Founder’s Story
The Transition Talk
I know exactly how you feel. In 2012, my wife, Adrianna, and I had the “transition talk.” We knew we wanted to move to Wyoming following my planned 2014 retirement but I struggled to think through how that plan would work. Despite being educated and a war-tested leader, it really bothered me that I couldn’t intelligently think through what steps needed to be taken to be successful. It was like there was a veil in my mind preventing me from seeing a clear path or thinking effectively.
My PreVeteran Self-Transformation
My self-transformation originally began through entrepreneurship. Despite the obvious differences between my military career and entrepreneurship, it made sense to me that I could take that two year period before retirement to start up and grow a small business that we could seamlessly move into post-transition. After all, there were no jobs in Wyoming meeting my skill set.
During this evolution, it also dawned on me that this personal growth period was enabled by a military ecosystem that provided me a stable job, stable pay, and a stable time schedule. Inspired to help others, I wrote the book, Active-Duty Entrepreneur, which chronicled my journey.
Prior to my 2014 retirement, my wife and I successfully created a local digital advertising service that catered to the locals in my hometown.
Corporate Life
Shortly after moving back to Jackson Hole in the fall of 2014, a friend encouraged me to apply for an open business development (BD) position within the aerospace industry. Intrigued by the prospect of teleworking for a large company and living in Wyoming, I applied for and got the job.
It was the only job I applied for post-military. While I acknowledge that successfully getting the one job I applied for is certainly not the normal experience for those transitioning, I attribute my success to consistently exercising the lessons learned in starting up and growing our business—branding, marketing, and intellectual property classes—the importance of turning thought into action.
This became one critical piece of the future PreVeteran roadmap.
With me successfully hired into a company, we suspended our small business operations.
As a new full-time employee, things began moving fast. Within a year of being hired into the company, I was offered and accepted the role of senior executive in Northern Asia. My family and I were expatriated to Tokyo in early 2016. As the Managing Director for Northern Asia, I led the development of country strategies to grow the business in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. An amazing amount of personal and professional growth took place during my 2.5 years in that role.
During that time as a senior leader, I gained insights into the full life cycle of business—everything from strategy, to business development, to product line and program management. Most importantly, I learned how critical it is to hire, train, and retain the right talent to keep the company performing at a high level.
This first-hand corporate knowledge became the next critical piece of the future PreVeteran roadmap.
PreVeteran Beta
While corporate life is equally fascinating and fast paced, in my down time over the past eight years, I’ve been assembling these lessons learned to help you plan for the most successful military transition possible.
These lessons learned are now built into a roadmap for you through our overall PreVeteran ecosystem and in our “Employment Prep” Course.”
If you’re struggling with preparing for your military transition, I encourage you to join our next Employment Prep Course by clicking on the link below.