Ready on day one. Really???

Ready on day one. Quite often in interviews with potential employees, a candidate will tell the interviewers that they are “ready on day one of the job”. They make this very bold claim based on their previous education or experience in a related field. But my personal experience in a number of fields makes me […]

What is a Warrant Officer? A View from the Navy

We have a great group here in the Pittsbugh Area called the Veteran’s Breakfast Club. Men and women of all branches of the service and all eras gather together for breakfast and conversations. I was featured earlier before the Pandemic and had an opportunity to talk about my submarine service. The have on line and […]

Goodbye 2022 – You certainly weren’t Boring

What a year. I was thinking about what a journey this year has been. Just after Christmas in 2021, I found myself in the hospital with congestive heart failure. I’ve had bouts with it before but the ambulance ride to the hosital was especially troublesome. I was coughing harder than I can ever remember, even […]

Diesel men are like connoisseurs of old hams or juleps

This story from the Washington Star Newspaper from May 18, 1942, brought back a lot of memories for me. The first part certainly takes me back to all of the training I received as a young man in the Navy. Over the course of my career, I attended over 60 Navy schools related to […]

I don’t need communications lessons… everyone always understands everything I say

I have been teaching leadership classes for at least 35 years. That includes formal and informal classes in the Navy and in the civilian community. Whether it was for a large or small companies, the importance of purposefully developing skills and competencies has always been one of my passions. Leadership involves more than just telling […]

Conflict? We don’t need no stinking conflict!

Conflict Management Put two people in a room and at some point, there will be conflict. The story is as old as Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel were the first and second sons of Adam and Eve. While Cain was a farmer, Abel was a skilled shepherd who took care of the family’s animals. […]

The Three Plane Navy – The Story of Rear Admiral Fullam’s Vision

A little bit longer of a post than normal, but I found this to be an interesting story about a visionary man who played a key role in the Navy in the early 1900’s. Twenty years before the attack on Pearl Harbor, many voices were actively trying to warn about the narrow-minded vision of naval […]

A Rock and a Hard Place

A rock and a hard place. I remember the first time I took the oath of enlistment. I was seventeen and very wet behind the ears. I knew about service because of my Dad and both grandfather’s experience in the World Wars. But as we repeated the words (inserting our own names at the appropriate […]

The Most Important Letter I have Ever Written – Winston Churchill

March 11, 1941 – Roosevelt Signs the Lend-Lease Act Between 1935 and 1937 Congress passed three “Neutrality Acts” that tried to keep the United States out of war, by making it illegal for Americans to sell or transport arms, or other war materials to belligerent nations. Supporters of neutrality, called “isolationists” by their critics, argued […]

There is no “Accident” in Team

There is no “Accident” in Team Okay, I can hear the groans. It should be “There is no i in Team”. At least until some smarty pants shows up with the poster that shows exactly where the “i” is. In this case, the word accident and team cannot stand together. Teams must be intentional or […]