Find out how San Diego’s veterans and military leaders translate the unique skills they learned in service into business acumen and success. Contact us at contact@sddt.com to get more involved.
Corporate America may be cut-throat, but no arena tests the true make of a leader like the life-or-death reality of the battlefield. Col. Tom Magness has succeeded in both worlds, and now helps business executives become more effective leaders using his battle-tested techniques and personal insight from more than two decades of military service.
The biggest challenge Coast Guard Sector San Diego faces on its local waterways is smuggling.
Christopher Kane’s confidence earned him more and more responsibility as a young military man, and his leadership skills warranted him higher ranks and titles as a doctor.
An officer in the military is assumed to be a leader just by virtue of his or her rank, but that doesn’t make that person a leader, said Daniel Cuellar, manager of surgical services at Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center and former lieutenant commander in the Navy.
Anthony Nufer’s former commanding officer became his program management mentor when he hired Nufer just out of the Navy.
When Scott Biel resigned from the Navy in 1989, he knew he was going to miss the structure that he became accustomed to in his almost six years of service.
Capt. Dave Grundies joined the Navy to avoid the draft, and he successfully avoided it for 26 years thereafter.
Harry Guess, a native of Nashville, Tenn., graduated from Vanderbilt University and joined the Navy to see the world, he said. He spent 24 years in the Navy before retiring and worked mostly as a supply corps officer, “the business managers of the Navy,” he said.
While in officer candidates school, John Turpit learned that leaders must lead from the front, and they must make it to the top. Turpit is now director of corporate and developer services at RJC Architects.
As a partner and intellectual property attorney at Mintz Levin, James Cleary said he leads with a flat hierarchical structure.
As an active reservist, there was a time when Mary Lyons --who has been the president at the University of San Diego since 2003 -- was the only woman among a group of midgrade officers being considered to command a unit.
One year crammed in a 7-by-8.5-foot room with four people taught Wayne Goodermote about the one word that has guided him through his career: people.
Relocating every two years while serving in the Navy taught the Board of Port Commissioners' 2012 chairman how to quickly adapt to new organizations.
Rear Adm. Patrick Moneymaker has commanded the Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron, served as commander of Naval Space Command and flew fighter missions during the Vietnam War. In 2011, he took on a different role: president of the newly formed mission solutions group at Epsilon Systems.
For much of his career as a naval aviator, Capt. John Pettitt (Ret.) had to rely largely on himself. He flew single-seat jets, like A-4s, A-7s and F-18s, making him not quite a lone wolf, but hyperaware of his own surroundings and responsibilities.
Henry J. "Jim" Bedinger likes to serve those who serve. Whether it's through his work at Navy Federal Credit Union, or with about a half-dozen military-oriented nonprofit groups, he tries to make life easier for soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen.
Rear Adm. Pat McGrath splits his time between work as a deputy district attorney for San Diego County who heads the family protection unit and as deputy commander of Naval Air Forces.
John Frager, now the executive managing director of office services for the Americas with commercial real estate firm CB Richard Ellis, knew at an early age that he wanted to join the U.S. Navy and be a pilot, inspired by his father, Jack Frager, who flew an F-9 Cougar.
William Driscoll, Cdr., USNR (Ret.), believes in the power of teamwork. When he was on active duty as a Navy Radar Intercept Officer (RIO), it was a matter of life and death.
Leaders can make or break the careers of those who serve around them. In the case of retired Rear Adm. Jose Betancourt, a former surface warfare officer, one leader almost broke his career and another picked up the pieces.
The punishment for one officer being AWOL should be the same for another officer who is AWOL, but very different from the punishment of an officer who didn’t run his three miles in time.
Working as an exchange officer in the U.S. Navy allowed Dr. Jay Doucet to advance to leadership roles not afforded to him in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Patricia Reily, who retired from the Navy in 1995 as a commander, was the human resources director at Moffett field and she was the first woman to run a 40-bed counseling assistance center for drug and alcohol abuse in the Philippines.
Aug. 31, 2015 -- Reporter Carlos Rico caught up with family members of the USS Ronald Reagan, who saw their loved ones off and wished them well, as the aircraft carrier departs for Asia. The Reagan will now be permanently stationed out of a U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka, Japan.
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