?

Speaker 2 (47:31):
about.
I ended up extending an extrayear of my initial five-year
commitment to do the split jotour thing.
That was my agreement, so I didone year extension so I ended
up six years in total, um, onwhat I would call active duty,
ended up being eight, with thetwo years in college.
Um, but, but yeah, um, that, uh, that was my, my duration.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
Well, and so you're.
You're a plank owner, then I ama plank owner.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
Yes, wow, okay, yep that's.
that's kind of a cool I got todo some really cool things in
hindsight, because you know, astraumatic as it was, my view on
life in general is to look backand remember the positive,
absolutely Right.
You know, it's only in laterlife that a lot of the negative

(48:16):
has kind of come to fruition forme.
But look back on the past and Igot to do some cool.
I got to fire a ballisticmissile because we did a test
missile firing.
You know, we did a 40-dayworkup out of Cape Canaveral and
they loaded out a test missile.
They put all the specialinstrumentation on it.
We went out, we went to hoverdepth, we shot a missile to the

(48:36):
coast of Africa where they had ateam to retrieve it.
Like, not everybody gets to dothat kind of stuff, right?
No, we did the initial and tosee just one of these, you know
billion dollar pieces ofequipment go together.
You know, because we walkeddown the reactor plant before
all the lagging insulation wason, you got to see everything,
put your hands on it.

(48:57):
You know I mean really reallycool stuff you know to do to
have the initial fuel loadoutand, like I did, the initial
criticality on on the USSMaryland.
You know, um, pretty cool.
Um, I got to know a lot of theNaval reactor geeks, quite
honestly, that wrote thetextbooks, um, uh, in fact I
wouldn't say it was my idol, butthe guy that wrote all the

(49:18):
books on reactor theory fornaval reactors, I got to know
him.
I took the crew through theinitial reactor safeguards exam
and got the whole crew ready forthat and passed it successfully
.
We did the initial sea trials onthe submarine and again they
bring in a team of I call themthe gooks right that put all the
special instrumentation on,that put all the special

(49:40):
instrumentation on and you godown to the special area down in
the Bahamas where the Navy hasa buoy in the center and you're
doing flank bells within 50 feetof this buoy and driving this
because they drive like buses,quite honestly, as opposed to
fast attacks.
Drive this bus within 50, 40feet to get the initial sound
signature on the sub.

(50:01):
I remember driving into theBahamas one morning.
The sun's coming up and we'regoing by islands with, you know,
females in bikinis, you knowwaving at us Like that was cool,
that was really really coolstuff, like real positive memory
.
So that's the stuff Iremembered initially, you know,
but the trauma was real.

Speaker 1 (50:19):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
You know why it works like that.
That's how people getre-enlisted that's what happens
is like it's the re-enlistmenttime comes up and they're like,
oh, you know, we did all thiswas so great.
And then they sign their namelike, oh, wait a minute, but
there was this yeah other stuffthat went on yeah yeah, but I
mean it sounds like yeah.
I mean there was a, there was alot of dues to be paid,

(50:40):
especially in the submarinefleet.
Maybe a couple of uh, Iwouldn't say poor decisions,
because I think every decisionwe make brings us to where we're
at today but a couple ofdecisions you might've made
differently if you didn't know.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
In the whole, I don't know if I would have I don't
know if I had the information tomake any difference.
You know it was a greatfoundation to a career and
obviously you know you and Iworked together.
I got to levels of leadershipthat you know I'm very proud of,
getting to the executive level.
I drew tremendously on thatexperience.
My, you know all the positivesand all the leadership lessons I

(51:13):
learned and obviously thetechnical foundation you get
from the Navy is top notch, youknow.
And then I transitioned intocivilian nuclear power for about
a 19, 20 year period.
So the foundation was fantasticand in general I would
recommend and maybe I'm aproponent of everyone getting

(51:33):
that opportunity to.
You know, learn aboutdiscipline and learn about, uh,
being part of a team and a bitof conformity, uh, that I think
the service gives you in a verypositive way.
Yeah, um, that leads to a verytremendous foundation for a
career, for a life.
Um, if you can withstand someof the traumatic things that

(51:57):
you're going to get exposed to.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
I think that's the beauty of the military right.
Like we, I learned in 21 years.
I learned a ton of greatleadership lessons, but there
was a pretty good percentage ofthose that were leadership
lessons on how not to lead.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
Those are great lessons, yeah, Like you survive,
those lessons you take thatwith you makes you a great
leader.
I think, Anyway and I'm I'massuming you well, just based on
what you've talked about you'vehad some of those experiences
as well, but I like to draw onall the positives, but sometimes
, when I'm ready to make adecision, I'm like I remember
someone doing this and theydidn't do it the right way.
What I perceive is the rightway.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
I'm going to do it differently and see how it turns
out.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
Yeah, early on my journey there, I had a petty
officer falsify my name on someship's protective tagging, oh,
and I had a big decision.
Do I brush it off Because he wasa very experienced electrician.
I think in his mind he was justtrying to get the work done,
right, but he basically forgedmy name on tags and I remember

(52:58):
that was my first opportunity toeither stand up and be a leader
or shirk away, right, and notdo the hard thing, which was
have that very difficultconversation that what you did
was unacceptable and will neverhappen again, or I'm going to do
really bad things to you, kindof thing.
And I and, and I did it, and andI took him, you know, the back

(53:21):
of the engine room.
So I did it in a, in a discreetway, and basically you know my
version back then uh, read inthe right act of of how this was
completely unacceptable it itnot only is it a reflection on
your integrity, but it'sreflection on my integrity and I
take that very seriously.
This will never happen again,if it ever happens again, and I
take that very seriously.

(53:41):
This will never happen again,if it ever happens again.
You know you're gone, kind ofthing.
And I remember his eyes wideopen looking at me like holy
crap, I screwed up.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
Yeah yeah, well, and we both know from the utility
work that we've done that it'sthat kind of thing that gets
people killed.
I mean, I don't want to overexaggerate it, but that's the
kind of stuff that gets peoplehurt.
Yep, is is cutting?
Is cutting a corner?
Um, you know, taking the easypath rather than the more
difficult path, sure thing.
And doing that, so you serve atotal of, including school.

(54:11):
You were saying eight years inthe military.
Eight years active duty, okay,and then did you serve in the
reserves.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
I chose not to I, I, I would say because of my uh,
and not solely because of mywife, but the, the, the, the
family military experience.
We had a one-year-old um by thetime I got out, um, it was not
an overly positive experience,uh and I, you know being maybe

(54:39):
this is an ego pride thing likebeing at the pinnacle of the
nuclear Navy and having been onactive duty and in the heart of
it.
You know top secret, sbiclearance, you know the thought
of doing the reservist thing andthe stories I'd heard about how
reservists are treated made mesay you know what, I had my run

(55:00):
in the major leagues and my wifehad no interest in me
continuing that.
I chose not to do any reservistduty.
Certainly, have worked with anumber, hired a number of them
and to this day continue to havea respect for those that choose
the dual career path and I knowhow difficult that is I have a
greater appreciation for that.

(55:20):
But again, at the time we weremaking that decision, I was just
like, yeah, I, I think, I thinkI'm done with my military
service yeah, yeah, so you, uh,so after eight years, you, you
decide to, to get out.

Speaker 1 (55:35):
So one question I have for you was like what was,
what was, and I remember myexperiences, but what was like
your last day in the navy andthen the next day you wake up.
What's that like for you?

Speaker 2 (55:48):
uh, a mixture of terrifying um, like what's next?
Because, if nothing else, youhad stability, um, as, as a
service member, you knew whatyour path was, you knew what you
were going to get paid, you hadsome control, at least early in

(56:09):
your career.
What are the preferable nextduty assignments?
You, by that point, you hadgrown to a comfort level of.
Maybe I don't like all of it,but there's a lot of stuff
that's pretty cool, right, andnow you go.
I'm going to go back to thecivilian community where I don't
know what the rules are.

(56:30):
I get a job Like I didn't haveto do that to begin with.
That's why I ended up here.
So I think, a mixture of of ofrelief that I'm no longer a
piece of property or a number,I'm not, you know, beholden to
my contract and frightened bywhat's, what's going to come

(56:51):
next.
I remember, you know, cause, thelast patrol that we did and we
were out of Kings Bay, georgiaat that point, you know feeling
this sense of relief of uh, youknow cause I by that point I I
was a very senior Lieutenant 03,uh, had gone through new
construction, was a bit of anexpert on on this particular

(57:14):
submarine, was a plank owner.
I'd been through the sea trials.
We were starting to get the newum sailors in that were, you
know, replacing those that hadbeen in the shipyard, and I was
go to Brochak.
Brochak's got all the answersto now having to start this new
journey, and it was a recessionin the early 90s when I was
getting out, so finding a jobwas not all that straightforward

(57:36):
.
I think I sent out 100 resumesand got two responses back, and
now I had this one-year-old andhis family to take care of um,
so there was a bit of uh, offright yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
Well, you know, the funny thing is that fear and
excitement kind of feel the sameway inside, so you just don't.
It's like a yeah it's difficultI guess the best way to say it
yeah, so where did you land?

Speaker 2 (57:59):
well, uh, and my story in this area is
interesting because I landed ata nuclear power plant, the
Palisades Nuclear Plant nearSouth Haven, michigan, spent the
next 19 years there, but thatwas kind of like the easy button
.
I had nuclear training figured.
If I just got to the rightpeople I'd have a good shot at

(58:20):
getting a job there, because mywife knew where she wanted to
live and that was me finding ajob that was close enough that I
could still drive there.
And the other one wasinteresting I had a buddy who
had gotten out six months aheadof me and he went to work for
this small medical equipmentmanufacturer based in Kalamazoo,
michigan, called Striker.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
Very familiar with them.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
Yes, Well, this was early Striker.
Right, this was entrepreneurialsmall business Striker Very
familiar with them.
Yes, well, this was earlyStriker right, this was
entrepreneurial, small businessStriker.
And they interviewed me andwhat happened was Consumers
Energy, where I ended up gettinghired, initially out of the
Navy, at the Palisades plant,called the Day Before Striker.
If they had been off by 24hours and I had gone the Striker

(59:02):
route, it would have been awhole different trajectory,
maybe great, I don't know.
My buddy stayed there until hisretirement and saw the rapid,
massive growth of the Strikerempire over time.
But back then it was quitesmall and I went the power
generation, power productionroute and the utilities and just

(59:23):
a different route.
But those were the two offers Ihad and had already accepted
the first one because I was soworried about getting a job and
making sure I could provide formy family.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
So what year did you hire in at Consumers Energy?

Speaker 2 (59:41):
It was September.
My first day was October 1st1992.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
Okay, all right.
Yeah, just like a couple ofyears before I got there.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
Yeah, interesting.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
So you kind of if I'm reading the story, you kind of
beat the odds though, because ifyou look at statistics, most
people getting out of themilitary, uh, leave their first.
50 actually leave their firstjob within the first year.
Really 75 percent leave theirfirst job within the second year
, huh, but you stuck around.
I did, you stuck around.

(01:00:12):
Did you find that it was asimilar experience to your navy
time?

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
I'm just curious um, I found that the expertise that
the Navy drilled into me innuclear power and nuclear power
generation was a huge asset,because the civilian community
is much, much different and thediscipline, the rigidity, the

(01:00:38):
levels of excellence that aredemanded of the Navy nuclear
program, and so plopping into acivilian version of that.
I had the technical background,I gravitated towards project
management, had the engineeringdegree and was pretty good at
getting stuff done.
Both in the Navy you meet thosepeople.

(01:01:00):
They figure out how to getstuff done.
I was one of those guys, right,and so, plopping into the
civilian community with atechnical background, I was able
to very quickly figure out howto get stuff done at a nuclear
power plant, and nuclear powerplants, you know, there's a lot
of employees, you're inside of afence, so there's some
familiarity there, not only withthe technology.
But for me it was a relativelyeasy transition because I work a

(01:01:27):
great deal with vets and futurevets that are transitioning out
, helping them define potentialemployment in the energy
industry, and for me this was arelatively easy transition,
rather than trying to dosomething brand new or or even
break in uh to something that'ssimilar but not exactly the same
.
This was pretty much exactlythe same and, um, yeah, it just

(01:01:50):
kind of kind of thrived in thatenvironment with the natural
skill sets that I have, plus thetechnical background, plus also
the leadership stuff that Ipicked up.
Uh, like you said, by eitherobserving don't do that or
picking up working for somereally good commanding officers
in the time that I had.
That showed me, I would say,proper ways to treat people to

(01:02:12):
manage things.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
So walk us through your career at Consumers Energy
and really your time there iswhen you're children.
Yeah, one son, so we wereblessed One son.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
So we, we were uh, we're blessed with one son.
Um, and my wife was born andraised in Jenison Michigan, and
that's where we moved back.
Oh, okay, that was what shewanted to do.
She wanted to have a family,her mom around, her sister was
around Um a family in the area.
But that was what she wanted.
After we had moved up and downthe East Coast with our military

(01:02:43):
experience, she was reallystriving for roots and that
stability with family around.
So we moved to Jenison and Ihad an hour commute to nuclear
plant every day, going down thecoast, learned about what do
they call it?
Lake effect, snow yes which wasa new phenomenon for me.

(01:03:04):
Um, used to think you couldbeat it in.
You know, if you just drivefaster, you could.
You could beat the snow andlearn that that's not a not a
good strategy, but you know,just learning the ropes there
very, very quickly, um, um, Ifell into, uh, what was back in
those days called dry fuelstorage or spent nuclear fuel

(01:03:25):
storage.
So the first 10 years I washired in as a system engineer,
then became a project managerand this thing grew into a very
unique experience where, overthe course of a couple of years
because Palisades was at theforefront of what are we going
to do with all this used nuclearfuel that was filling up the

(01:03:46):
fuel pools where they were beingcooled, to now putting them in
metal and concrete containersoutside Right, because, uh, you
know, the federal governmentultimately had responsibility to
take this fuel back, butbecause of the politics,
everything involved in that,they never really developed the
Yucca mountain or a way to dothat, even though they charge
utility customers starting backin 1983 for all this stuff.
Anyway, long story there.

(01:04:06):
But um, I rapidly became, uh, anational and a nuclear and an
international expert on thesenew storage systems of fuel and
palisades uh actually got to.
Uh, if they, if we, if myproject was not successful in
taking certain fuel rods out ofthe pool, they were not going to
be able to start up coming outof the next outage.

(01:04:29):
So it was that significant ofan impact to the plant operation
.
Because of that it got a lot ofpolitical tension.
It was a very large capitalproject in terms of monetary
value and I kind of took overthe technical part and wrote all
the procedures and then ledinto the project management part
and running the project.
And it was so critical to theplant's operation that I became

(01:04:52):
very acquainted with seniorleadership very quickly and,
because of the politics involved, was relied on as a technical
expert, subject matter expertfor briefing congressmen and
senators and this thing grewinto.
You know, on one hand theydidn't know what to do with me,

(01:05:13):
on the other hand they didn'tknow what to do with me right.
So I kind of became asupervisor of this thing.
That wasn't part of the normalplant proper.
I had a team that I assembledaround me that we got this stuff
done and because of itsimportance to plant operations,
I grew into a supervisory andthen a manager role but
basically self-created it.

(01:05:34):
At one point, consumers Energyallowed us to offer our services
outside, so we created, webecame part of a business unit
tied back to corporate, where wewere charging our time to other
utilities.
Because what was happening waseverybody was calling us to find
out how to do this stuffbecause they were also having
problems with timelines onstoring their fuel.
That we turned around and said,hey, we'd love to help you, but

(01:05:58):
it's not going to be free.
And we ended up consulting withBEDIS, the Westinghouse Nuclear
Lab, which had ties back to thenuclear Navy, which was just
awesome for me.
There were a number of otherutilities that hired us to
basically consult and do realwork for them that this thing
just kept growing and growing.
So imagine you're fairly earlyin your tenure and you're in

(01:06:19):
charge of running a nascentbusiness unit where the utility
is letting you bill yourservices to outside and all the
legal ramifications of thatReally a unique experience that
I don't think many others hadthe opportunity to do.
So at one point we reported tocorporate and then reported back
to the plant.
But it was kind of a tenureperiod where I became so vital

(01:06:43):
to this program that theywouldn't let me go pursue other
things that were maybe in mybest interest to grow my career.
And then on the other hand Iwas so in love with this role on
some level that I didn't wantto find a way out.
So that was the first 10 yearsof my civilian was really
becoming a spent nuclear fuelexpert and not only helping the

(01:07:05):
consumer's energy facilities tofigure out how to navigate that
but then consulting with others.
And then at one point we becamepart of the nuclear management
company and they asked me to runthat for their fleet of plants
across the upper Midwest.
So I had even broaderresponsibilities there.
But it did reach a road where Ieither had to decide I was

(01:07:27):
going to stay in what I wouldcall the back-end trash part of
the nuclear industry or get backinto a more of a conventional
role tied to the generation ofpower.
And luckily I had a couple ofsponsors in the senior
leadership ranks that gave methat lifeline to kind of start

(01:07:47):
over.
And my career in many ways hasbeen not a straight line of
progression.
It's been like Navy okay, stepback and now advance it to this.
Okay, step back and advance itto this, and kind of reinventing
myself at multiple timesthroughout my career.
But the first 10 was this spentnuclear fuel stuff.
And then I went back into theplant proper system and you're a

(01:08:12):
supervisor, design, engineeringmanager, engineering director.
And there was another ownershipchange.
Entergy bought the facilityback in the 2005, 20066
timeframe and went over with thetransition with them.
But all of this was based outof Palisades.
It did a lot of traveling toother nuclear sites and nuclear
facilities.
We're able to consult and helpothers in the industry in

(01:08:37):
various aspects of that role,but all of it based out of
Palisades and living in JenisonMichigan.

Speaker 1 (01:08:44):
Nice, nice, and it sounds like to me you find these
things that need to get doneand it's interesting because,
working utility business, itfeels like you have the latitude
to do this, like you can createthese positions and these jobs
to get stuff done that needs toget done, that maybe people

(01:09:05):
didn't realize was somethingthat needed to be addressed or
needed to be taken care of, butit's very important.

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
To a certain extent.
If you get too far outside thelines, then you get noticed, and
not in a good way.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
So that kind of takes you to the point where, um,
where we sort of met right.
I was engineering director, Iwas given sponsorship to go back
and get my senior reactoroperator license.
And that's an interestingcareer aspect of being in
nuclear because you definitelyneed it to rise up to more
senior levels of responsibilitylike plant manager.

(01:09:53):
But I had been turned down likefour or five times because they
said you're too needed in yourcurrent role to let you go there
.
You're too needed in yourcurrent role to let you go there
.
And it was a 20-month processfor me to go back through all
the nuclear licensing training.
And then the agreement isyou're going to spend some
amount of time on shift.
So I again in reinventingmyself, I went from being the

(01:10:19):
engineering director one of thekey people running the plant at
that time to 20 months of classwork and training to be an
operator and then ending up onshift and I was a shift three,
shift engineer working, rotatingshift work.
So parts of life were muchbetter because when you leave
you're not getting called orwhatever.
But other parts are not sogreat because you're kind of off

(01:10:39):
the radar.
And I went to leadership,because leadership turned over
said, hey, what's the pathwayfor me?
We weren't able to quite workanything out that was going to
work for my career aspirations.
So I took this stretchassignment as a vice president
of engineering down at the WolfCreek Nuclear Plant in Kansas
and my wife had to actually pullout a map to remind herself of
where Kansas was and did thatfor about two and a half years.

(01:11:03):
Um, and then came back toconsumers energy um, which is
where we started workingtogether.
So there was that, that stretchassignment at a turnaround
nuclear plant.
Uh uprooted my wife from herhometown, uh moved her down to
Kansas uh, very stressful roleand experience there and uh.
Then uh got recruited back touh to consumers energy uh, first

(01:11:25):
as um, um vice president ofmajor projects, so big
construction projects, and thenum moved on to vice president of
generation operations, which iswhere we met when we started up
the veterans employee resourceright group right right, the
veterans advisory panel.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
You are our first uh sponsor.
Actually I was yeah, yeah.
No, that went from five, Iwould say five dudes on a phone
I said 10 sitting around onfolding chairs and a folding
table, basically.
Well, yeah, that was the nextstep, right, and then uh, and
then I think they have like over500, yeah, uh yeah, winning
national awards and yeah, allthat stuff yeah the leadership

(01:12:03):
that took over after we weredone did a great job with it of
course, so I'm.
That's something I'm proud ofvery proud.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
That was the best collateral assignment I ever had
.

Speaker 1 (01:12:09):
Yeah, yeah, we did.
I remember we did that thingwith the uh self-identification
project where we all did thevideo and yeah, and got that off
the ground award winning.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
And then we testified in front of uh Michigan's uh
Senate committee and and housecommittee on uh the impacts and
the stigmas around uh militaryservice.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
Yeah, and then got involved uh pretty heavily with
uh veterans and energy and theuh CWD and a lot of those other
groups that brought that bringveterans into the utility.

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
Yep, I ended up being on the board of Veterans in
Energy and then, once I rolledoff my Consumer's Energy active
role, cwd is the group that I amnow a veteran career coach.
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
Well, I want to ask you a question.
I want to step back and ask youa question what was it like
going from nuclear generationover to now, when you were over
generation operations?
Right, that's just regularstandard generation, right?
The nuclear part was gone atthat point.

Speaker 2 (01:13:07):
Consumer energy has great people and and I found
that it was you're liberatedwhen you get out of nuclear that
you can be innovative andcreative in ways that are just
not acceptable in that industry.
Basically, everyone's tellingyou how to do everything in that
industry and it evolved thatway for reasons that make sense.

(01:13:31):
But after a while you start tosee the complete lack of
creativity and ability to trysomething new or different or
find innovative solutions.
So coming back to consumers,number one, it was a homecoming
for me because a number of mypeers were holding leadership
positions that I'd worked for inthe nuclear environment.
In fact, during my interviewprocess the tagline was we want

(01:13:53):
the 20% of the nuclear thatgives you 80% of the benefit.
I recognized that consumers hadgotten out of nuclear by that
point.
It was really just embracingthe people and how can I
leverage the relationships I hadand the various experiences
that I've had over time tocontribute to the mission and
the vision and the goals of thisgreat company?
So it was awesome reconnectingwith people.

(01:14:16):
There's always a drinking fromthe fire hose learning curve
whenever you join a neworganization, but it was a
homecoming for me.
It was awesome and I felt verywelcomed and just wanted to
figure out how I could add valueto the enterprise.
That eight-ish years where Iended that part of my career
with consumers, where I wouldhave a problem presented to me

(01:14:47):
or a challenge from seniorleadership and personally I did
not know how we were going topull this off.
And I would go back to thisamazing team under me and I
would just be honest, I wouldsay, okay, here's what's in
front of us, here's what we haveto do, and I'm counting on you
to figure it out.
If you need help or guidance,let me know.

(01:15:08):
But we got to go make thishappen and literally a day or
two or a week later, the teamwill come back and say we got it
.
No-transcript.

Speaker 1 (01:15:46):
Well and I kind of argue with you a little bit on
that it wasn't your leadership,because so often you see people
come in, you hire the rightpeople, you know they know how
to do the job, you trust themand then you turn them loose.
That's how you get stuff done.
But many times people will comein and hire the right people,
maybe trust them, but then theywant to tell them how to do it.

(01:16:07):
In the Army it's kind of crude,but in the Army we used to say
you tell people to go suck theegg, but you don't tell them how
to suck the egg.
This thing you've got to do isreally going to be terrible, but
I trust that you're going tofigure it out and they go and
figure it out, but you try andtell them how to do it and you
lose all.
You lose all respect in thatand I and I I get the sense at

(01:16:30):
least from when I've known you,the leader that says I hired you
to do this.

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
I'm going to tell you how to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):
Well your questions.
I've seen a few things alongthe way, so I would offer
suggestions.
If you're going to really tapinto the full capability of
everybody working for you, mybelief is you have to create
that environment where there'sno bad questions Dissent is

(01:16:58):
welcome to the extent that itcontributes to a better overall
answer and you let the synergyof the team and you're always
trying to grow that nextgeneration of leaders right.
And if you don't give them, youknow, rope or the ability to
make mistakes or makeindependent decisions, you're

(01:17:18):
not going to have anybody toreplace you.
Right?
And one of my crowningachievements, I think, is I had
someone you know, who you knowvery well, that that was very
ready to take over for me.
That made it a lot easier forme to transition, transition out
.
But you don't get to that, thatpoint, if you don't allow an
environment where where youdon't tell people what the

(01:17:39):
answer is because you may bewrong.
Right, I mean, we all have alimited experience base, but
when you combine everybody'stogether now, you never give up
that accountability andresponsibility for either
accepting what's presented toyou or overruling and saying, no
, we're not.
And I had a couple of those.
No, we're not going to do that,and not on my watch, we're not

(01:18:02):
going to do that and not on mywatch, we're not going to do
that.
But I think in general, that's amore not only effective
leadership approach butfulfilling leadership approach,
because if your goal as a leaderis to grow others, is to make
people's lives better, which iswhat I believe you do that by
nurturing others, growth anddevelopment and, um, making

(01:18:24):
mistakes.
You know, in some cases, makingmistakes so that they have that
joy and pleasure of you knowdealing with the aftermath of,
really, you know screwing up onsome level, um to get the full
learning value out of it, likemany of the rest of us have had.
But, yeah, and you know,eliminating fear.

(01:18:44):
You know a big part of me waseliminating fear, because we had
that in the military right,like there was a lot of ruling
by fear and certainly in thecivilian community as well, a
lot of leadership by fear, and Ifound that just the opposite.
You know, eliminating as muchfear as you possibly can, uh
results in not only a happier,more productive environment but

(01:19:06):
really nurtures people's growth.

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
Well, yeah, people don't.
People don't want to be afraid,I guess the best way to say
they don't want to be afraid tomake a wrong decision.
Right, I mean, you want to, youwant to make the best decision
possible, but when you makepeople afraid of it, then they
don make any decision at allsometimes, which is uh no good
either.
Yeah, yeah, so you, um, you,you did your career at consumers

(01:19:29):
and it's it's nice that youwere in a position where you uh
had developed some junior folks,so someone was there to take
over for you.
Again, I'm going to ask thequestion what was it like that
last day?
And then walking out, and thennow what happens?

Speaker 2 (01:19:47):
Yeah, I've never had this concept of what does
retirement mean?
I mean, I have my father'sconcept right, and his was very
rocky.
He did not transition well, andso I think I learned that it's
a rough time and I didn't nottransition well.
And so I think I learned umthat it's a rough time and I
didn't mentally transition well.
I you know, it was during COVID.

(01:20:08):
Um, we were still dealing witha lot of the restrictions
associated with that.
Um, I think I was um verybittersweet about that
transition and um kind of goingout the door kicking and
screaming kind of thing.
Um, so you make the transitionand then you're like, okay, well
, what now?

(01:20:29):
Right, and, and I knew in mymind I wasn't ready to be fully
done Um, I need to keep my mindactive.
Um, and it's taken me, you know,the better part of the last
three and a half years now tosay what is going to work next,
because I always get consumed bymy work.
And so now I had this trauma ofyour income source goes away

(01:20:52):
and even though your financialperson is saying, oh, you're
fine, you're fine, you're fine,you're like, no, I'm not fine.
And so I started a consultingcompany.
One person consulting companypicked up a few assignments,
because the phone does start toring more frequently when people
realize that you're available.
You have the time and wasselective of what I said yes to.

(01:21:15):
But again, the experience I hadwas I started with some
part-time consulting that grewinto a full-time role.
So last year and a half I'vebeen basically working full-time
again and a lot of those oldbehaviors and traits of mine
have come in and I finallyreached a point saying, even
though I can do these things,even though I could generate
more income, my time is actuallymore important now Time with

(01:21:37):
the grandkids.
We had our second grandchild inApril.
My wife and I really enjoytraveling and we spend our
winters down in Arizona.
Now is that time is moreimportant than money, and
everyone tells you that and thisis real, immediate.
We had a gathering with a lotof folks on the lake we live on

(01:21:59):
Gunn Lake, um and we had 30boats tied up over the weekend
uh, kind of live music.
Uh, one of the the individualsthere died that night and I
remember he was.
He was in the water smiling andhe'd had some health issues you
know previously, um, but it waskind of out of the blue, but it
it really brings back home.

(01:22:20):
Um, every day is precious rightand, and I know, for me, a lot
of times I like work andprofessional advancement and,
and you know, doing the rightthing and going the extra mile
have been more important thantrying to enjoy the journey, um,
and when these things continueto happen cause I'm, you know,

(01:22:41):
I'm getting up there in in yearsuh, comparatively, you're like
I think I need to shift mypriorities a little bit.
Um, but uh, I I'm feelingpretty good about where, where
I'm landing now to step back, um, I'm going through another
retirement um period now andstopping in a couple of weeks.
Uh, the current role that Ihave, but, um, getting things

(01:23:01):
maybe more in balance, maybebecause of the financial
security, is there, but not tostop completely.
And some of my peers have likesome have left the high demand,
high stress executive roles andthey just said you know what I'm
done, I'm done, I'm not goingto do any consulting, I'm not
going to do anything else, I'mjust going to focus on stuff

(01:23:22):
around the house and focus onthe family and maybe I'm just
not wired that way.
But I need to be doingsomething where I feel like I'm
giving back to the world ingeneral.
Part of that is with theveteran community right now.
But I really enjoy coaching inthese kinds of conversations
where you get into what's goingon in somebody's head and how
can, how can this experienceI've had in my life maybe be of

(01:23:45):
some value to you, right?
Um, so I've been going througha process to get officially
certified as a coach.
Um, and uh, hope to do that ona part-time, limited basis,
going forward, but uh, but nofeeling really good about but
where you've gone.
But your original question washow did that feel?
Like it was again and it wassomewhat traumatizing and
everyone tells you have a plan.

(01:24:06):
I thought I had a plan, butemotionally, when you're
actually there in the moment, um, it was, it was terrifying
again.
Like, well, what do I do now?
Like you know you tie so muchof your self-worth to your
professional endeavors that whenthat does actually go away, no
matter how much you've thoughtabout it or talk to other people
now, you're going through it.
Sometimes your reactionsurprises yourself and how much

(01:24:27):
it affects you in in a verymixed bag way.

Speaker 1 (01:24:32):
I think Mike Tyson said everyone has a plan until
you get punched in the faceRight yeah.
Right, or the every, every, youknow every note, no plan, you
know, survives the first shotfired or however you want to
look at that.
But yeah, and you're right.
I mean I can relate Like yourfinancial guy's like, oh, you're
fine, you're fine.
But I mean very similar lifeexperiences.

(01:24:54):
I've always had a steadypaycheck.
I've always had, you know,benefits.
You know like, yeah, I neverbecame a millionaire um working
for someone else, but I alwayshad.
It was steady, it was likereliable, and now you're kind of
it still is, but it doesn'tfeel the same.
It doesn't, I guess, is the wayto say it.

(01:25:14):
Yeah, and they can tell you 100times everything's going to be
fine.
But every day you wake up andyou you look at stuff and you're
like, oh, is everything gonnabe fine?

Speaker 2 (01:25:20):
yeah, yeah.
So life is good.
You know family's growing anduh, yeah, um, that challenge for
me what can I?
Can I actually put myself first, my health first, my family
relations first, my friendrelations first, physical
activity first, because I alwaysfound a way to push those
things to the side right as aprofessional endeavors to go do
the important things right.

(01:25:41):
Well what you think isimportant.

Speaker 1 (01:25:43):
Yeah, right, and they don't necessarily be so my aha
moment was when I realized Ihave less years in front of me
than I have behind me, right?

Speaker 2 (01:25:49):
Yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (01:25:50):
I was like, oh, I better do things a little bit
different.
I might, I might try some otherthings.
But yeah, so it sounds likestill continuing to serve, then
still working with veterans.
You know, still continuing toserve, then still working with
veterans.
It's funny because I kind ofstumbled a bit early on, because

(01:26:10):
we always talk about your sonbut I don't think I ever asked,
did you have any other children?
Because sometimes I do thatwith my kids.
I have three kids and I'llstart talking about one of them.
People think I only have onekid.

Speaker 2 (01:26:20):
Yeah, we were only blessed with one.

Speaker 1 (01:26:21):
Yeah, and what a great kid.
A great kid, oh, the best.
Yes, yep, he's a and, and I cansay it from my uh, what's the
word I'm looking for?
My?
Uh, oh, anyway, yeah, I can sayit as an outsider he's a good
kid thank you you know, I'venever met him, but I feel like I
know him, I feel like I grew upwith him oh, geez sense, I
think you did yeah yeah and uh,two grandkids and and just

(01:26:45):
living life now yep, yep, theymoved into a bigger house, uh,
in january, uh, to anticipatethe birth of the second um.

Speaker 2 (01:26:52):
So they're in annandale now.
They have been living in fallschurch.
He just wrapped up a two-yearassignment in the pentagon um
where he was working on some uh,some policy issues, which is
the area he's focused on.
Loves being in that building,just loves being in that
building.
Now he'll be going back toBrookings where he's officially
employed and assigned but readyto contribute more meaningfully

(01:27:14):
to that institution.
And they love living in DC.
They love it.
These are interesting timesdown there.
That's part of life is gettingthrough those interesting,
interesting periods.
But a unique place to live, avery high cost place to live.
And you know they drove there10 years ago.
They're married um, uh, 10years, this August 15th Um, but

(01:27:36):
they 10 years ago they drovethere with all their belongings
in a car and the money they gotfrom the wedding and neither one
of them had a job.
He was starting grad school andthey've made it and established
themselves down there and bothof them are thriving in their
careers.

Speaker 1 (01:27:51):
Do you feel like you passed on your work ethic to
your son?
Do you?
See some of you in him and thethings that he does.

Speaker 2 (01:28:00):
Yes and no.
He has a lot of thecharacteristics of his mom which
are positive characteristics,and I I think his ability to get
stuff done probably that's theone thing you know that the the
ability to analyze the situation, have the emotional
intelligence to kind of read theroom, uh, figure out, uh, how I

(01:28:21):
make forward progress againstthis block wall in front of me,
I think is a skill that I don'tknow how I transferred it to him
, but he has his own very uniquebrand of it.
The best example I can give you, and this will seem trivial so

(01:28:42):
he's working in the Pentagon.
He had an internship in thePentagon when he was going to
grad school and we wanted to govisit him in the Pentagon and
there's a whole process forvisitors at the Pentagon, as you
could well imagine.
Yes, there is.
Well, he's an intern, so he hasno standing.
He's like below civilian at thePentagon.
He's an intern and you needlike five signatures to get

(01:29:05):
authorization to bring a visitorin and his bosses were busier,
whatever.
But we were all showing upmyself and, I think, my wife,
and we had somebody else showingup to go on this tour.
He basically marched into thesecurity office at the Pentagon
and raised his voice and said Ihave some dignitaries coming in,

(01:29:27):
I need authorization right now,no excuses.
Like one of those deals rightwhen he just got people's
attention and got it done rightand so people got in line.
He got things authorized in ain a speed that does not
normally move, and we show upthere, right, and he had just

(01:29:48):
done this and we show up.
He's like oh hi, yeah, yeah, um, let me help escort you in
Right and tells us the storylater.
But, um, yeah, that's, that'sprobably a skill set that I've
transferred somehow throughosmosis.
Um, that he's picked up on and,um, um, very proud of that.

Speaker 1 (01:30:05):
Well, they're always watching us.
Yeah, they're always watchingus.
They're our kids, but we'vewe've covered a lot uh in, in,
uh the last like hour and a half.
Um is there anything that wehaven't talked about?
That you do want to talk aboutis my my uh.
Second to last question for you.

Speaker 2 (01:30:22):
Um, I, I, you know, even in preparing for this, um,
that was the foundationalexperience of my life.
Um, you know a little bit wegot a little bit of.
You know the specifics of mine,but, um, I can't stress enough
how much I appreciate what I gotout of that experience, the

(01:30:43):
foundation that it laid for me,the learnings that I took away
from that.
I don't want to underscore thetrauma I think we all have some
level of that, depending onwhere you served and what you
were exposed to, and that iswhat it is.
But to have gone through thatand I look around in society

(01:31:07):
today and this will never besomething in this country, but I
really think it led to a goodstart in total and they're going
to expose you to things thatyou're not going to get.
Um, you know, either if youstick around to your hometown or
or don't have that experience,you're going to learn about

(01:31:28):
yourself.
You're going to learn about theworld.
Um, you're going to figure somethings out or not figure some
things out.
Um, that I wouldn't trade thatfor the world.
Cause it.
You know it's part of my story.
Um, you know, you, you mentionedbad decisions or poor decisions
.
I don't really those are thedecisions I made Right, and I
made them for reasons that madesense to me at the time.

(01:31:49):
In hindsight, would I have donesomething different?
I'm not sure, because I was soyoung back then when I was
making those decisions.
I was back, still in that modeof thinking I could conquer the
world.
And I was back, still in thatmode of thinking I could conquer
the world.
But the experience that I gotwas just invaluable.

(01:32:10):
And so I really value andcherish the opportunity that you
get when you make that decisionto serve the country.
I think even to this day, andfor me, because I kind of didn't
think much about my militaryservice as I got on with my
civilian life, and it wasthrough the work that we did,
reconnecting with the employeeresource group and veterans from

(01:32:32):
all branches of service and ourcommon bonds.
And now in the work that I do,working with transitioning
service members to help them,you know, make the transition
fine, employment, um, and theconversations that we get into
Cause I, you know I, I'm rightnow I'm I'm working with 80 to a
hundred veterans a month andthey're all different places.
You know the E3 that has noidea to the, you know the, the

(01:32:55):
retiring admiral that you know,wants to know what the civilian
thing is like.
And some are laser focused,some just need more help working
through the mental aspects ofit that it further has
reinforced.
You know the role that militaryservice plays for our country
and granting the freedoms thatwe all have.

(01:33:16):
And then you know you mentionedthe effect on my son.
He's very proud of my militaryservice.
He did not choose to serve buthe points to my submarine
service.
I joked with him when he wasgrowing up that I won the Cold
War all by myself, it was you.
Because that was during thatperiod when the wall came down.
And I joke with him what doesdad do?

(01:33:37):
Well, dad won the Cold War.
He has a lot of pride in beingable to point to lineage of
someone who served.
There's just so much valuethere.
Experiences vary depending onwhat you, what you've had, and

(01:34:01):
mine was different than thanothers.
But um, um, we, we have thatphrase thank you for your
service.
And I know many of us um, kindof brush that off or feel it's
just a trivial knee jerkreaction, and sometimes it is.
You know, people don't knowwhat they're thanking us for,
right, um, but they know they'resupposed to right.

(01:34:22):
But but if you really um, youknow the, the, the, the
appreciation and the respectthat uh, most of the general
population gives to us, uh, I, Ithink I feel more comfortable
accepting it now that that Iactually did do something to
help contribute to the freedomswe have in this country and I

(01:34:43):
got something out of it.
But all of us that are part ofthat lineage, having served
really sets us apart in asociety where it's a voluntary
choice, right, you're not forcedto go through it, and whatever
the decisions drove us to makethat sign on that dotted line.
For whatever length we served,you did something special and

(01:35:08):
you're part of a community thatreally did something special.
I think that's helped prop meup later in life.
A lot of your relationships aretransactional due to your
employment, but yet you havethis thing that creates a web
and a network with others whohave served and have their
stories, because that's thething We've all got our stories

(01:35:37):
right.
Piece of property for thefederal government and what that
meant and the things you weresubjected to and had to do.
It bonds us together.
So I valued that more and moreas my life has progressed, and
so if you're out there andyou've got a family member
thinking about it, the returnsare far greater than the

(01:36:03):
compensation or what that maycontribute to your career,
because it it will.
It will come back to you for alifetime absolutely well, and
I've.

Speaker 1 (01:36:12):
I feel like you've already answered my final
question, but I I always ask isthere any particular message
that you want to leave withpeople?
Um, you know, uh, I feel thatpeople will be listening to
these stories 100 years from now.
Right, and unless there's somemiracle of modern medicine,
we're not going to be here.
What message would you like toleave with people?

Speaker 2 (01:36:35):
Oh, that is so, so difficult.
The military experience is notwhat movies show you and it's
not what I think the generalpopulace thinks it is.
It's an exposure to adiscipline, a teamwork

(01:36:58):
environment and a sharedmissions, goals and purpose.
That is unique and those areskills, traits that I would want
with anybody that I worked within my life.

(01:37:20):
In my life, and when you saythank you for your service, be
curious about what thatindividual service member went
through, what their experienceswere.
The stories are great we allhave them but to have put your

(01:37:40):
life on the line for a countrythat stands for freedom, that
you're really doing itvoluntarily so that everybody
else around you can have thefreedoms that they have.
Don't offer that thanks lightlyand be curious about what that

(01:38:02):
individual's experience was,both the good and the bad,
because what they did on yourbehalf was very special.
And I do believe many peoplesincerely say thank you for your
service and they mean it.
But it's not trivial.
And don't just say it as acliche.
And don't just say it as acliche and recognize that there

(01:38:24):
are service members that hadtrauma and had an impact on
their lives that maybe didn'tturn out to be positive, but
they did it for you.
At the end of the day, theyvoluntarily did it for you.
So I would hope to keep thecuriosity of everyone's story
alive, the meaningfulness ofhaving served and defended the

(01:38:49):
country in whatever role youplayed, whatever branch you were
in, and recognize that what isit?
5% of the population-ish haschosen to serve.
That it's what makes thiscountry great.
So be curious about theirstories.
Be curious about um you knowthe positives and the not so

(01:39:11):
great that they went through andum recognize the special person
that you're talking to whensomeone has served.

Speaker 1 (01:39:24):
All right.
Well, thank you for that.
Thanks for taking time outtoday to sit and talk with me.

Speaker 2 (01:39:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:39:29):
And making that drive over here.
It's good to see you you aswell, Bill.
Thank you for the opportunity.

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