Aileen Teague is a Ph.D. Candidate at Vanderbilt University, where she studies, U.S. and Latin American History. She will finish her doctoral studies next summer and move toward her ambition of being a history professor. She teaches history at both Vanderbilt University and Nashville State Community College. She serves as an assistant coach on the marksmanship teach of the Nashville all boy's school Montgomery Bell Academy.
Kate Kranz is the Director of Women's Initiative at Veterans Campaign, a non-partisan, non-profit organization whose mission is to encourage, mentor and prepare veterans, transitioning service members, and other members of the military community for a "Second Service" in civic and political leadership. She started out at the Naval Academy, and served as a Naval Flight Officer for 11 years. She is finishing up a Masters of Law and Diplomacy from Tufts University, and a Master’s of Administrative Leadership from Oklahoma University.
“Veterans rush into their first job. They worry so much about the changes that they don't pause and really think about what the next step is. Now, not everyone has the luxury of preparing for six months. Sometimes they are medically discharged or there are other extraneous circumstances that make their transition come upon them much quicker. But there are so many times that I see veterans rush into a role without looking at the broad picture first."– Liz McLean
Liz McLean is the Senior Program Director of Veteran Employment at Military.com, as well as the Owner & President of Liz McLean Veteran Solutions. She started out at the Air Force Academy where she served for five years as a Logistics Readiness Officer. Since 2010 she has worked as a recruiter for civilians and veterans, with multiple companies including positions at Booz Allen Hamilton and Hewlett-Packard where she worked to refine veteran programs. Liz holds a bachelors in behavioral science and a Masters of Science in Industrial Organizational Psychology, where she focused on the people versus the product for program efficiency. Her passions are fueled by ultra-running and up to the ironman distance triathlon
The top three reasons to listen to today's are:
- How to network properly; does a good job of breaking down the networking skill sets
Tom Pae is a Sales Enablement Manager at Slack - one of the fastest growing startups in San Francisco, who has raised $540M in funding. He started out at West Point, and served in the Army for over seven years as an Armor & Military Intelligence Officer. When he left the Army he went to Columbia Business School. After that, he joined LinkedIn - first as a Sales Operations Manager and then as a Senior Learning Technology Strategist. He is married to fellow Army veteran, RaeAnne Pae, who I interviewed in Episode 26.
“In the military we like to talk about, 'we accomplish more before 9am than the rest of the world.' If you take that thought into the civilian world, it's going to hurt you. There are really smart people out there and there is so much to be learned as you make the transition. Everyone has chosen to do something different - whether you're in the military or working for Chick-fil-a, or somewhere else. They're adding a lot of value where they are. So just keep in mind that - 'I can add value too in a unique way and I have a unique skill set to bring, but there are also a lot of people around me who are really smart and adding a lot of value too." – Mandy Psiaki
Mandy Psiaki is a Senior Team Lead at Chick-fil-A Corporate. She started out at West Point, and served in the Army for five years as a Finance Officer. She received her MBA from Colorado State University while still on Active Duty. She started her civilian career at Proctor & Gamble, where she worked for three months as an Associate Manager, Consumer and Market Knowledge. Before she transitioned to Chick-fil-A, where she has worked for nearly five years: starting as a Franchisee Selection Consultant, a Senior Franchisee Selection Consultant, and now her current role as Senior Team Lead, Specialized Training.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
QUESTION OF THE DAY: How can I make these episodes more valuable to active duty military personnel considering transitioning to the civilian world? Please let me know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
“When I left Bain I reached out to a variety of folks… to explore what was out there. I kept in touch with those folks, and made a point to regularly get back in touch with people and see what they’re up to. It was after a meeting like that - we grabbed coffee and didn’t think much of it at the time, but he called me a few weeks later to let me know that Lyft was starting up in Atlanta. It was basically a lightening bolt that made me aware. It appeared and it appeared because I made contacts and maintained them." – Sam Bond
Sam Bond is a General Manager at Lyft - a company most listeners have probably used for their app which makes it simple for you to find a ride whenever you need one. Although only four years old, Lyft has raised $2B in funding, and has nearly 6k employees listed on LinkedIn. Sam started out at Princeton University and then served as an officer in the Marine Corps for 4 years. After his service, he attended the University of Virginia - Darden Graduate School of Business. He worked in consulting at Bain & Company as a Consultant and then Case Team Leader. He also worked at the Coca-Cola Company - first as a Director Supply Chain Strategy and then as a Group Director of Strategy and Portfolio Management.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
QUESTION OF THE DAY: How can I make these episodes more valuable to active duty military personnel considering transitioning to the civilian world? Please let me know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
“Many Product Managers - most of them, actually - don't have anyone directly working for them. They work with everybody and yet are the owner - and that's a really interesting role. One of the things that I found useful in the military that I translated was: I found - personally - that getting things done, even in the military where it is more hierarchical, that treating people as peers and as experts in their area; that motivating them to get things done without using your direct authority over them was the best way to get things done. And that skill set really translates well to Product Management. " – Todd Pringle
Todd Pringle General Manager and Vice President of Product at Stitcher - the podcasting app that many of you are use to listen to this podcast, and was acquired by Midroll. Todd started out at UCLA, after which he served in the Navy for 4 years as part of the Supply Corps. After his transition out of the military, Todd attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business. After this he held a variety of Product Management roles - at Netscape and AOL in the early 2000s, and then eBay, AirPlay and then a company called Yoono. Todd also holds two US Patents
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
QUESTION OF THE DAY: How can I make these episodes more valuable to active duty military personnel considering transitioning to the civilian world? Please let me know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
“It's more change than you ever think it will be, because in the corporate world plans change all the time. Everything changes even more so than in the military. Don't expect a table nine to five job where you're just going to sit in the office all day. That's what you imagine when you're in the military - 'Oh, I wish I had more stability and wasn't changing around so much.' But it's just like that if not more in the corporate world." – Shaoli Breaux
Shaoli Breaux is part of the Junior Officer Leadership Program at GE Oil & Gas in Houston, Texas. She started out at the Naval Academy, and served as a Surface Warfare Officer for for 5.5 years. After she left the Navy, she stayed at home to take care of her young children for two years. Then, she transitioned directly to General Electric.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
QUESTION OF THE DAY: How can I make these episodes more valuable to active duty military personnel considering transitioning to the civilian world? Please let me know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
Steven Muller works at Google as a Global Strategic Business Development for Google Play. He started out at the Naval Academy,after which he served in the Navy for four years with the Submarine Force as part of the USS West Virginia. After transitioning out of the Navy he worked for 5 years in the Finance Industry: first at Barclays Capital as their Associate Director - Head of Derivative Client Valuations, North America; then at Deutsche Bank as a Vice President. He then transitioned to Google, where was a Finance Manger for 4 years before his current role. Steven holds an MBA from the Duke Fuqua School of Business and a Master’s Degree of Engineering Management from Old Dominion University
Annie Taft is the Founder & Executive director of The Brazen Gourmand, which is a Lifestyle brand for the culinarily curious. She started out at West Point, where she graduated 17th in her class and served in the Army for over five years as part of the intelligence community. When she left the Army, she participated in the Stanford Ignite Program, after which she started three different companies, of which The Brazen Gourmand is one.
Anthony Garcia is CEO and co-founder at GuideOn -a military veteran talent acquisition platform. He started out at St. Mary's University, after which he served in the Army for eight years as a Medical Service Corps Officer and Medical Evacuation Pilot. After transitioning out of the Army, he received his MBA at Cornell University. Since then he has worked as a General Manager at SRI International and the CEO and co-founder of Adjacent Applications. He started GuideOn in late 2014, and has raised funding from Mike Maple’s VC firm - Floodgate, one of the most respected investors in Silicon Valley.
Frank Van Buren lives in North Carolina and works at Wells Fargo in their High Yield Sales & Trading Group. Frank started out at the Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, where he did Army ROTC, after which he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the National Guard/Reserve, and then decided to become a Chief Warrant Officer on active duty in the US Army, where served as a Blackhawk pilot for six years. After his transition from the Army, he earned his MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has worked at Wells Fargo for the last 18 years, first as part of their Investment Banking group and then as part of their Fixed-Income Sales & Trading groups. He also runs the site, AdviceForVets.com.
“The autonomy is incredible. I think back to my time in the military and the best times I had was when I was flying around the mountains of Afghanistan, and we had a lot of flexibility in the mission we were running. When I think about being an entrepreneur, it's very similar to that in a lot of ways. I love that I can set my own hours and create my own success. That is really exciting and gets my adrelanine going. The bad part is that you don't have a paycheck. If you make a sale and get cash you can take a small salary from there, but there's a lot of unpredictability there. Going into this I didn't expect that aspect of this to wear on me emotionally as much as it does. But it does, and it's real - you just need to understand that that's part of the deal." – Chris Shaw
Chris Shaw is the Founder of CORE Leader, the Director of the NY Office of Bunker Labs at the NYU Tandon Engineering School. He graduated from NYU Stern School of Business in May 2016. He started out at Cornell University, where he earned his BA in history, after which he served in the US Army as an Aviation Officer for 8 years flying the Kiowa Warrior armed reconnaissance helicopter. He deployed twice to combat in Afghanistan, most recently as the head of his squadron’s intelligence department in the 82nd Airborne Division.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
QUESTION OF THE DAY: How can I make these episodes more valuable to active duty military personnel considering transitioning to the civilian world? Please let me know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
John Fenwick is Head of Spacecraft Operations at Google. He started out at the Air Force Academy, after which he served for 8 years in the Air Force as a Physicist & Space Acquisitions Officer. He holds a Masters in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from MIT and an MBA from Stanford Business School. After business school, John co-founded Skybox Imaging and served as their Vice President of Flight Programs. Skybox provides commercial, high-resolution satellite imagery and high-definition video and analytics services. Skybox raised over $91M in funding prior to being acquired by Google for $500M, as reported by the WSJ. Skybox is now known as Terra Bella within Google.
“I'm in the beauty industry. I'm this ex-combat arms officer who knows way too much about cosmetics now. I think it's really funny. For me, timing really worked out. When we started Soko Glam, I was an Executive Aide to a General Officer. Although my time was really sporadic, for the most part I was in garrison. So I had a lot of time to research and take night classes, research certain things and go out and network. That would be my piece of advice - when you're still in really take the time to meet people and figure out what you want to do. Do as much reading as possible but you gotta go out there and meet people." – David Cho
David Cho is the Co-Founder and CEO of Soko Glam - an eCommerce beauty shop and lifestyle brand with the best selection of Korean Beauty products and content. Dave started out at West Point, and served as a Combat Arms Officer for over 8 years. After his transition from the Army, David attended Columbia Business School, during which he worked at Facebook as a Global Accounts Intern. In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
QUESTION OF THE DAY: How can I make these episodes more valuable to active duty military personnel considering transitioning to the civilian world? Please let me know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
BreakLine is an education and employment company that builds an affordable path to compelling careers. Their programs combine skills-based training with professional networking and connect participants directly with hiring managers.
“Instead of complaining about what I can't do because I'm in the Navy, I decided what can I do to help the Navy? How can I be the change that I want to see? Because if everyone leaves and decides to get out... I hate to break it to you, it's not that easy. You have all types of irritants. Just like you have irritants in the Navy there are irritants in every industry. That doesn't mean you shouldn't get out, but don't expect to not have irritants. And I've learned to deal with those irritants a lot better. – Nicole Schwegman
Nicole Schwegman is an industry Fellow (Tours with Industry) with USAA and is currently on active duty in the US Navy. She started out at the Naval Academy, after which she served as a Surface Warfare Officer for four years, and then a Public Affairs Officer. She first left the Navy in 2008, where she worked at a small PR firm, as a Contractor for Deloitte, and then as a Communications Partner for Gallup. She returned to Active Duty in 2010 after a deployment to Afghanistan, moved to San Diego, deployed on two different surface ships (USS Essex and USS Peleliu) then got a Master's in Journalism and Media Studies at San Diego State.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
QUESTION OF THE DAY: How can I make these episodes more valuable to active duty military personnel considering transitioning to the civilian world? Please let me know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
“I think that’s one of the things that I love most about my job is that my whole life I’ve always been interested in the news and what’s going on in the world. Now I feel like I get paid to pay attention to it. Any obscure reference, you could make a case that it can have an effect on the market. And for that reason, you truly have to stay engaged in what’s going on." – Casey Carroll
Casey Carroll lives in Charlotte, North Carolina and works with Wells Fargo in their Credit Sales department. He started out at Duke University, where he studied History and Visual Arts, and was on the Men’s Lacrosse Team. He served for four and a half years in the Army with the Rangers as a Fire team Leader. After transitioning from the Army he returned to Duke, this time at their Fuqua School of Business.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
QUESTION OF THE DAY: How can I make these episodes more valuable to active duty military personnel considering transitioning to the civilian world? Please let me know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
“In a brand new, early stage startup, no one can be above doing something. As the months rolled on, I started to get an appreciation for just how much a startup was like my military experience. I really leaned in and relied on that experience in saying, “I’ve never done marketing, I’ve never worked in a CPG company, I’ve never worked in an e-commerce company, but what I have done is worked in a really chaotic environment without a lot of guidance and had to roll up my sleeves and get it done. So I might not know startups, I might not marketing, I might not know e-commerce or food, but I know how to operate in this environment. So trust yourself, trust your gut - you can do this." – Molly Laufer
Molly Laufer is the Director of Client Strategy in the Marketing & Advertising space with the Company, Oxford Road - which is the fastest growing full-service ad agency serving the Consumer Tech industry. She started out at the University of Virginia, where she did ROTC and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Foreign Affairs and Russian. Molly then served for four years in the Navy as a Surface Warfare Officer, serving onboard the Frigate USS SAMUEL B. ROBERTS as well as with DESTROYER SQUADRON 23. When she transitioned from the Navy, she was the first employee of the startup, NatureBox - a company that now has over 100 employees and has raised over $58M in funding. At NatureBox she started with Social Media and Content Marketing, and eventually became their Director of Customer Acquisition
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
QUESTION OF THE DAY: How can I make these episodes more valuable to active duty military personnel considering transitioning to the civilian world? Please let me know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
“Just being totally honest - you really are far behind. It's a better assumption that you're behind that you're ahead. It's not like everyone else who didn't spend time in the military is out there playing Lincoln Logs. They've got a job and they're developing skills and they're learning. I went into my transition with the assumption that I was nine years behind every pedigreed person out there. And I feel that attitude helped drive my hunger to play a very intense game of catch up." – Brit Yonge
Brit Yonge is the Chief of Staff to the CTO at Palantir Technologies, a Palo Alto based technology company that has raised over $2B in funding, and was co-founded by silicon valley legend, Peter Thiel. Brit started out at the Naval Academy and served as an officer in the Navy for 5 years, where he served in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) supporting Special Operations Forces (SOF) in kinetic and non-kinetic operations. Brit transitioned from the military directly to Palantir Technologies, first as a Deployment Strategist and then as their Head of Asia ex Japan, where he lead Palantir's Asia HQ, and now as the Chief of Staff to the CTO.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
QUESTION OF THE DAY: How can I make these episodes more valuable to active duty military personnel considering transitioning to the civilian world? Please let me know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
