BTU #350 - The Semiconductor Industry & Micron Technology (Art Behnke)

April 6, 2020 Justin Nassiri

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Why Listen:

A lot of Veterans I speak with are interested in technology. Most of us in the military get a fair amount of experience with technology, and we hear about the high growth this industry has seen. It’s a pretty broad industry - to me, 10 years out of the military, hearing someone refer to Tech feels like someone referring to “the military” - it’s a great catch all phrase, but there is so much beyond that high level term - branch of service, MOS, warfare specialty, etc.

Today’s interview feels like a gateway to that world of tech. My guest, Art, works at a company called Micron Technologies, which is in the semiconductor industry. Which, as you’ll learn, is a foundational element in pretty much every technology industry: drones, autonomous vehicles, tablets, social media… it’s everywhere.

I don’t think I’ve ever had an interview that has packed in so much information at the end. I really try to keep these interviews to 45-50 minutes, based on feedback I’ve received from listeners. Today was a rare case where we kept going because there was so much richness in what Art was sharing. We talk about translating one’s experience on both a resume and interview. We talk about diversity of perspective as a strength when one is applying to a job. We talk about three things I rarely hear on these interviews: how important it is to evaluate a company by the size of the company and what this offers to you in terms of a community and mentorship opportunities, evaluating a company’s team and how those individuals will challenge and support you to grow, and also looking at how a company behaves in a crisis… like the one we’re going through right now. All of these are fantastic lenses through which to evaluate a company and job opportunity, and they’ve never come up in the 349 episodes that precede this.

As always, at BeyondTheUniform.org you’ll find 350 other free episodes, just like this one. You’ll find show notes with links to everything we discuss today. And you’ll also find a special, limited time offer at BeyondTheUniform.org/micron, where Art is graciously offering to connect with 20 of you to help you with your resume, and answer your questions about job transitioning (side note: he has conducted thousands of interviews), the semiconductor industry, and Micron Technology.

About Art Behnke

Art Behnke is a Manager of Talent Acquisition at Micron Technologies, which is a world leader in innovative memory solutions that transform how the world uses information. Micron Technologies has over 37,000 team members in 18 countries who work with the world’s most trusted brands, delivering memory and storage systems for a broad range of applications and sparking countless possibilities in technology.

Art served in the Marine Corps for 21 years as a FA/18 Hornet Weapons System Officer (WSO) and is a graduate of the TopGun program. He has held a wide variety of roles throughout his career and has completed 173 combat flights, with 2,500 total flight hours. He has completed an MBA and is a graduate of the Naval War College.

Our Sponsor:

Micron is a world leader in innovative memory solutions that transform how the world uses information. Micron Technologies has over 37,000 team members in 18 countries who work with the world’s most trusted brands, delivering memory and storage systems for a broad range of applications and sparking countless possibilities in technology.

Partners:

Have you ever wondered how you could become a more effective and balanced leader? Or how to find a team with a high degree of trust that performs at a level you’re accustomed to? Check out The Leadership Podcast where they study what makes the best leaders tick - including many who have moved "beyond the uniform" to reach new levels of success and fulfillment.

Selected Resources:

Transcript & Time Stamps:

1:00

Joining me today in Highland, Utah is Art Behnke. Is there anything you’d like to add to that biography?

I think you nailed it - so thank you for that. I think that pretty much summarizes it.

1:40

What was your transition out of the Marine Corps like?

Being a pilot in the Marines was a phenomenal job and I loved every second of it. It gave me some very unique opportunities and the ability to travel the world both by myself and with my family. I'm greatly appreciative about that.

As far as to your question about transitioning, and how that was. I wouldn't say it was easy. I think an easy transition out of the military is rare. I would describe my transition as deliberate. I knew that in order to land where I wanted to end up, I needed to take a methodical approach.

The first piece of advice I would give transitioning service member is not to do a direct comparison of your journey with anyone else's because everyone's transition journey is slightly different and you have to respect that. The second thing is probably most important — plan ahead. I think all too often when I talk to transitioning military members, they really put it off until the last three or four months before the transition. But that planning really needs to start a year or two in advance.

The world has completely changed in 30 days. A month ago, the US employment rate was at 3.5%. And in the past week we've had about 9.9 million people claim unemployment. So you really need to be deliberate about your transition and plan ahead.

4:04

I really appreciate both of those pieces of advice. Could you share with us more about your job search and what the decision making process was like, and what ultimately landed you at Iron Flash as your first job out of the military?

I would go back to my previous comments about deliberate planning. I think the first thing transitioning military members need to do do is be introspective about who they are and where they're going to find fulfillment. For me, and I think for many veterans, the reason why we go into this service is to be part of something larger than ourselves and to have a positive impact. So that's definitely something I wanted to carry forward. I looked at a number of my peers and colleagues who had transitioned and a large number got GS jobs or contractor jobs. And while some of those were desirable, I felt I wanted to push the envelope and do something outside that realm.

The other very unique thing about the transition is that whether you're in the military for four years or 34 years, you are going to have your desired billets, but ultimately your assignment comes down to what the needs of the military are. So when you transition it's really the first time in your career that you have more say in that process.

For those that have spouses and families, I highly encourage your to involve your family in your decision-making process. That's what I did and in doing so, my family and I decided where we wanted to live. It came down to four locations- Oahu, Seattle, Denver and Salt Lake City. Ultimately, we decided on Salt Lake City. Once that was decided, I started looking at the local job market. Utah's job industry is phenomenal and it's I think the state has been number two in terms of growth like three years running or something. There's a little hub here called Silicon Slopes that is a hub of technology. Qualtrics, Adobe, Oracle and Skippy all have offices there.

The next part of the journey was figuring out what was rewarding for me. I joined the Marine Corps to be part of something larger than myself and to have a broad impact, working for a company like Micron. At Micron, virtually everything you do or interact with throughout your day is moving technology forward that is going to change the world.

9:58

One of the things you touched on that that I love is the way that you talked about involving your family. I also liked that you narrowed your search down to one city. I think that many veterans are hesitant to put any sort of constraints around what they're looking for in the hope that being more open will make it easier to find a job. But when you put your specific stake in the ground in terms of geographic location, then you're really able to network in that area and find job opportunities. It just makes things so much easier which goes contrary to what most people think.

Yeah, absolutely. As I transitioned, some people told me that I should be willing to work anywhere. And there's definitely some truth to that. But now, working in talent acquisition, I see it all too often where someone comes with you to try to figure out what they want to do. And they're too broad. It becomes really difficult to help them find what they want because you don't know what they want.

So, even though you don't want to rule opportunities out, you still need to narrow yourself down in some way so that when you’re reaching out to people they know how they can help you.

11:48

I love that. For me, it's so liberating to put constraints and structure around something that would otherwise be really nebulous or unwieldy. I just want to reiterate for our listeners that adding conditions and structure during your transition will make things easier.

The other thing that I wanted to touch on was the technology field. When I got out, Google or Apple were the only companies that I associated with technology. You’re in a role that is really foundational in almost every aspect of technology.

What I don't think most veterans realize is how broad tech can be. Could you talk a little bit about the semiconductor industry and what what attracted you to that industry?

The tech industry is very broad but at the same time, I view myself as being more in the semiconductor industry.

This industry impacts everyone on the face of the earth. That’s what drove me to semiconductor industry. And then what really refined that focus on Micron was its vision and mission. Micron’s mission is to be a global leader in memory and storage solutions. Our five values are people, innovation, tenacity, collaboration, and customer focus. I believe all of those are core to a successful culture, a successful working environment, and a successful company.

16:46

I love the strong mission statement. Growing up, my farther always told me that he liked businesses that were one step removed from the consumer, where you were selling to other businesses that were then selling to consumers. It meant you were dealing with a little bit more educated of a consumer because business owners are a little more businesses savvy and are a little bit more rational than the consumer market.

Can you provide any recommendations about how veterans can successfully translate their military experience into something a civilian hiring manager will understand?

For me, translating was really about taking many of the soft skills that I learned in the military and applying that to roles that I could fit into within the corporate sector. Within aviation, one of the things we were taught religiously was that you've got to think ahead of the jet. The jet moves really fast, and if you are thinking where the jet is right now, you're behind. You've got to anticipate where the jet’s going and be proactive about it.

I think that mindset is a soft skill that is very transferable to many corporate industries because you want to forecast where the business is going. If you’re reacting all the time. You're one step behind the industry. You're one step behind the environment, you're one step behind all of your peers and competitors out there. So being able to think strategically, and think ahead of the actions as they occur — I think that’s a soft skill that I took from from the aviation realm and applied to the corporate sector. I'd encourage transitioning members to think about how their hard skills and their soft skills translate into roles that they want or desire.

20:42

I think that's great. I think that gives people a pretty wide berth, to be able to make a radical transition and I haven't heard it put that way before but I think that's like the perfect articulation of the hard versus the soft skills. I hope for listeners that this gives you some fertile soil to start thinking of what some of those soft skills are in your own career.

Leadership is another great skill that veterans bring to the civilian sector. That’s another soft skill I think translates extremely well to the civilian side.

23:02

Can you describe Micron as a company?

Micron is a semiconductor maker. We're a maker of memory products from direct random access memory (DRAM). Micron truly is everywhere - we’re in everything from SD cards to cameras, from smartphones and computers to servers and data systems.

Many people are working from home right now. How do you think that happens? It's fueled by semiconductors. We fuel SpaceX exploration. We fuel medical research. In fact, I'd venture to say right now at this very second, there are some extremely intelligent scientists and doctors that are working on vaccines for COVID-19. These doctors and researches are being fueled by the memory solutions provided from Micron products.

26:12

Serving a higher purpose is so central to so many veterans. I love that at Micron, you are serving so many high impact services and industries.

We are a multi billion dollar company. We have hundreds of tools ranging in price from $20-80 million. These tools allow us to make semiconductors on 12-inch silicon wafers.

When it comes to making semiconductors, if our facilities aren't running, we're not making money. So we run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And in order to do that, we have to keep our tool availability extremely high. We have extremely intelligent and critically thinking technicians.

This is a fantastic field for veterans and if it’s something that may interest you, I encourage you to look more into Micron.

30:42

Could you share a little bit more about why veterans might be a good fit at Micron?

In the military, we learned how to be being agile, flexible, and scalable. All of that translates to how Micron does business. Working in this environment is extremely rewarding and is a great fit for men and women coming from a military background. We also have a great veteran resource group within the organization. All of the veterans working here support each other.

Sanjay Mehrota is the CEO of Micron. He's cultivated an extremely unique culture that thinks critically and altruistically. During the Coronavirus crisis, Micron donated $35 million to COVID-19 research around the world. Just recently in the past few days, Micron is now working with another company to expedite maintenance and repairs being done on broken respirators.

34:51

I love that you pointed out the caliber and the intelligence of the people that you're working with. That's something great for listeners to hear. I think it’s important to factor that in to when you consider companies that could potentially be a good fit for you.

Yeah - it's all about the people. The people are the lifeblood of any organization. Sanjay Mehrota was on Jim Cramer's Mad Money recently and he made the pledge not to lay off workers during the COVID-19 crisis. Sanjay understands the importance of people and that they are the company’s number one asset.

36:48

I think it's a great thing that you're pointing out for listeners that it’s important to take time to observe how companies handle themselves through this crisis and seeing if those values align with what you're looking for

To get through this crisis, we need to work together as a collective - everyone thinking outside the box and working together. Our companies and business owners need to take that approach as well. And that's something Sanjay is doing extremely well and I think that’s wonderful.

39:57

How would you describe your role at Micron?

When I was flight instructor, I came to the realization about the three things that drive me. One is operations because it keeps an organization running. The second is people. And then the third one is teaching and developing. So those three things guided my job search.

In my first role, I was working on the operations side and I loved it because every day, every week, we were looking at the availability of the tools and we were keeping the tools up and running.

Eventually a role opened up in talent acquisition. I realized it was a great fit for me. My role in talent acquisition is about ensuring the organization is selecting the best people so that we continue to improve ourselves as an organization.

43:37

Can you talk about Micron’s veteran resource group?

Micron is a very large organization. Anytime you're that large, you need to foster an environment that allows people to connect. And one of the ways to do that here at Micron is through Employee Resource Groups. We have a veteran resource group that allows veterans working at the company to connect with one another.

We also have a Women's Leadership Network, a young professionals group, a black employee network, among many others. And then on top of that, we have dozens of activity groups, whether it's sushi eaters, or golfing, or skiers. When you're part of a 37,000 person organization. If the company doesn’t make the effort to connect employees, work-life can seem very impersonal.

There’s also a training program called Micron University that allows you to take courses on leadership, coding, and many other skills.

One of the things I think has been most critical throughout my career is having a mentor. I encourage the people around me to develop mentorship relationships during their time at Micron.

50:31

If a listener wants to learn more about Micron, do you have any resources you would recommend?

I recommend the Micron website. We also have a YouTube channel.

52:33

Do you have any advice around networking for veterans?

When I was in the military, networking was was not necessarily the best word. But as I transitioned I realized I needed to improve my networking skills.

Having an up-to-date LinkedIn profile is absolutely vital during your transition process. Start to reach out and ask for help from veterans that have transitioned before you. Please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I would be happy to help you review your profile.

54:48

What's something that we haven't talked about that you’d like to share before we go?

Reading is a great way to expose yourself to new ideas during your transition. Extreme Ownership and Start With Why are two books I recommend. A couple others are Boys in the Boat and Radical Candor.

When you're interviewing, don't go to the first interview and think that you’re definitely going to get it. Interviewing is a practice. The more you interview, the better you will get. Veterans are very humble. But don’t be afraid to speak about your accomplishments during an interview. As a veteran, you have a different perspective to share. So be willing to sell yourself.