Veteran Influencer Podcast

John Hawley is a Naval Officer, Nuclear Engineer by training, Building Construction major, and has been improving high performance/high stress teams as a design thinking expert. He has created and facilitated course work to 7,000+ people via intimate workshops and off-site events across the Navy, DoD, and now increasingly within civilian organizations and companies. He has received numerous accolades in human centered design including recognition as THE premier course for the Navy and considered among the top programs of the Department of Defense. John has done all of this while still serving actively, juggling his responsibilities to his "day job" while simultaneously planning his transition to entrepreneurship in the spring of 2020. We had an opportunity in this episode to discuss: How he began leading facilitated leadership and planning engagements His approach to building teams and his process as a facilitator The careful steps he has taken to create a business while still active duty Valuable lessons le

Matthew J. Louis is an expert in career transition for veterans and public service professionals. He coaches individuals on their transition efforts and advises employers on hiring programs designed to successfully assimilate these valuable talent pools. He is the author of the forthcoming book Mission Transition, a practical guide for veterans in transition and their employers. In this conversation, we had a chance to hear some of his advice from the book, through the lens of his own transition story which began in the mid 90's with business school. When I reflect on the conversations I've had with other officers about what to do outside of the military, I struggle to imagine a more successful or competitive path than that which Matthew has followed throughout his career. His perspective on transition is also a compelling approach to career management and self-promotion in general, and follows a deliberate model to walk job-seekers through the process. I was also surprised at how closely his advice aligns wi

Chandra Adusei is a 2005 graduate of the US Naval Academy, former Surface Warfare Officer, and Senior Managing Partner at Veteran Wealth Partners, a firm dedicated to helping Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners discover innovative and alternative solutions to the traditional model of planning, scaling, and protecting a business. After serving aboard a Frigate and a Cruiser, as well as spending a year deployed overseas to Afghanistan, she transitioned to the civilian sector as a Systems Engineer. After promoting through a variety of roles at several major companies in southern CA, Chandra made the decision to become an entrepreneur and start her own business. In this conversation, we discuss how she planned her transition, some of the leadership challenges she faced after leaving the active duty, and how she approaches her current line of work serving a variety of customers from small and family owned businesses.  

Defense Health Agency’s Connected Health Branch is the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) innovative provider of behavioral health technologies, supporting DoD’s goals for increasing access to care, establishing best practices and standards and reducing the stigma associated with seeking mental health services. Dr. Julie Kinn works for Defense Health Agency’s Connected Health Branch to help develop mobile apps and online resources to improve the lives of service members, veterans, and their families. These mobile and online tools are free, easy to use, and trusted by members of the military community. Some of the apps include: Breathe2Relax, DreamEZ, Virtual Hope Box, and T2 Mood Tracker. In this conversation we discuss why and how the DHA is working to bring these resources into the lives of service members, veterans, and their families through technology and how beginning small habits like a few minutes of daily reflection and meditation can be a great way to care for your mental health and wellness during

In this episode I was excited to talk to Kirk Petty, a candidate Bradley-Morris placed about 12 years ago as he transitioned from the Marine Corps to a career in the power-generation industry. Kirk's time at Capstone Turbine has exposed him to a variety of roles and functions, leading to his current title as Senior Vice President of Manufacturing. Capstone manufactures a comprehensive lineup of clean-and-green microturbines that are able to run on a variety of gaseous or liquid fuels ranging from Natural Gas and Propane to things like Landfill Gas or Aviation Fuel. This flexible fuel format along with their small size and modular design allow these power-generation turbines to be located remotely or within a distributed power generation grid in order to meet customer needs for power production wherever or whenever their work necessitates. During our conversation, Kirk and I talk about his transition and the process of rising through the ranks and promoting to his current role as an operations manager. We cove

Today I spoke with Lieutenant Colonel Robin Johnson, Employment Director with the Army's Soldier for Life (SFL) program. Recently completed with Battalion command, Robin has joined the SFL team with the goals of raising awareness of the program and developing a culture of life-long engagement beyond merely the transition assistance program. In this episode we discuss her career and approach to the program, what the Army is doing to bridge the gap with employers and create a more opportunities for soldiers transitioning to civilian life, and the larger impact on force readiness and career development that a strong transition program lends to the operational military. This is an important conversation because we discuss most of the key resources soldiers should be looking into when planning their transition. There's a lot we didn't touch on, but I'm glad our conversation created something of an action plan for those who are listening and beginning the process of planning a civilian career.   Robin's Email Robin

David Gutierrez is an active duty naval officer and co-founder of Storehouse 3:10 Ventures, a turnkey real estate business focused on offering cash-flowing real estate investment opportunities to the military and veterans, while upholding the ideals of honesty, integrity, and giving back to the community. In this episode we speak about his company, how he and his Naval Academy room mate made the decision to go into business as partners, and how he's managing these responsibilities while also serving as an XO in the active duty Navy. David shares his thoughts on generating passive income and how that might enable others to execute their own transition with more security and financial stability. If you're interested in connecting with David or learning more about turnkey real estate investment, check out his website here or email him at storehouse.ventures@gmail.com. Book recommendation: Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki Resource recommendation: Active Duty Passive Income  

Today's guest is an alumnus of the Bradley-Morris placement process. Barrett Scruggs graduated from West Point and served in the Army as an officer for 5 years before making the transition to corporate banking via the Military Officer Leadership Program at Citi. He is now the Director of the Workforce Management Department at leading investment and banking firm Sofi based in Salt Lake City, UT. Barrett began his journey working with another recruiter and made his way to Bradley-Morris during his transition when our team reached out about a role with Citi on their consumer banking team. In this conversation, we catch up about how that program shaped him to do what he's doing today and cover topics like: -His decision to follow a mentor to SoFi from Citi. -Banking Operations - what is the difference between consumer or investment or corporate banking? -Differences between understanding military organization and structure, adapting to the culture. -Attacking the first 90 days at his new job. -Learning to trust t

I had an opportunity to interview Chris Moreira, US Marine Corps Aviator and the CEO of TeleDrip - a platform that uses AI to connect consumers and businesses. Chris and I met a few weeks ago at the LeadsCon 2019 trade show for marketing and technology where he was a panelist discussing how companies are keeping pace with advancements in marketing technology. Chris was gracious enough to offer to share his time and his transition story on the podcast, as well as his advice about how to create a vision for what you want to become as you exit the service. In this episode, we talk about how he made his decision to pursue an MBA at UNC Chapel Hill while finishing his time on active duty, his choice to leave the service, and how he found his way in the world of technology and entrepreneurship.

Today's guest is Tom Kent - CEO and Founder of CareerNerds.com, a professional coaching and networking strategy site aimed at offering insights and strategy to those in career transition. Tom began his military career after graduating from West Point in the mid 90's, serving as an Intelligence Officer stationed in Europe and Asia. After transitioning to a civilian career in Project Management, Tom pursued and earned his MBA from the University of Texas Austin with a focus in Marketing. Following his master's studies, Tom spent 14 years in various senior level Marketing positions within the software and tech industry, helping companies identify and acquire new customers, brand themselves effectively, and grow their sales figures. In his current role at CareerNerds.com he helps career minded professionals market themselves to employment opportunities with a focus on personal brand and Unique Selling Proposition, future goals and growing without the past getting in the way, and optimizing social media profiles a

Todd Crevier is the founder and President of New England Adventures, a not-for-profit organization which hosts all-expense-paid outdoor sporting and therapeutic outdoor activities for New England veterans, current service members, and their families. Todd is a retired Sergeant First Class with the US Army and a disabled combat veteran. After being medically retired from the Army Todd wanted to reignite the sense of purpose and community he felt while he was on active duty. After a trip to Yellowstone national park with his family, he made the decision to dedicate himself fully to offering veterans a connection to the outdoors in order to help them recover mentally, physically, and spiritually from the trauma of their service, or from a rocky re-integration to civilian life. Todd's journey has involved a lot of self-guided research into how to found and fund a nonprofit organization, and ultimately led him to complete his master's degree in nonprofit management as way to turn his vision into a reality. To lear

This Employee Spotlight is on Anthony Ordway, Marine Aviation Crew Chief and Account Executive with RecruitMilitary.com. Anthony left the service a few months ago, working with Bradley-Morris as a candidate when we approached him about considering joining the team. In our conversation, we share some of his thoughts having recently become a civilian and what he's seen since coming to RecruitMiltiary to help other veterans find employment. He shares the story of one of his first placements, and his advice for those about to begin the military to civilian transition process.

My guest today has followed a bit of a unique path out of uniform, Michael Saukulak is the founder of Composure Fitness, a personal fitness and nutritional consulting practice which specializes in progressive overload programming and nutrition optimization. Michael started his career in the Marine Corps as an intelligence officer after graduating from the Villanova ROTC program in 2012, he spent over three years stationed abroad in Japan supporting operations across seven Asian countries and various US states and territories. In our conversation, we discuss how he set the personal goal of becoming debt free prior to reaching his first major career inflection point so that his decision to sign on to another set of orders or to separate wouldn't be influenced by financial concerns. He did ultimately make the decision to transition to private life right around the four year mark, taking a six month pause to regroup and truly understand what he wanted to do for a living before getting his personal fitness consult

Today I had an opportunity to interview Jesse Grothaus, the Dreamforce 2018 Veteran Entrepreneur of the Year. Jesse is the Founder and CEO of Cloud Pathfinder Consulting, a Salesforce consultancy dedicated to hiring veterans to solve clients’ problems within their software and database infrastructure. He is also a graduate of the Vetforce program, a free self-paced learning environment designed to give veterans job skills and certifications to begin a career within the Salesforce ecosystem. In today’s episode, we discuss how his seven years in the Army Reserves gave him the necessary listening, consulting, and analytical skills to run his current company and how a traumatic brain injury from a major car accident led him down the path of self-paced online Salesforce training to develop his career but also as a unique and creative way to follow his doctors’ orders to reprogram his brain and learn new things during the recovery process. Jesse is passionate about Salesforce as well as being the bridge between the

Justine and Jason are both former military officers, currently working within different teams at The McChrystal Group, an advisory services and leadership development firm with a unique and diverse group of professionals. Their networked "Team of Teams" approach enables clients to adapt to their complex operating environments. In today's conversation, we discuss their service as officers within the United States Marine Corps, Justine in Logistics having graduated from the US Naval Academy and Jason as an Infantry Officer via OCS after earning his undergrad at Boston College. Their transitions from active duty took place at different times in their lives, Jason having separated and attended graduate school to pursue a career in policy and Justine coming straight to the practice to work with a large multinational Oil and Gas corporation. We talk about working with retired four-star general, Stan McChrystal and how his team of civilians and veterans perform their mission in corporate America. The context for the

Today’s guest is Nic Chang, 2011 VMI graduate and former Army medical officer. Nic spent a lot of his career in Korea and at Fort Bragg in North Carolina before being medically retired due to an injury in training. Nic’s first experience with Bradley-Morris was as a candidate, attending our hiring conferences to network with employers to discover what role would be the best fit for his skills and interests. Nic is now a Consultant with the Bradley-Morris Recruit Military team, helping companies attract, screen, and hire the best veteran talent from our network of military-experienced job seekers. Nic has a unique ability to understand a client’s needs in their talent roadmap, how it affects the success of their business, and what solutions within the military veteran community will help them solve their problems. In our conversation, Nic shares with me how coming to work for Bradley-Morris surprised him with how little he actually knew about the military, learning about the other service branches and subsecti

This episode profiles the transition of Jon Ferrell. Jon is a Senior Product Manager with an RF technology company in Greensboro, North Carolina. He works in the mobile device space, dealing with manufacturing, design, and optimization issues for a lot of the technology we take for granted every day. We dive into the idea of stress, how he handled large projects with lots of moving pieces in the military, and how that experience brought value to his post-military career in high tech manufacturing and product design. Jon is also pretty frank about his reasons for leaving the military, the commitments of the active duty didn't allow the kind of lifestyle he wanted when he and his wife started a family, and in this conversation he opened up about his thought process and the ultimate decision that led him to where he is right now.   

Today's episode is a conversation with another podcast host, Justin Nassiri, host of the Beyond the Uniform podcast. Justin is also a Naval Academy alum and spent 5 years on submarines before heading to business school on the west coast at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. After finishing his MBA, he started a company and joined the ranks of other bay area entrepreneurs, developing solutions that blend the disciplines of photography, digital marketing and ecommerce, and social media. Justin has done over 188 interviews with veterans who have successfully become civilians and entrepreneurs, so it was a privilege for me to hear his story and pick his brain since he's so much further down the path in terms of developing a veteran-facing show. We talked about what we've both encountered in our conversations, the lessons our guests have shared with us, and the process of transitioning not just as a job search but as a process of redefining identity and finding passion in a business environment that might b

This is my first guest who is also a veteran-oriented podcast host. Robert Graves, host of The Year of the Vet and author of How to Grow A Beard: A Military Transition Guide Back Into Civilian Life, sat down to talk to me not only about his transition process while leaving the Marine Corps 8 years ago, but also his experience talking and interacting with veterans on his own journey through civilian life and his academic career. Robert is currently completing an internship at West Point, focusing on facilitating training and workshops with the corps of cadets within the Center for Enhanced Performance, bringing comprehensive performance psychology and academic skills to help future Army leaders develop their full potential. He also manages his own personal performance coaching business, offering to hold those looking to surpass the standard that they have set for themselves accountable for their mental behaviors, as well as working towards overcoming the hurdles holding his clients back from achieving peak per

Today's episode is with Vishal Amin, former Marine F/A-18 Aviator and current Microsoft Cloud Technology consultant with the Patriot Consulting Technology Group. Vishal focuses on securing data for organizations, ensuring their private and sensitive business information doesn't end up in the hands of the wrong people. Vishal's passion for data security and cloud systems comes from a very personal experience he went through on the active duty following a major data breach with the Office of Personnel Management. When his data was compromised, he felt first hand the effect that can have on your life, career, as well as personal security concerns. We explore his motivations for pursuing the career he's crafted for himself, where he stumbled along the way, and his advice for pushing through failure as a necessary step on the road to success.