Announcer
Do you wonder if others are dealing with the same project management challenges as you not sure where to turn for guidance and leadership? Office hours are in session as we discuss project management and PMOs with global leaders hearing their stories, story and learning their secrets to success. Our goal is to empower you and help you elevate your PMO and project management career to new heights. Welcome back to Project Management Office Hours with your host, Kim Ojell.
PMO Joe
Welcome everyone to Project Management Office Hours. We're the number one live project management radio show in the US, probably the world, for that matter, because we might be the only one, and we're broadcasting to you from the Phoenix Business Radio X Studios in Tempe, Arizona. I'm your host, PMO Joe. And for the next hour, we'll be talking project management and veterans as well as everyone knows. Of course, we're here in the States. We're in the middle of our holiday season. Last week we celebrated Veterans Day in the United States.
PMO Joe
Next week we have Thanksgiving, and every year on this show we always dedicate an episode in November to veterans, and we would love to hear their story and make sure that we're honoring them. Veterans Day, of course, is an important holiday as it unites all of us on a single day to be able to honor our veterans. But really, we should be doing that every day. Every day. We should be honoring the service that they and their families because the military and their families sacrifice for all of us to defend our freedoms.
PMO Joe
And we shouldn't think of that as just a day within the year. So we want to shine the spotlight every year. We do that, and we bring on veterans to hear their story and learn about their transition. So today we'll be talking with three veterans and we'll hear their story before we jump into that. I also want to say thank you to the sponsors of the show, the PMO Squad and the PMO Leader, a reminder for everyone to go out and visit those websites and learn more about those organizations and how they can help your organization with project management.
PMO Joe
And, of course, visit Projectmanagementofficehours. Com, homepage of our show to be able to see upcoming episodes, catch all of the previous episodes, of course, and learn more about the amazing guests that we've had on the show. So for today, very excited to have with us, Cathy Christian, Eric Garcia and Curtis Brown. Welcome all of you to the show. We'll give you all an opportunity to introduce yourself here we'll start. Ladies first. Of course, Cathy will start with you having to take a moment just to introduce yourself and let everybody know a little bit about you.
Cathy Christian
Georgia, thanks and thanks for inviting me today to be on the show. I'm super excited to be here. My name is Cathy Christian. I grew up in Central Pennsylvania and College was not necessarily not an option for me. But I had a hard time figuring out how I was going to get there in terms of cost. And so one of the options was an ROTC scholarship. My best friend went to West Point the year before, and I was like, oh, the Academy might be cool, and I'm like, oh, yeah, no, I'm not going to the Academy after he got there and told me all about it.
Cathy Christian
I was like, yeah.
Cathy Christian
No, that's not for me. So I got and received an Air Force scholarship, air Force ROTC scholarship. And I went to Syracuse University, and it was just really probably one of the better decisions I've ever made. I had a great time, went into the Air Force. I wanted to fly, but I had problems with my refractive error. So they said, Well, you can go from flying to flying. It's easier that way. So I ended up being on the Aux Airborne warning and control system. So it's a big radar plane with a big rotodome on top.
Cathy Christian
And I did that for about eight years, including Desert Storm, talk about dating myself, but including Desert Storm. And so I did that for about eight years. When I got married, my husband was also in the military, and we decided to get out to have our family, start our family and have our family. And so I got out and we both went to Prudential and I served there in different project management capacities for 25 years or so. I retired in 2020 so that I could pursue my passion of giving back and serving others.
Cathy Christian
And so that's what I'm doing. As some of you may know, I'm the vice President of BPMA. We'll talk a little bit about that in a little bit. And I also volunteer for some other nonprofit organization serving veterans and then for some organizations in my local community.
PMO Joe
Awesome. Thank you so much for your service and as one of the cofounders of VP MMA. Of course. Thanks for the service in our nonprofit organization as well. Art, next up your turn, a little introduction, if you would.
Art Garcia
Howdy everybody! I'm Art Garcia. I'm born and raised Antonio, Texas, native, a fight in Texas Aggie. I went to Am Electrical Engineering school, Air Force RTC. Also, I joined the Air Force back last century, and I was a career project manager, research development. I worked on fighter jets and bomber jets and cargo jets. I build big missiles for the good guys to shoot down in missile Defense Agency software intensive systems, right? Putting new weapons onto old airplanes, old platforms. And my last job, I was teaching project management, Federal Acquisition, Federal Contracting at Defense Acquisition University there in Fort Bell, Northern Virginia.
Art Garcia
So in 2009, I went to transition out of the military. I retired and I transitioned to industry as a consultant as a project manager. So I was a Beltway Bandit. I served VA and FEMA and GSA then my baby graduated high school, got accepted to my alma mater, and I told the family we are coming home to San Antonio. So in 2015, summertime relocated back to San Antonio. I started consulting over here in the local area, and I was pleased to join USAA earlier this year.
PMO Joe
Awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And I know you do a lot of mentoring in your time, so we'll circle back to that. Of course, as the show goes on. Curtis, thank you for joining us. If you could take a moment, introduce yourself, please.
Curtis Brown
All right, Joe, thank you so much for having me. As he said, my name is Curtis Brown, born in Providence, Rhode Island, but I'm from North Carolina because he moved on down to North Carolina. I joined the Air Force right after high school. In high school, I was going to get a full ride playing football somewhere. And the only thing I was getting a little partial scholarships. My dad was like, man, you should think about maybe joining the military Air Force. I'm going to play football. And Lo and behold, all my friends started getting their applications and accepted here and there.
Curtis Brown
Dad, let's go to recruit's office. So right after I graduated, I joined the Air Force, and that was I had the opportunity to do my very first career field was crew chief. I worked on a U model gunship for a maintainer folk and my a wax people. And then I retrained in public health, which is like, Department of Health type work in the civilian sector, deployment, medicine, occupational safety, all that good stuff. Then I wound up getting an email saying, hey, Congratulations, Sergeant Brown. You've been selected to become a military training instructor or a drill Sergeant.
Curtis Brown
So at that point, I was already 17 years and I was a massive Sergeant E seven. And I was like, man my trajectory. I was about to be moving into more of a leadership type of role. But I wound up here at Arts Home San Antonio. I was right at Lachlan as a military training instructor. And right when my apartment was about to be up, it was like, hey, you have two options for you. You can go to my not North Dakota, which is super cold days.
Curtis Brown
I've been to a cold base, been stationed in the snow. I was like, no, thank you. And the other option was Canada, New Mexico, which we were like, we had a good time. And so I opted to retire and will be accepting those orders. So, yeah, at that point, I had a decision to make. I was like, let me see what certifications are available. And Luckily, I was able to find out about a free program on the opportunity, which I'll get into some of that a little bit later when you have some questions and get my PMP rolling.
Curtis Brown
And I wound up becoming a PMP instructor for a company called Dynamic Advancement and an opportunity to go over to England and teaching classes in Japan as well. And now currently I'm working for DHA as a contractor doing project. That's my journey.
PMO Joe
Awesome. Again. Thanks to all of you for your service, Air Force. We didn't plan it that way. Just happened to turn that way. Also, I'll take a moment here. I mentioned the PMO Squad earlier is one of the sponsors of the show. Just last week, we received the platinum medallion from the Department of labor for the Higher Vets program. Only one of eight companies here in the state of Arizona. They get the platinum medallion. So we're proud supporters of the military and hiring and retaining our veterans and putting programs in place to support them.
PMO Joe
So there's a little Pat on our back. It's always good to be able to promote the good work that we're doing out there in the community. What we like to do on this show, of course, is tell stories and understand the experiences that you've been through. And you guys just alluded to that a little bit within your introductions, of course. But I'll come over to you first and just say, tell us, what was your transition story like, how did you get from Air Force active duty into a project management field?
PMO Joe
Right. Because a lot of people out there are struggling to be able to understand what comes next after service. What was that like for you?
Art Garcia
So, funny you should ask, Joe. I had pretty much the exact opposite story of what I hear a lot out there from my mentees. I was inside the national capital region Beltway, right? And I just come out of Defense Acquisition University teaching project management steeped in that project management, federal policy and procedures. So I walked into one of those military job fairs, right? I had my little DAU business card that had the bright red letters on it. And people were coming up to me. So I met my future boss, another veteran, and he talked with me.
Art Garcia
He was with a small consulting company and talked with me about joining him at FEMA. And it just so happens at that time, DHS was undergoing a very similar transformation in their acquisition policies and procedures like DoD was. So I just finished teaching that stuff. So it was entirely too easy. The economy was roaring right there in national capital region. And I thought, Well, this is not so bad. And then I transitioned back to San Antonio. Okay, here I come from DC. I'm a Beltway bandit, got my contractor suit on my white shirt and red tie.
Art Garcia
And I think, oh, San Antonio is a sleepy small town. I got this wire. Yeah, that wasn't the case at all. Curtis will tell you you have to build your network. You have to find your mentors. You have to make connections. You have to market yourself, talk a lot to my mentees about value proposition, not just in your resume, but elevator speech on your LinkedIn profile when you go to do your networking and the answers to your interview questions. So after going through that little desert, a little dry spell, I have a real appreciation for people that are challenged with the military transition.
Art Garcia
That's why I do a lot of mentoring.
PMO Joe
Yeah. Thanks for helping out. I think, for Cat and Curtis, your story probably not the same as archery. You didn't walk into your future employer just saying, hey, tap you on the shoulder. Let's come work for me. What was your transition story like, Cap?
Cathy Christian
Yeah, Joe, you're right. It was completely different. Right. So I flew. So when you get out, they try to kind of match you up with the program and what you'd be good at. And, oh, air traffic controller was the only thing that kind of flashed up as a match. I'm like, oh, I don't want to do that. And I wasn't even sure that I didn't even really want to get out. Right. I was on a pretty good role. I would have stayed in had I had the opportunity.
Cathy Christian
But I got married, and I made a decision to support my husband because he wanted to get out. We went through a military junior military officer kind of head Hunter. They don't like to be called up, but that's basically what they were and interviewed with a bunch of different companies. And so for us, the most important thing was to get a job, each of us to get a job. Right. And then it was, could we get a job together in the same region? And then, well, what if we could get a job at the same company?
Cathy Christian
And so that was the process we went through. They taught you how to interview. They taught you how to do your resume. And I had 17 interviews in two days.
PMO Joe
Wow.
Cathy Christian
And I had 14 follow ups. So I was lucky, right? My husband wasn't as lucky. We're very different personalities. But we had four companies that were a match for us. And we both decided my family was in Pennsylvania. And so we decided that the North East was the right location for us. And so we came to Prudential. That was in 1095. So if you think about back then, before Curtis was even in the military or out of high school. Thanks, Curtis. Anyway. So for me, I had no idea what I wanted to do.
Cathy Christian
I didn't make the connection for a very long time. That what I did in the military. I flew on the A wax planned emissions, controlled the whole war plan, if you will. I didn't make the connection that that was, if nothing else, project management for a very long time. Right. So I was a trainer in the military and evaluator. So that's kind of my first job in the civilian sector at Prudential. I was kind of doing the training all of the procedural documentation and stuff like that.
Cathy Christian
It's part of the military. Right? You got all the procedures and stuff. So that's where I started. And then it was an easy transition then into project management. And then when, quite frankly, there wasn't a lot of support for veterans back then, right? Like, I was alone and unafraid.
Cathy Christian
Almost.
Cathy Christian
There were a few of us there. But what I was told was I had to play the game better. That was the advice people gave me. And I was just like, yeah, I'm not doing that. And, oh, yeah, you need to get a mentor. Yes. I don't need a mentor. I made all the mistakes that people typically make. Let's just be clear, I made them all. And so finally, when I figured it out and it took me a really long time, then I said, oh, that was about the time credentials started really getting into supporting veterans.
Cathy Christian
And I started saying, you know what? I need to go back and help those coming in behind me because I learned everything the hard way. And I'm happy to tell you my story about what you shouldn't probably do or what's going to make it harder for you to be successful. And so that's kind of my story. Joe, in a nutshell about how I got into project management. And quite frankly, then I ended up being head of the financial management PMO. By the time I left, and I recruited as many veterans as I could irrespective of their MoS or ASC or whatever their job duty was in the military, because nine times out of ten, they have the prerequisite to be a good project manager, right?
Cathy Christian
For the most part, irrespective of what they did in the military because it's getting from point A to point B, figuring out how to do it. Something happens along the way that you need to account for and you still figure out how to get to point B, right. So that's just the bottom line of why I think veterans make good project managers.
Curtis Brown
Cathy, I had a question for you. So what was that conversation like with you and your husband? Because I know me and my wife were mils to mils. So what was that conversation like deciding, hey, we're both getting out versus just one of us getting out or we're both staying.
Cathy Christian
Wow. Well, I'm glad the doors closed, but the conversation was I wanted to stay. I had a pretty good trajectory. I knew in the military, you kind of knew what your next assignment was likely to be, or you could kind of figure that out, or people were kind of grooming you for certain things. So I kind of knew what my next six years were going to be. I was in for eight, so I was at the point where I either had to decide to get out or stay in, right?
Cathy Christian
My husband wanted to get out, and he said, Well, I'll support you. You can stay in. And I said, yeah, I love you. But I don't think I do that for you. So that's not fair. That was the truth, right? If you were going to get out, it would be really hard then to be kind of a supporting spouse. I've seen a lot of people be very successful at it. I knew I wouldn't be good at it. And I knew it wasn't fair to ask my husband to do that.
Cathy Christian
And so we made the hard decision. And I got to be honest, Kurtish, I had a lot of people. It was at the time a record was building out a reserve unit, and they asked me to be the do of the reserve unit. And I was like, But I'm like, I saw too many people get called up, and the reason we were getting out was for family purposes, to have our family start our family. And so that's kind of why we made the decision. And I had a lot of angry Colonels at me for sure.
Cathy Christian
But I was just like, Sir, I had to do it for my family. And so I hope you understand that. Does that answer your question?
Curtis Brown
Yeah. Definitely. Great.
Art Garcia
Yeah. I wonder if you found one of the same things that I did in that communicating and that connecting and that mentoring you're building your network and the person you help today may be the person that helps you tomorrow. Did you ever see that happen?
Cathy Christian
Oh, 100%. Right. You have to be honest. And you have to be a little vulnerable. And I feel like, from a veteran to veteran perspective, that's a bit easier, right? Like, I'm more vulnerable with veterans typically than I am with just somebody off the street, if you will. Right. So that's why I think it's easy for me to kind of guide people and help people. And that has happened many times. You help each other out and you don't even know it at the time. And you don't even recognize probably.
Cathy Christian
I mean, I don't know, Art and Curtis, if you've had this experience, right, you don't even recognize what you're doing, how helpful and impactful that is to the folks that you're helping out. Right. Because to you, it's just a conversation to you. It's just a natural thing that you're doing. And then when they come back and tell you what an impact it was, you were like, oh, well, you had no idea.
Art Garcia
Yeah, definitely. I went through that exercise a few years ago. You're reaching out to people. You're having conversations, maybe you're buying a lunch or dinner and you never hear from them again. And then all of a sudden, oh, he's got some big job. Okay. Well, and there's no thank you. There's no. Hey, appreciate you or nothing like that. And you're like, well, why is it exactly then that I'm doing? Am I doing it for me? So that I feel better. Am I doing it for them? So they get to help them along.
Art Garcia
And so that's why I decided, you know what I'm not going to wait for? Thanks. I'm not going to wait for a little card in the mail or a basket of flowers or them to buy me a Taco & a beer. I mean, Curtis did, but I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do, and I can do it. And I can help whether it happens or not, whether they hit Patriot or not or whether I get thanked or not.
Curtis Brown
I was going to say, you definitely bring up a good point about networking. Obviously, for those that are listening, I don't know. Art was actually one of my mentors, as I was kind of going through my transition. So my transition was actually not too bad. Luckily, here, this is Mill City USA here in San Antonio. So definitely a big veteran presence. Big military presence here. And there are a lot of industries here within San Antonio employers that value veterans and what they bring to the table. And I can remember having conversations with our name.
Curtis Brown
Alright Curtis, make sure get your elevator pitched together. These are things that you need to do. And one thing that I always tell veterans is, don't be afraid of opportunities that come up because you never know what window or door that opportunity may open up for you. So case in point, whenever I went through the Opportunity program, the director of military affairs for our local PMI chapter at that time was Kai Namalu, who is the owner of the company that I initially started working for. Dynamic Advancement.
Curtis Brown
So I talked with him and connected with him. He's like, Man, Kurt, I love your energy. You have a great background. What would you think about teaching PMP courses until you kind of fall into something else? I remember having that conversation with Art, and he was like, yeah, Kurt, I mean, go for it. You definitely have the personality for it. Get your resume together. Kind of be running things in the background. So had I not had that conversation with Kai, and then when he asked me, I could have easily been like, oh, no, that's something I've never done before.
Curtis Brown
Sound too hard, but I stepped on out on face and said, hey, all right, let me give it a shot. And then 800 hours later, over 30 courses taught had opportunity to go to some places internationally and courses. It definitely has helped grow my network big time.
Art Garcia
That guy. Kai, he definitely owes me a Taco.
PMO Joe
It's a strange world, right? There's a connection we have with the PMO squad in Art. And I don't know if he recognizes this or not. But one of the veterans we hired out of the DoD Skill Bridge program came to us, and he's working in a sales position, which is not what he is. Mos. I'm learning all the terms as well. Right. He was in the health care field within the military, and he had reached out to USAA and connected with Art, and he had afterwards shared how he was getting mentoring for Art from Art.
PMO Joe
Rather, while he was trying to do inroads and do sales to be able to get into USAA as a client. Kudos to you for taking an opportunity to see a newly transitioned veteran in a role that he's probably not very comfortable at all, but he's doing his best. He's working hard and he's making good progress and for you to be able to step in there and help him through that process as well.
Art Garcia
Very cool.
Cathy Christian
Hey, Joe, I think one of the things that depending on where you are in your company or not, right. I think one of the opportunities that you have is to give other folks opportunity, other veterans coming behind new opportunities. So let me give you an example of what I mean by that, right? I had the opportunity to work with the program and bring on somebody that was the first shirt. So he was the first Sergeant, right. So I can't be a project manager. I'm like, are you kidding me?
Cathy Christian
You're probably going to be a great project manager. All the stuff you deal with on a daily basis. No, I don't know. I said, just try. Just try. I'll help you. I'm there for you. Whatever. So he came in and he was great. He was working on something for me, and he was just really good. And we were on this really high pressure, high visibility project, and I'm like, you're going to brief the senior leadership team. He's like, I can't do that. I said, of course you can.
Cathy Christian
I said, I'm going to be there. I said, if you get caught up, I'll step in whatever we can practice. We can go over what you should talk about, whatever. It's fine. But he actually did that. And, like, six months later, they stole them off of my team onto their team. But it was about giving him the confidence he needed to be able to step in there, giving him the support and direction and then let him go. Because a lot of times I think when the veterans come in to a company, they're a little uncomfortable, right?
Cathy Christian
They don't know what they don't know. They don't know what they're doing. If there's somebody there, if you're there and you can support them. And this goes for veterans, to veterans or civilians, to veterans, whoever you have to be able to talk to that veteran and make them and coach them and help them feel comfortable in the environment and then give them those opportunities that they're not going to seek out for themselves and they'll shine. You just got to give them a chance. That's been my experience.
Cathy Christian
I don't know, Curtis or Art, you have that same experience or not, or Joe yeah.
Curtis Brown
Kathy, I was going to say you hit it on the head. This is one of the reasons why PMI Project Management Institute loves veterans to become project managers, because what you get with the veteran is you have somebody that already knows how to take ownership of it. So even in Kathy's example, that first shirt may have been a little hesitant, but once he took the stick, he already has had leadership opportunities before he knows how to communicate. He knows how to brief. He knows how to take ownership of a program or a project.
Curtis Brown
So this is one of the reasons why PMI loves having veterans come on and obtain not only the PMP, but P, GMP and the PFMP as well. Because with veterans, what you get is somebody that already knows how to be on time and how to manage people. They know how to facilitate, how to coach, how to mediate all these different things that you do as a supervisor while you're in the military. Right. These skills, that a lot of times that we take for granted. A lot of times people like to call them false skills.
Curtis Brown
I like to call them essential skills because you have to be able to communicate. I don't care what environment that you're in. I don't care if you're an it person that just wants to be behind a computer creating code. At some point, you have to be able to communicate. And those essential skills are definitely a big part of that. And with being a project manager, you have to be able to do those things. And these are things that veterans learn how to do, whether they're home or whether they're in a deployed environment, even having those conversations with the family about having to deploy, like all of these different things that you have to navigate.
Curtis Brown
So all of those experiences built to help make you a ready made project manager, whether you already have the credential or not.
PMO Joe
Yes. As a civilian in the room. Right. What I do. And I compare this because we hire people just out of College. We hire people just out of the military. Craig Jones was on our show last year. He's also over at USAA Purple Heart veteran, and Maureen was here talking about his experience and said, Listen to 18 years old, you may be in charge of 50 people, multi million dollars worth of equipment, and you're getting an education. It may not be from a University, but it's an education and leadership.
PMO Joe
It's an education and prioritization. It's an education and emotions and motivation. It's an education and budgeting. You're getting an education. Do you want an education from a University out of a textbook, or do you want an education from real life experiences that may have been life or death situations with billions of dollars of equipment at stake? Right. How does that translate with you again, that's my civilian perspective. I'm assuming maybe you're slightly biased because you're all veterans on this. But I think the experience is worth more than just that.
PMO Joe
And it doesn't have to be one or the other. It still can be an and situation. But how do we properly evaluate and weigh the experience from the military to a degree that you get from a University?
Art Garcia
Yeah. If I could jump on that one, piggyback in on what was said earlier about entering into a civilian company from the military. And I give you the Dau answer, right? It depends. Not all companies are the same. One of the things I tell my mentees when it comes to interview, interview them as much as they interview you. The worst of all possible isn't that you didn't get the job. The worst of all possibles is you got the job. And three, four, five weeks later, you figure out, oh, you know what?
Art Garcia
I'm in the wrong place. And now everybody has to start all over again, and nobody is very happy about that. And the kinds of things that you're talking about I understand are skills. They are skills that can be learned, just like sinking a 15 foot putt frying a steak, casting a fly Rod. You didn't know how to do those at the beginning, but with mentoring, with training, with study, with practice, practice, practice, you can master these skills. And that's what I talked to my mentors about.
PMO Joe
And just for the audience is going to step away a little bit earlier before the show concludes today. So as we still have a lot of time, obviously, we're only about halfway through the show, but as we get closer towards the end, if we're not hearing from art, it's not because we stopped talking to him, but his priority rate, obviously, is to get to that next meeting. We don't want him to be late for that.
Art Garcia
I got a meeting.
Cathy Christian
Piggybacking on what you were asking or talking about in terms of the skills you get out of the military versus the College education. So the skills that you get out of the military, I would say, at least from my experience. And those that I've seen come after me are the practical kind of life skills that make you mature and able to adapt and be resilient. Right. Sometimes you get that in College. But that wasn't my experience in College. It was more about you did what you had to do, what you did, what you had to do to get through.
Cathy Christian
That's how I approached College and right wrong or indifferent. But I feel like I learned a lot more about who I was and what I brought to the table what was really important in the military than I did in College, if that makes sense.
PMO Joe
Yeah. Absolutely. One thing I want to make sure we get a chance to talk about, obviously, as cofounder of VPMA, I'm proud of the work we're doing to mentor veterans, but I know we're not the only group out there, and I lock arms with all of them, right? It's not us or them. It's all of us collectively for the veterans. So if you guys can take a moment to talk about the groups that you're working with to be able to provide, whether it be mentoring or any sort of support for veterans out there, I think it's important to let those transitioning and also military spouses and families, of course, understand what services are out there for them.
PMO Joe
So what's been your experience? What are some of the service organizations that you're now part of?
Art Garcia
Well, I definitely follow join and support disabled American Vets, American Legion, BFW. They're very active, very big here in Military City, USA, San Antonio, Texas. We have our local network of veteran support, military military spouses coaching through the transitioning. It's called LinkedIn Mill City, and Curtis is very active in that, too. My personal favorite is Veterati B-E-T-E-R-A-T-I. Com. That's a free mentoring service where a mentee can look for a group of a roster of veterans or mentors. They don't even have to be military that has something or has done something that interests you.
Art Garcia
So, for example, I was an Air Force guy. Okay, well, I'm looking for Air Force mentor. Hey, I did research, development, project management. Oh, you know what? That's what I'd like to do. Hey, I live and work in San Antonio, Texas. Oh, you know what I'm thinking about moving to San Antonio, Texas. Maybe I should talk to Art or Curtis, somebody like that. I love betarotti. Com.
PMO Joe
Awesome. Curtis, how about you?
Curtis Brown
It's funny you bring that up because I sure got to get plugged in on that is I'd like to start mentoring on there, but one service organization I definitely like to shout out. And that's Kathy's alone Onwards Opportunity, which is a program that provides a free certification for veterans and their spouses. And it is sponsored by Syracuse University through the IV. And that so if you're a veteran that's within six months of retirement or separation, you just find a local program and get plugged in. They have over 32 different certifications, so not just PMT or act or Capital, but they have a bunch of it certifications, HR certifications as well.
Curtis Brown
And your spouse can utilize it anytime. So you have to be married. This is your favorite person in the world. You're actually married. They will show that marriage certificate. Yes, your spouse can get a free certification. That's definitely one service organization and other ones that are shouted out like me and Arthur talked about before. Really blessed to be here in Mill City, USA because it's so rich around here for different resources that are available to veterans. Yeah.
PMO Joe
Awesome. Yeah. Great. And, Cathy, how about yourself?
Cathy Christian
So, Joe, as I mentioned earlier, I retired in 2020 to try to give back and serve others. And so I jumped in with both feet. I'm supporting a lot of local, mostly around veterans. Right. So I'm on the board of the executive or the advisory board of the local community College for the Veteran Program, trying to get them to be supportive of the veterans students. I'm involved with the PMI local chapter here and the liaison to the headquarters or national level. I've done some things with the Travis Manion Foundation around character in schools and communities.
Cathy Christian
Team Rubicon I've gone out and helped with some of the disaster preparedness work that they do. No Barriers is a great organization that I support. I work with them, and it's all around overcoming barriers and believing what's within you is stronger than what's in your way. And so they have a good model. But the one I'd really like to shout out is Vpnma. So as Joe, you're the co founder of that, and I joined that organization in March. I didn't really know about it before I joined it before I met you and we talked about it, right?
Cathy Christian
That's how I got involved. Someone reached out to me and we connected on LinkedIn. And so that's how the connections and the mentoring and the networking works. Right. So we connected on LinkedIn, and I met you, Joe, and you talk to me about what VPMMA was. And I was like, oh, this is a perfect organization. This is a combination of my passion, which is serving veterans and helping veterans and my life's work, which is project management. Right. And so I've heard of ACP and Bedarati. But VPMMA was this organization that mentors veterans and project management.
Cathy Christian
I had been doing that for ten years at Prudential on my own. So why not take that to the next level and try to really great programmatic way to help more and more veterans as they transition to what I believe is a really good career field for them, which is project management. So I'm Super excited about some of the changes that are happening there. We're building it out again after COVID kind of took a hit on us, but we're excited to really get back on track.
Cathy Christian
And we have a full board now with lots of great ideas, and we're looking forward to moving it forward.
PMO Joe
Yeah. Awesome organizations. And I'll just name a couple locally here in Phoenix that I've participated in as well with Patelman Foundation, and we've had candy Tillman on as a guest. We've utilized her organization 50 Strong to help with the DoD Skill Bridge program, which for employers out there, SkillBridge is an amazing opportunity to bring on talent at an affordable cost. And if you're not familiar with SkillBridge, you absolutely should become familiar with skill, bridge and even recreationally. You had mentioned Team Rubicon. Cathy, I've been a supporter of Team Red, white and Blue.
PMO Joe
I don't look like your typical marathoner, but I've knocked out five marathons and to do that to be able to support Team Red, white and blue for the Marine Corps marathon a few years ago was probably my favorite one of all right. I mean, it's an opportunity to do what you love and then help people. It doesn't get any better than that for whatever service you're looking for to be able to help veterans and military families, they're out there. You just have to become familiar with them and make an effort to be able to do that.
PMO Joe
So transition slightly here because this is a show generally about project management, and you're all connected to project management. So I'll ask, what skills do you think are the ones that are best transferable from military experience into a project management career?
Art Garcia
I got to tell you, it's surprising when I talk to my mentees about, hey, did this ever happen to you? The CEO or the first Sergeant comes up to you and says, hey, I want this done. And I got some money for you. And I want it done in three weeks and take these airmen over here. And next week, I'm going to come back and check and see how you're doing and get it done. And they're like, oh, yeah, man, we did that all the time. I said, Well, there you go.
Art Garcia
You're a project manager. You didn't realize that's what you were doing, you're managing budget. You're managing human resources, you're managing schedule, you're managing quality. You're managing technology, managing stakeholders, stakeholder expectations, things like that. So that's what we do. And depending on the industry, depending on the scale, we apply those skill sets to take care of our customers. And so all of a sudden, the light starts to come on. They're like, oh, well, I bet you could do that. Absolutely. You could do that.
PMO Joe
Cat, you had mentioned that you didn't have that light bulb moment. Kind of like art was described. A lot of veterans don't have it. It took a while. What was your light bulb moment? Do you remember back to when that happened? And what was that like for you?
Cathy Christian
No, I think it was really after I started giving back to the veterans, and I was like, that was the light bulb moment that I was like, you know what? I did project management. That's what I did when I was flying. So it was like, you are. I didn't have the art there to help me. I was alone and unafraid trying to figure it out by myself, because that's just how I did it for a lot of the things I did, right unbeknownst to me. People were working on my behalf, behind the scenes and guiding me directly.
Cathy Christian
But I didn't call out once a week and get some help and this and that and the other thing, I had conversations with people, and those conversations were mentoring. I didn't realize that at the time, right? And those conversations helped guide me. But I didn't recognize that that is mentoring, right? But it was. And I didn't recognize that for a long time. That what I did was project management until I put it all together. And I was in a position where I was hiring people into project management, trying to do what Art does describe.
Cathy Christian
You can be a project manager because you have the requisite skill set. And then I was thinking, oh, my gosh, that's what I did in the military. And I was like, how stupid am I? But, hey, I figured it out eventually, and then I'm able to tell that story. But I think that's the reality. I think there's a lot of support and help there now. And people like Curtis are coming out and recognizing the importance and value of mentors and support and asking those questions. Whereas when I got out, it wasn't as prevalent, I would say, Curtis.
PMO Joe
How about for you again, it's great, because we have different generations, even though you're all in the Air Force, you all have different backgrounds, right? And that's another thing. Daryl, the show producer and I were talking before the show, and he was saying, I didn't realize there were so many jobs in the military and having a son who just recently went through boot camp, and they put 92 potential Navy jobs in front of you, pick one. It's like, yeah, there's a lot of jobs. It's not just flying planes and shooting warheads, right, Curtis, how did you make that connection to project management?
Curtis Brown
Well, for me, it was kind of like before I even found out about the PMP. And then once I kind of started looking into and I was like, okay, I got this application. Am I going to have exactly what I need? And then I kind of thought about it like, well, the job that you're currently in, I mean, every seven and a half weeks, you're taking 60 different individuals through a training process. Being in DMT, you're taking these civilians that have zero knowledge about the military. And then seven and a half weeks later, they're marching down the bomb run, and they're graduating, and then they're going on to their technical training.
Curtis Brown
I'm like, Man, that's the project executive officer. Every time the commander was like, hey, Tom Brown, I need X-Y-Z done. That's the project you're dealing with schedule you're dealing with cause you're dealing with the sole Ie, the work of what needs to be done. So that's when it really made the connection for me, like, man, almost everything that we do in the military is like a project. We just don't think about it from that vantage point. We don't put out it from the vernacular or from the language of my speed.
Curtis Brown
But with the project definite start date, definite end date, you're delivering a unique product, good or service. That's a project. I always tell my students that, hey, you deployed before. What are some of the things that you did while you were deployed? I'm like, oh, man, well, that was the project EPR OPR season when it comes time for evaluations. That is the project. The commander said, hey, I need you to run Commander's Call as Art alluded to that is the project. So so many different things that we do throughout our military career and things that we've done in the past are considered projects, and we just don't necessarily think about it.
Curtis Brown
I think a lot of times it's about just kind of trying to get people to change their aperture. Right. So I'm sure Kathy and Art can attest to this from mentoring different people. A lot of times when we're in the military, like, our aperture is like this, but it's about, okay, how can I get this person to open their aperture? Kind of think outside of the box. What are the things that you've done? And when you see the light bulb goes off? And I'm sure Kathy and Art can attest that's the beautiful thing about mentoring.
Curtis Brown
Right. So when you see the light bulb go off, then when you see their confidence grow and it's like, okay, well, that is the problem, because one of the things that we always said in basic military training, coming from the instructor background is first you have to build confidence and competence is going to build confidence. And once you have confidence and you're going to get commitment. So those three C, once you get those three things in order, that's something that we did in basic military training.
Curtis Brown
When somebody comes in, they don't know anything. So you have to build that competence. And then you're going to build confidence. And when you have confidence, you get committed to whatever you're doing. That's one of the things that I saw throughout my military career and then just transferring that over into project management, thinking about. Okay. Well, Kurt, a lot of things that you have done have been considered projects. So now change your aperture, change your mindset and apply those same concepts to whatever job that you may be doing for an employer.
Curtis Brown
Great question.
PMO Joe
Yeah. So with VP, we get a lot of interaction with veterans and consistent common feedback we get is I'm just stuck, and I don't know what to do, because for the past 4812, whatever number of years, my assignment was given to me. I don't know how to go figure out my next assignment when it's unknown. What advice do you have for those veterans that are kind of stuck in that point of I'm not being told what to do. So how do I figure out what to go do?
Art Garcia
Yes. That's why when we started off the first question, I feel like I was a unique case because I just stepped right in from my blue Air Force suit into my blue Beltway bandit suit. And there's a lot of people that are terrified of taking 100% control of your life, your career, your job, your livelihood, your income. Because in the military. A lot of that is just taken care of for you told where to go, what to do, what to wear, what time to be there, what time to quit, what good looks like and all that kind of stuff.
Art Garcia
And that's why I tell a lot of my mentees you didn't know how to March before you were taught, didn't know how to shoot the weapon before you were taught. You didn't know how to do your job until you were taught. Well, these are just skills that you can learn, and you can teach. That's why it's important to find a man.
PMO Joe
You put yourself on mute by accident that interests you.
Art Garcia
That's why you should go look for the person and talk to that person, not just one person. A few people.
PMO Joe
Yeah. Great advice. Kathryn Curtis, jump in. Same question, right. For you guys. What's that advice for somebody who just doesn't know? Like Art said, I haven't told what to do. Now I've got to go figure it out myself.
Cathy Christian
My advice is really to kind of take the time and do some introspection in terms of what do you really want to do? What's your passion? Because you could have been in the military for a very long time and been told what to do and not really enjoyed it. Right. And that's okay. You did it. You probably did it well. But I feel like a lot of people are working for the paycheck, and there's a huge advantage to be gained if you're doing something that you enjoy.
Cathy Christian
So I would say, go ahead and try to help yourself by figuring that out a little bit, figuring out what really drives you. And then how can you market that to be able to find a position that aligns with what you really want to do? Take the time to learn that for yourself. And sometimes you're not going to have that opportunity, right? But learn it and then position yourself to get there eventually. Right. Because I feel like once you get there, it's night and day, once you're doing what you love.
Curtis Brown
Yeah. Cathy, you definitely hit on something about just really trying to find out what is your passion. What do you enjoy? I mean, I'm looking at the time and I'm like when our conversation is almost already like, I love this. I enjoy having these conversations. So I always tell veterans. And when I'm doing refunds for folks that are about to transition out of the military, like, you've been doing this military job for 10, 15, 20 plus years. Like, what do you want to do now after the military?
Curtis Brown
So what is that going to look like for you? And you may have to go through some different jobs to find exactly what you enjoy and what you like for most of the veterans that I've talked to that have been retired for a good amount of time and been through some different jobs. They're like hey, it took me two or three jobs before I landed, the one that I really, really enjoy. I really enjoy what I'm doing. It doesn't even feel like work whenever I'm at work.
Curtis Brown
It's just something that I enjoy and kind of finding that passion. The other thing I would say is as folks who are transitioning now, hopefully you don't wait until the very last minute. You wait until six months. You want to start thinking about these things two, three years out, even to the point. Hey, where do we want to live when we retire? Because cost of living is going to be different. Different States provide veterans different types of benefits. So these are all things that you want to be thinking about as you're about to make the transition from being a military member over into working into the civilian force.
PMO Joe
Yeah. Let's flip this a little bit. There's over 200,000 veterans coming out of the military each year, and not all of them are project managers, but most of them are some of them could be. So we just asked about the advice or tips for the PM. How about for the organization and for the PMO leader who's looking to bring on staff? What's the advice for them to be able to give them the opportunity to bring in highly trained, highly skilled, competent, effective leadership and talent? I know you're going to be leaving soon, so I'll let you go first on that one.
Art Garcia
Okay. So you save the best for last. I think that's the toughest question. I haven't really dealt with that question, right? There are enough people in the civilian workforce that are not familiar with the military have no idea what military people did in our careers. And all they know about the military is what they see in movies and on TV. And sometimes they're kind of scared of that. And so I guess one of the things I would coach or counsel is to make as clearly as you can expectations for success in the military.
Art Garcia
We work as part of a team and successes. We accomplish the mission when we understand what that is. Very well. There's very little that can stop us from winning, and we love to win. And that's why we come to work. And so the clearer you can make that definition of winning or good or quality or success. I think the better that you'll find that they do.
PMO Joe
Obviously not trying to stump you guys on that question, but I think this is the magic, the silver bullet, right? We always focus on the individual to get them prepared, but they have to have a destination. We have to have the organizations prepared to bring in veterans and take the chance and the opportunity with them. Curtis, what's your thoughts on this?
Curtis Brown
This is definitely a great question. The first thing I thought about is as an organization, the hiring managers and recruiters don't be afraid to reach out to veterans, because obviously the very first thing that people often see is going to be that resume. And I think a lot of times you look at the resume and for that hiring manager, maybe like, man, this looks kind of there. But if you look and you see that this individual is a veteran, you kind of look at what their experience has been because I think a lot of times organizations miss out on some very skilled workers and potentially some great employees because all they see on the resume is okay.
Curtis Brown
Well, this person was a veteran. I don't see anything after that. And oftentimes with the job qualifications, they're looking for five plus years. And this five plus years, and that would probably be my primary thing is just don't be afraid to give that veteran a call, get a feel for what their experience is and not just necessarily go off of what's on the resume. You're potentially missing out on some diamonds in the rough. You're missing out on some highly skilled motivated workers that are going to come in and instantly make an impact on your organization.
PMO Joe
Yeah. Dig deeper. Right. And again, in the civilian world, we don't know MoS and the Alphabet soup of the military acronym. So when on the resume that there's something that we don't understand, usually we just throw it to the side, right? We don't look at it. But this is an opportunity to know that veteran equals potential beyond what you understand because you don't understand their world. Cat, what's your thoughts?
Okay.
Cathy Christian
Yeah. So, Joe, it's funny that you ask that question because one of the things I did at Prudential was created a hiring manager training. So what we talked about in that training was we talked about a little bit about the military and the rank and the structure. So they understood a little bit about that. We also talked about the common myths and misperceptions. Everybody has PTSD. That's not true. So kind of alleviate all those misperceptions. We talked about how they should really take a look at their job requisitions and reposition them because military people aren't going to have five years of PMP.
Cathy Christian
They're not going to be a PMP. They're not going to have five years of project management experience because they're not going to recognize that. That's what it is. So look at the requisitions and try to redo them. We had business resource groups. A lot of companies have these business resource groups. So we offered a free looking at the resumes for folks helping the hiring managers look at resumes and teach the recruiters how to look at resumes and stuff like that. So we did a lot of work there.
Cathy Christian
And then we ended up the session with really the benefits of hiring a veteran. What are you really going to gain by hiring the veteran and how should you approach it and then connecting those veterans as they did come in with other veterans in the company to have that mentorship that you talked about. So I think that really helped us out a lot when we started pursuing doing that a little bit and being able to make that available for the hiring managers and the recruiters.
PMO Joe
Yeah, that's obviously great feedback from all of you. And I'll just add in there partner with an organization like VPMA to provide mentoring. So your team becomes familiar with veterans through an informal relationship first. So they're already comfortable working with them that way. When it comes to formal hiring practices, everybody understands what those experiences and backgrounds are like. And then, as business owners know that there's tax advantages to hiring veterans, right, there's a business side to this as well. The Wattsy Work Opportunity tax credit is available to organizations.
PMO Joe
So not only are you getting great talent, but you can get tax benefits from doing that as well. Curtis alluded to it earlier. He said, Man, the shows go by so fast, we've covered so much ground, and it seems like we're just getting started. But this is what happens on these shows. When we bring everybody together and have conversations that are important, they go by quickly. So I want to thank all of you. Art is not with us right now. Of course, he had to leave, as we mentioned.
PMO Joe
So thank you, Art and Kat and Curtis for joining us. I want to give you one last opportunity. If there's anything we haven't gotten to today that you want to mention, or how can people get a hold of you if they have any additional follow up questions? So, Cat, what's the best way for folks to reach you or anything else you want to mention?
Cathy Christian
Yeah, I would say the best way is connect with me on LinkedIn. I still am looking to support as many folks as possible, and I have a big network of people. So if I don't have the answer anymore, I can probably ask somebody that would be able to give you the right answer. So don't hesitate to do that. I'm happy to help if I can.
PMO Joe
Fantastic. Curtis. How about you?
Curtis Brown
Same here. You can find me on LinkedIn under Curtis JVL.
Curtis Brown
Brown.
Curtis Brown
There's only one of me. There's tons of Curtis Brown. There's only one Curtis JVL. Brown. So, yeah, I would say that's definitely the best way to connect with me. And as Cathy said, I don't know everything. But if I don't know answer, I'll do my best to get you plugged into somebody that can help you out. And the last thing I would say, Joe, is just be encouraged, regardless of where you may be in your transition. Like, everybody kind of goes through those same ups and downs like this is life.
Curtis Brown
Everybody thinks life is going to be on this straight upward trajectory, and we know that things come up and things happen. So just go forward, have your goal in mind, and continue to pursue.
PMO Joe
It awesome. Thank you, Curtis, as well. Of course. Thank you. To all of our listeners. We appreciate everything. We're now over 40 million plays and downloads over the past four years from all of our different shows. So it's great to know that we've got people listening in. Be sure to visit Projectmanagementofficehours. Com to see a list of all of our upcoming shows. We're going to finish out the year with Chris Ronzio, who is the President CEO of Tranual, an organization that's focused on online playbooks and playbooks to be able to help your organizations deliver better.
PMO Joe
And then Luis Gurdardo, who is the leader of the PMO of the Year for the Americas and was a finalist in the PMO of the Year from the PMO Global Alliance. Out of El Salvador. Of all places, it's fantastic to see countries even as small as El Salvador can still put together fantastic project management organizations. Next year, we've got a great line up of guests. We've got some repeat guests lined up that are going to be joining us. Like Frank Saladis, the father of International Project Management Day, is going to be coming back.
PMO Joe
Nigel Creaser is going to be joining us. I think we'll have Tim Creasey, CIO Pro Cy joining us again next year. So lots of great stuff to look forward to. Reminder we do tape. These shows are recorded, so we're live, which makes the shows always fun and interesting, but also they are recorded so you can go back and catch them if you can't get us while we're on air. So subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Whether that's Apple podcast. I heard Radio Spotify, Spreaker, et cetera.
PMO Joe
Whatever it may be. Of course, thanks to our sponsors, the PMO Squad Platinum Medallion winner from Higher vets for the work we're doing and one of only eight here in the state of Arizona and, of course, the global community, the PMO leader, which supporting project management around the globe. That's it for now. Office hours are closed until next time. I'm PMO Joe, and you've been listening to Project Management Office Hours.
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