Oct 23, 2025
After 23 years of service as a United States Navy Submariner, Scott retired and embarked on a new journey joining the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Engineering team where he quickly found his stride leading and building successful teams. In this episode, Scott takes us through his incredible journey, from growing up in a military household to enlisting in the Navy. His path was filled with invaluable lessons, but not without facing and overcoming self-imposed barriers. Not one to phrase it this way, Scott humbly shares the pivotal moments that helped him evolve into a true leader and someone people actually want to follow. He opens up about how the most rewarding experiences in life cannot be rushed or faked and he explains how he learned this lesson the hard way. Tune in for a raw and powerful conversation on leadership, relationships, and perseverance.
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Episode Transcript:
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;29;13
Unknown
You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people
together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight
employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the
mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm your host,
Chris Spencer, and welcome to season four's first episode, where
I'm joined by Scott Pay for Oracle Site Reliability Director, Maven
chair, and Navy veteran.
00;00;29;19 - 00;00;55;15
Unknown
After 23 years of service as United States Navy submariner, Scott
retired and embarked on a new journey joining the Oracle Cloud
Infrastructure Engineering team, where he quickly found his stride
leading and building successful teams. In this episode, Scott takes
us through his incredible journey from growing up in a military
household to enlisting in the Navy. His path was filled with
invaluable lessons, but not without facing and overcoming
self-imposed barriers and not one to phrase it this way.
00;00;55;22 - 00;01;13;07
Unknown
Scott humbly shares the pivotal moments that helped him evolve into
a true leader and someone people actually want to follow. He opens
up about how the most rewarding experiences in life cannot be
rushed or faked, and he explains how he learned this lesson the
hard way. Tune in for a raw and powerful conversation on
leadership, relationships, and perseverance.
00;01;13;13 - 00;01;33;18
Unknown
We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's
remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine
intent. As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening.
We hope you enjoyed this episode, and please remember to check in
on your buddies and family. Scott's contact details are in the
podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn.
00;01;33;20 - 00;01;59;08
Unknown
Scott, what's going on? Good morning. Good morning to you, Chris.
It's a, a beautiful Seattle Friday morning. We got drizzles up
here. So, typical Seattle weather for those are up there. As we
tell the visitors, it's always like this. Always raining. Don't
bother coming. Don't bother, don't bother coming. Yeah. Clearly
don't work for the Chamber of Commerce in the tourist.
00;01;59;10 - 00;02;26;16
Unknown
That is actually my job now. Yeah. Well, good. Well, I'm glad to
have you here. So, season four, episode one. We're kicking off the
Oracle Maven podcast with Scott Paper, who is leading the Maven
employee resource group. So the Oracle, veteran affiliated
community, it's our 10th year anniversary. Did you know that? I
did, thanks. Entire early to you, Chris, for, raising that to my
attention.
00;02;26;23 - 00;02;56;28
Unknown
Yeah, I'm a little younger at Oracle, so I wasn't here when the
foundation was laid. Or, you know, when when the apple fell from
the tree. You know those things? Yeah. Bunk. That and it's been a
great ten years. I mean, obviously the community's been around
before that, but when when Oracle was focusing on bringing people
together in the communities and, you know, Veterans Day this
November 11th will be ten years Maven was was born.
00;02;57;00 - 00;03;16;17
Unknown
And we've gone through some iterations and I think we've made good
progress on what our focus is and, and how we contribute to the
company's. The employee community, you know, indirectly goes to the
bottom line of lines of business inside the company. But then, you
know, of course, focusing on relevance for our customers and, and
all these things that are independent of each other.
00;03;16;17 - 00;03;39;01
Unknown
So Scott leads Maven as the the chair, along with co-chair Maureen
Peters, who we will have on soon. And we brought Scott in to kick
off this season because, you know, we'd love to hear what's going
on and what the future is for this year. On what Maven will
contribute to and and how we'll bring people together, continue to
bring people together.
00;03;39;06 - 00;04;04;01
Unknown
But before we get there, Scott, let's let everybody know a little
bit about you. Yeah. I appreciate you, having me on and giving me
the opportunity to talk. We're real excited about fiscal year 26
and where we're going with Maven. I get the opportunity to work
alongside the pretty motivated board of volunteers keeping the,
military affiliated community plugged in and connected.
00;04;04;03 - 00;04;27;08
Unknown
And it's been really rewarding. Right. So I have to thank you to in
front of everybody, or at least audibly in front of everybody, for
bringing me in. So, Chris, Chris really spurred my interest in
jumping into the team. We met in person. His energy and enthusiasm
kind of convinced me that maybe the community was was where I
wanted to get back into.
00;04;27;08 - 00;04;50;29
Unknown
So, I'm pretty passionate about it. Coming off of a, 23 year career
in the United States, a and submarines got to work in, electronic
warfare, electronic surveillance measures, and then, submarine
communications. And that turned into, information systems. It at
the end of my career, when I joined, we were still printing out and
routing around pieces of paper.
00;04;51;01 - 00;05;13;15
Unknown
Then they decided that the things we printed off could be
connected, made networks, computer networks. And it, grew over
time. Right. So we got to see the whole evolution of that. Not
going to talk about how old that does make me feel when we're
working on virtual computers everywhere, and nobody ever actually
touches a real machine anymore.
00;05;13;18 - 00;05;33;19
Unknown
So that was, that was my formative, career was 23 years in the
Navy. But as anybody who spent a fair amount of time in the
military, Terry knows, it's, it's a string of a bunch of mini
careers. As you grow and develop a bunch of little tours of duty
here and there where you have different kinds of jobs.
00;05;33;21 - 00;05;59;04
Unknown
Couldn't couldn't say more about my experience, there and how it
formed me, into what I am today. I'll kind of walk through some of
the key points as we go, but I think, the, the idea that someone
would spend 23 years in the military is, is, kind of a you get
ideas about what that person might have done that for, why they
would have joined in the first place.
00;05;59;06 - 00;06;20;00
Unknown
And it's probably not what most people would think. When I was
growing up, I was a military vet. Not vet. Sorry. Military brat. I
mean, you you came out, a vet came out, born, born a Navy guy,
right? I was, I've always been a sailor all my blooming life.
Right. The, the reality is true, though, right?
00;06;20;00 - 00;06;38;18
Unknown
I was, I was a son of a son of a sailor. My, my dad was in the
Navy. My mom was in the Navy. I was adopted as my stepdad. Might as
well been my real dad, though, because I never even knew it. Right.
And then my biological father was a sailor, too, right? It's just
it's in my blood.
00;06;38;21 - 00;07;03;06
Unknown
Until I was raised, I never lived outside of and maybe or military
town in my life. Ever. And, we moved around a lot when I was
younger. And then we settled in Connecticut. And I think there was
just the foregone conclusion that that was the path. That was the
way, you know, my parents raised me knowing I was going into the
Navy is never my thought process.
00;07;03;06 - 00;07;23;01
Unknown
I was just enjoying life, being a kid, playing outside stickball
and mountain biking and playing basketball on the on the outside of
the school, you know, but, I didn't really think about it. And then
my dad's like, yeah, you're going to go to the Naval Academy. I was
like, well, I mean, that's cool. How do you do that?
00;07;23;08 - 00;07;46;11
Unknown
Right? Well, first off, foremost, you got to actually study, show
up, do homework, go to school. Those were all things that weren't
really at the top of my list in high school. Not even on the list.
A lot of times. Right. So I was, was smart, but not motivated and,
and not really focused, when I was in high school.
00;07;46;14 - 00;08;11;18
Unknown
So I ended up barely passing. I was already signed up for the Navy,
ready to go off to do the deployed entry program. And recruiter, my
recruiter gets a call from me like, hey, man, I'm. I'm not going to
graduate on time. And he's like, hey, yeah. That's a that's an
emergency. Right. So more from my recruiter coming in, setting up a
class with the high school, pulling in a bunch of other kids that
had failed.
00;08;11;18 - 00;08;34;04
Unknown
It was, was chemistry that did me in. Right? I took chemistry three
times, and then finally I got the the, the Idiot's Guide to
Chemistry version of chemistry. And I was like, okay, I can I can
sleep my way through this, I guess. So I did that in summer school
when everybody else was enjoying the summer and then off to boot
camp.
00;08;34;06 - 00;08;51;13
Unknown
Thank God, because I would not have been able to find another job
other than dairy Queen. If it were that. Not the dairy Queen was a
bad job. No shade. I enjoyed my time there. Let's talk about the
the shakes. The dairy Queen shakes for man. Yeah, the the blizzards
where you can turn them upside down.
00;08;51;13 - 00;09;17;06
Unknown
You know, I actually really enjoyed working there, but, the the
reality is I needed a change, and I wanted to get as far away from
my hometown as possible. Was there anything personal? It's not like
I had a bad relationship with my parents. I just didn't have a
great plan for what I wanted to do there in Groton, Connecticut is
kind of like there is really nothing there except Marines except
submarines and the military industrial complex.
00;09;17;06 - 00;09;38;15
Unknown
Right. There's there's Dow or Pfizer or there's a bunch of other
like, plants. There's a casino, and then there's the world's
largest service. Right. And that's it. Right. Like that's that's
what's there. And I, I didn't want to spend my life in that place.
So like, at the time, I was getting introduced to a bunch of, you
know, new kinds of music.
00;09;38;15 - 00;10;05;04
Unknown
I grew up when I was younger, only interested in hip hop, and I
discovered that there were other genres of music in my senior year.
So I found Jimi Hendrix, found grunge rock, and found Seattle.
Right. So then I'm in school, ironically, graduate boot camp go
back to my hometown for a year while I'm in school getting trained
because that's where all of the submarine rates get trained is my
hometown.
00;10;05;06 - 00;10;20;20
Unknown
Spent a year there wanting to get the heck out. And finally, the
first chance I got, I was like, I want to go to Seattle because
that's where all the rock and roll and mountains are right? I was
an avid mountain biker. I always wanted to snowboard. And, and I
got out here and I fell in love with it.
00;10;20;21 - 00;10;42;23
Unknown
It was like the first time I'd ever seen a real mountain with snow
in the summertime. You could see them from base. I think it was,
like, superimposed. And it blew my mind. Right. So I spent another
year waiting to get on the boat. In school. So a big part of what
makes me who I am is what I experience in between my classes.
00;10;42;23 - 00;11;04;15
Unknown
Right. It was it was interesting because I was raised to have this
really strong work ethic and be super committed to whatever I was
doing at the time. I wasn't necessarily motivated to go hunt down
opportunities, but if you gave me work to do, I was going to go do
that work. I like hard work. I mean, it could be just picking heavy
stuff up and moving it and then putting it down.
00;11;04;15 - 00;11;26;21
Unknown
It could be whatever, right? Chip and paint and painting. I didn't
care, right? I got something to do. Worthy task. If I could see a
good outcome, I would attack it. And instead they gave us the most
menial dumb stuff to do in between. And then it was like these,
these middle grade leaders that kind of washed out and ended up
just watching over the waiting to go to school.
00;11;26;24 - 00;11;45;06
Unknown
And so there were times they had us moving furniture from one side
of a building to the other, and then the next day we'd come and
move it back where it was the day before. I thought that was the
worst. It was going to be, because that was in a condemned
building. Right. Well, I get out to Seattle, I go, and they put us
in a subbasement.
00;11;45;10 - 00;12;09;08
Unknown
Right. There's this little tiny storage closet that somebody
thought would be good to convert into an office. And that's where
we sat in a bunch of broken furniture, waiting for random tasks and
to go sweep the building that already had janitors, like, three
times a day. So it was like it was not what I signed up for, to say
the least.
00;12;09;08 - 00;12;41;11
Unknown
Right? I'm like, almost two years in, I've yet to really step foot
on an operational submarine. I did a little brief stint in Groton
where I was down on the USS Springfield. They have these vertical
launch tubes, and they put it in drydock, send us down or wait in
school. And that was actually a lot of fun for me because it was my
job to take this pneumatic, what they call a needle gun, which
fires off these little needles to chip away the epoxy paint and
repaint it.
00;12;41;13 - 00;13;04;05
Unknown
I put my Walkman in with, auto reverse, punk rock and grunge music
every day, all day. And just went to town. Right. I'm in the
superstructure of this thing. Needle gun and, missile tubes and
just having a blast, right? I mean, a lot of people would be like,
that sounds terrible, but it was like Zen for me, and I was, like,
plugged in.
00;13;04;05 - 00;13;25;22
Unknown
I was like, good to go. I got my tunes, I got my hard work.
Something's going to look good when I'm done. I don't really care.
I don't need much. So then, you know, I was I was happy with that.
I go to this other place and it's once again like, nope, this
sucks. So then I stepped foot on the ship with this, I mean, I, I
spent my youth with pretty good chip on my shoulder, right?
00;13;25;22 - 00;13;49;05
Unknown
I didn't I didn't really care. You know, I was a punk. I was a
smart ass. And I was really a pain, right? To anybody that could
have to be in charge of me because I always knew better. Right? I
outwork you, right? And I was smart enough to get away with
whatever I was being a punk about, but I wasn't smart enough to get
out of my own way and just stop talking.
00;13;49;07 - 00;14;14;04
Unknown
So, I stepped foot on the ship thinking that I would just be that
bulldozer punk that got away with everything, and immediately
everything changed. I met my first chief. JP Barnes was, the
epitome of, like, the coolest dude you ever met. So, like, you, you
pulled a dude right at a Top Gun and dropped him on a submarine,
and he was in charge of me, right?
00;14;14;06 - 00;14;33;21
Unknown
He was a rock and roll drummer. He was crazy, but super fun and
really smart, and just cared about doing a really good job and
being the best. And so we spent the next four years on my first
ship doing all of that. Right? I fell in love with the ship. I fell
in love with the mission.
00;14;33;21 - 00;14;53;11
Unknown
I fell in love with the crew. And most importantly, I fell in love
with being good at something and actually learning and working hard
to get better at it. Right? I I'd never been academic before that,
never had a reason to I didn't care, right? Well, he challenged me,
right. He gave me the responsibility and opportunity to grow into
it.
00;14;53;11 - 00;15;13;12
Unknown
And and he did that with the whole division, right? Our whole crew,
at one time, I think when we were at our biggest point, we had 11
people, right? He was responsible for 11 people. And I'd say over
half of those guys all went on to be senior enlisted leaders or a
duty officer converts. Right? They all all went off to be super
successful.
00;15;13;12 - 00;15;34;08
Unknown
Right. And I was like, okay, I'm going to I'm going to go boo
everywhere I go, right? I'm just going to channel that. And so I
took it and I ran with it and a lot of early success. Right.
Because if you work hard, that's like 90% of the equation. But 10%
is probably the hardest part to get right.
00;15;34;11 - 00;15;56;21
Unknown
And that was all my my attitude. Right. So then I get to this
mid-career point, you know, and and that was that was a pretty big
switch for me, but I should I should clarify, I skipped over a big
chunk. So another piece of me read, I move out to Seattle, I get
this great opportunity to work with a great division.
00;15;56;23 - 00;16;16;17
Unknown
And it wasn't like right away I started getting stuff right. I
mean, I was still heading for disaster, with my attitude. And, I
was out with my friend. He was dating this girl. She had a friend.
They came over and I met my wife, my best friend to this day.
Introduce me to my wife, Melissa.
00;16;16;20 - 00;16;36;10
Unknown
She came over to his house just impromptu, and we kind of just
never stopped hanging out after that. And then the rest was just
kind of history. We just. We hit it off as friends, hit it off as,
boyfriend girlfriend, hit it off as husband and wife. And I'm not
going to say that, you know, everything was just smooth
sailing.
00;16;36;10 - 00;16;54;20
Unknown
We were a military family, right? It was. There were tough times,
but it's just always been good to be with someone who is my my best
friend, you know, every day. And you might not get along with your
best friend every day, but they're always going to be the person
that gets you the best. And so I lucked into that.
00;16;54;22 - 00;17;09;25
Unknown
And so we were both very young, and neither one of us were of
drinking age yet. So we, we just kind of jumped into that and went
all in. Neither one of us was even looking to start dating. Right?
It just kind of happened. I was actually kind of done like, yeah, I
don't I don't need drama in my life.
00;17;09;25 - 00;17;29;02
Unknown
I don't need that extra stuff. And then I met her and I was like,
well, maybe, maybe I kind of do. Right. So then, you know, signed
on for, you know, what was probably the best mission of my life,
which was getting together with her. And right in that time, you
know, we were both going to community college at Olympia Community
College.
00;17;29;05 - 00;17;51;25
Unknown
And I had never been a strong student. She was kind of not taking
it super seriously. And together, we just kind of found how to
focus and be good at it. And we just from there was like, we were
super students, right? I like, you know, I graduated Olympia
College with at 3.98. I graduated high school with I don't even
know if they measure GPAs, GPAs as low as my GPA was.
00;17;51;25 - 00;18;12;25
Unknown
Right. I couldn't even tell you. And that was all like a natural
confluence of events, right? I had a supportive crew at work. I had
a supportive wife who was motivated and smart and dedicated, and it
changed everything for me. Right? It took it from I'm just a punk
kid who wants to go be a lefty up at the, ski resort.
00;18;12;28 - 00;18;45;09
Unknown
That's my like and dream to like, hey, maybe I can go be, you know,
a professional doing something technical and being good at it. And
it just changed everything for me. So having a supportive chief at
work and a team that was awesome. And then also having a wife who
just like, Holy crap, I got so lucky. Like she just showed up and
dude, I just I wish everybody could find somebody like that to be
in their life because she is like the cornerstone, maybe the
keystone of my whole thing.
00;18;45;09 - 00;19;04;10
Unknown
Right? Like she keeps everything in line. And it's always been good
to have somebody in my corner like that. So back to the ship. So
we're on a ship. I'm trying to decide what to do with my life. I'm
still I still got the chip on my shoulder. I'm still convinced that
I don't need this organization. It is the Navy, right?
00;19;04;10 - 00;19;23;05
Unknown
I'm just like, yeah, I'm here, but I'm only doing one tour. Guys.
Like, I'm going to get exactly what I want out of you, and then I'm
gone, right? I'm not staying. It comes down my final days of my
first enlistment. We're getting underway. I'm the. I'm the rescue
swimmer on the ship. And I had been really belligerent.
00;19;23;05 - 00;19;40;28
Unknown
Right. They weren't coughing up these orders that I wanted to to
agree to re-enlist. And the detailer, who is the guy who assigns
you your next set of orders, had had enough of me, right? He was
like, I am not. You're not getting what you want. This is where we
need you. And I was like, well, then I'm gone, right?
00;19;41;00 - 00;20;07;26
Unknown
I have a plan, right? I would have been I would have been, up the
creek if I had, like, actually gotten to go through with my plan of
just tossing them in the air as I ran off the brow of the ship. It
would have been a bad day. I would have had no job. So fortunately,
the day we're going up to see the career counselor comes up with my
orders, he goes, Will you re-enlist now, please?
00;20;07;29 - 00;20;24;14
Unknown
And so I get my orders in hand and I'm like, yeah, I'll re-enlist.
And he goes, did you still want to do it in the bridge, the
bridges, the hole and the top of the sale of a submarine? I was
like, yeah, I want the captain to re-enlist me, and I want to do it
in the bridge while we're going through the Hood Canal bridge,
which is a floating bridge.
00;20;24;16 - 00;20;44;13
Unknown
They were like, goodness gracious, like you. You couldn't make
anything harder if you tried, right? And I was like, well, I'm
going to get what I want. So I'm giving you more of my life, right?
So, we go up there and I kind of just that, that happenstance, it's
like this theme I just got. I just keep getting lucky, right?
00;20;44;16 - 00;21;06;23
Unknown
People say it's not luck. You worked hard. No, there's a fair
amount of luck, right? Timing and luck are important in everybody's
life. And, what is it they say opportunity is, when preparation
meets opportunity. When preparation meets opportunity, right? If
you're not prepared for it, when the opportunity shows up, you're
not going to be ready. Right?
00;21;06;23 - 00;21;34;09
Unknown
So I had worked hard to get to that point and be ready to succeed
in that next phase. Right. And got lucky and the door opened and I
was able to leverage the next opportunities. Right. So it kind of
kept going through my career. I had really good success. As a
junior guy, I was I was running circles around folks, you know,
and, and I knew it right in my in my heart, I knew I was good at
what I was doing.
00;21;34;09 - 00;21;49;23
Unknown
Right. It was, hey, if you work hard, if you study, you get good at
what you're doing. It kind of builds that ego that I never had.
Right? I had confidence that I never had when I was growing up, and
it was new to me. I didn't know what to do with it. So then that
started pumping my head up a lot.
00;21;49;25 - 00;22;08;07
Unknown
Right? And I, you know, did what I always did. I had a chip on my
shoulder and now I got something to justify the chip on my
shoulder. Right. Some men around, you know, kind of being a
bulldozer. Right? I just kind of don't take no for an answer. Do
whatever I want. I'm all about my team winning, and they did right
places I would go.
00;22;08;07 - 00;22;36;21
Unknown
I would go to a team that was struggling. We'd work our butts off
together. We'd end up being the best on the waterfront or whatever.
And, you know, again, I had great raw materials. Right? I show up,
I get given a tough job, I volunteer to go take a tough job, and I
find out that, you know what was painted as a terrible opportunity
ends up being like a golden opportunity, because there's all these
great people just waiting to be moved to the right place and and
guided to something better.
00;22;36;21 - 00;22;54;07
Unknown
So my initial approach was small teams was easy, right? I knew the
task, I knew the job, and I was able to work with that team to be
successful. Right. But they were all we could smart already. I
didn't have to do anything hard. I just had to, like, get them out
of their own way, make them work together.
00;22;54;09 - 00;23;16;07
Unknown
Right. Which was really just show up and be alongside them and work
hard with them. Right. And then they were good. And that elevated
me, I elevated them. It worked great. Until I got put in charge of
other leaders, right when I got put in charge of other leaders and
had to distribute responsibility, and somehow suddenly, my way
wasn't the only way.
00;23;16;09 - 00;23;37;04
Unknown
It was a real challenge for me. I hit this point in my career where
hard work wasn't going to be the only thing that get you there,
right? You got to learn some new skills in this angry youth. So
he's carrying around on my back. That was old me was just making
all kinds of problems for me, right?
00;23;37;04 - 00;23;57;16
Unknown
I mean, I was still being successful, but I was alienating everyone
around. It was just a it was a hot mess. And, and I wasn't really
popular, right? I didn't I didn't win because I was doing good for
the team. I won because that's all I cared about. Right. And, and
at the detriment of those around me too.
00;23;57;16 - 00;24;18;28
Unknown
Right. So I think I probably did a fair amount of knocking people
over, as we pushed our way through to success. Right. Well, guess
what, dude? Like, there's more than just your division that makes a
submarine crew successful, right? There's multiple divisions.
Everybody needs to win for you to win. Because if the ship loses,
you lose. Right?
00;24;19;00 - 00;24;40;06
Unknown
And I was like, no, no, that's fine. But I mean, we're going to win
them, right? That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be the best.
And it took quite a few kicks in the teeth to to really understand
that, you know, I'm going to have to evolve and, and that didn't
come right away to me because I kept like, happenstance kept
happening, I kept getting promoted.
00;24;40;06 - 00;25;05;27
Unknown
And I was like, well, you were wrong. I don't have to evolve.
Right. And, it was, it was interesting because the military
facilitates that, where if you work hard, you're probably and
you're even competent, partially. Right. You're probably going to
get promoted over time because, well, you stayed and you don't
entirely suck and you're willing to work hard.
00;25;06;01 - 00;25;29;12
Unknown
Okay. We can work with that. You get given a larger amount of
responsibility, like a department, and suddenly you got to
distribute that stuff. And and your message just isn't landing
because you're not out there doing the work of people, and you
don't understand the technical pieces of the other divisions.
Right? So if I've got a navigation division and a sonar division
and another division, all over there, I'm responsible for helping
them be successful.
00;25;29;12 - 00;25;50;02
Unknown
I understand how they do that stuff. How am I going to go in and
tell that guy how to make his division successful? Right. Maybe he
knows better than I do. I couldn't accept that. And so I fought my
way in to a couple of opportunities. One was there's a senior
enlisted job. On submarines called the chief of the boat.
00;25;50;05 - 00;26;13;17
Unknown
And, at this point, I was a senior chief, and I was at 12 years in
the military, which is pretty fast, right? I don't think anybody
really expected that, and, the least of all me, right? I was like,
oh, wow. That's that's sudden and new. So then it was just
reaffirming that everything I was doing was right.
00;26;13;20 - 00;26;32;21
Unknown
So then I go, and I get this job, and, I start I was on shore duty
and instructor duty job, and, you know, I'm taking for granted that
my next gig is going to go be the senior enlisted leader of a
submarine. Right? I'm like a baby in this grand scheme of things,
right? Like the.
00;26;32;28 - 00;26;58;08
Unknown
So you. When did you go into the Navy? How old were you? I was 18,
so you're 30. You're an e a 30 year old e? Yes. Got it. Just
emphasizing you're a baby. Yeah, but at the time, no 30 year old
thinks they're a baby, right? Like, not at 30. You're like, oh,
man, I'm old now. Like, I'm the old guy in the room, right?
00;26;58;08 - 00;27;18;00
Unknown
Yep. And then you walk into a room of old guys who are all seasoned
and salty. They've been doing it since, you know, the Noah's Ark,
right? They cast off lines back there two by two, and then, and
then they get the ship underway. Right. Those guys are the guys I'm
with now, right? And I'm like, oh yeah, man, I'm going to start
throwing my weight around.
00;27;18;00 - 00;27;34;28
Unknown
I'm the new young guy who's going to teach you guys all how to do
the right thing. Like sit down, kid. Right. And so I show up and
I'm like, not to be pushed into the corner, like, okay, it's my
turn, you guys. You've aged out. Time to get off the bus. I'm in.
Put me in, coach.
00;27;34;28 - 00;27;55;25
Unknown
I'm ready to go. And, and I keep trying to politely tell me over
and over again like, hey, go get good at what you're supposed to be
doing right now. There we we literally just promoted you. The you
are super young. Haven't had any minutes in that role yet. So like
don't be in a rush. Go get good at what you're doing.
00;27;55;28 - 00;28;13;24
Unknown
And as like, I'm good at what I'm doing. Trust me, I know. Right?
Because this is the theme, right? I always knew, I always knew I
was doing the right thing and then you couldn't tell me different.
So then, I go, and I have this board with a crew of people that are
all mentors to me throughout the time.
00;28;13;27 - 00;28;41;08
Unknown
And, and they interview me. I sit in there and it's a board of all
other chiefs of the boats. And Cmmc is like command master chiefs.
So only 80 nines, right? They're all interviewing me for this
thing. And I had gone nuts. I studied every book you could get on
how to do this. And I brought, like, this binder of I had written
up like, procedures for how I was going to do everything, every
facet of the job.
00;28;41;10 - 00;29;01;18
Unknown
Right. And, and, and an old friend of mine, who's now one of my
longtime mentors, Eric Antoine, looks and he goes, well, this guy's
really smart. Look at him. He's so smart, right? He's reading the
book and I'm thinking, like, I've got this very different shade,
and I haven't started yet. And he didn't know me from anybody.
00;29;01;22 - 00;29;27;01
Unknown
Right? He had he had done three tours as a chief of the boat. That
does not happen, right? Nobody puts themselves through that. And he
goes and does it three different times. So I was worried already.
Right. And, and they send me off like I do my interview. It's it's
pretty rough. It's weird. It's uncomfortable. It's the first time
I've ever, like, not felt like I had the answers to everything.
00;29;27;03 - 00;29;45;24
Unknown
And I'm a little sweating it, right? They had me sitting outside,
they debated or whatever. So they bring me back in, and, and they
look at me and they're like, yeah. So you pass your board and I'm
like, why does that feel like a pregnant pause after that? And then
why would you have to emphasize that I pass my board?
00;29;45;24 - 00;30;11;17
Unknown
Why is it not congratulate you? However, we're not going to make
you a cop right now. Like so. Wait, I passed, but I'm not ready.
And so I could not could not process the depth of this failure at
that moment. Right? I'm thinking like, okay, so I worked my butt
off, I studied, I've got all of the I'm like, the number one guy
here and there, and I'm doing all these great things.
00;30;11;17 - 00;30;34;26
Unknown
And how am I not the guy? So then, you know, I go home and my wife,
knowing who I am and knowing how things have gone, she has assumed
already that it's a foregone conclusion. Right. So she's got a
steak dinner, she's got a cake all done and ready to go, like we're
going to celebrate. And I show up and I'm like, yeah, I didn't, I
didn't make it.
00;30;34;29 - 00;31;04;09
Unknown
Look, I'm not I'm not going to be the guy. And she's like, well,
are you hungry? At the time, I'm just like numb, right? And I was
like, yeah, I could eat, but, so, so that was like a pivot point in
my life, right? Like I got thrown sideways pretty hard. And, and
the lesson there wasn't ready to be received as like, well, okay,
so I walk away.
00;31;04;11 - 00;31;22;05
Unknown
I'm gonna. Well, forget these guys. They don't want me. I'm gonna
go be an LDO limited duty officer. Right? If they if the senior
enlisted ranks don't see who I am, I'm only going to be a limited
duty officer. And I'm going to get commissioned, and I'm going to
go lead that way. Right? Maybe I'm just not meant for this
crowd.
00;31;22;08 - 00;31;42;24
Unknown
So then I spend, like, nine months under the tutelage of a limited
duty officer who's my department head. You know, we work right
alongside each other. I'm the department chief at the time, and
he's kind of mentoring me. I put it together, all this things
again. I'm, like, completely convinced that there's no outcome
other than scout pay for wins this thing.
00;31;42;26 - 00;32;12;14
Unknown
Right? I'm going to get this thing and, I submit my paperwork. I
put it all in, and, you know, the results come out and I'm not on
the list. I'm not even a second choice. I'm not anywhere remotely
close. Right. Until that point, I had never been on another type of
submarine. Right. So in the military, especially in the Navy, if
you get into senior enlisted or officer ranks, they're expecting
you to have different kinds of platforms.
00;32;12;17 - 00;32;39;04
Unknown
So you have a wide variety of experience. I had only ever been on
deterrent submarines by that point. So SBS and that's a very
specific kind of mission, which is only one kind of mission. Well,
the fast attack class submarines, right? They do a bunch of other
kinds of missions. I not had any experience in any of those things,
which is where they send all limit to duty officer communications
officers.
00;32;39;04 - 00;33;02;04
Unknown
Right. Like that's what I was qualified to go do if I got picked. I
was actually completely unqualified at the time to go do it because
I had no other experience. I did not cross that. I thought, well,
I'm super good at this other thing, so it outweighs the lack of
experience. So, you'll see that lack of experience is actually a
key driving thing.
00;33;02;04 - 00;33;26;13
Unknown
And how I fell off the cart here. So I'm young, I'm ahead of my
time, but I'm actually way behind in this experience gathering
things. So then I'm like, well, I'm going to go get experience,
right? Like, like I'm going to work my way into getting experience
faster, right? This is my like my knuckle dragging worker brain is
just like, I'm going to go get it faster than everybody else.
00;33;26;16 - 00;33;50;18
Unknown
I mean, that's fundamentally you can't just you can't get
experience faster than you get it. It's just it comes and you have
it. So then, opportunity to go to a fast attack pops up. There's a
USS Jimmy Carter. It's a special mission submarine that goes out
there and does undersea research, development and testing. And I
was like, oh, that sounds super cool.
00;33;50;21 - 00;34;07;10
Unknown
And one of the guys that was on my board for Cobb is the chief for
the boat there. And I'm like, and that guy is the guy to go learn
from. And they said, you know what? Yeah, you're right. That's the
guy you should go learn from. And so I was like, all right, I'm in.
Send me.
00;34;07;12 - 00;34;28;11
Unknown
And they sent me. And boy, did I learn a lot about how little I
knew the entire time. Right. It was kind of like back to grade
school because here I'm like this thoroughbred over here, like,
thinking that I'm running circles around everybody. Well, that
place is like a triple screening place, right? You got a it's a
special mission set.
00;34;28;14 - 00;34;49;24
Unknown
They don't bring in anybody. That's not the number one in their
graduating class from a rating. They don't bring in anybody.
Everybody has a top secret clearance. Even the mechanics. Right.
Everybody on that ship is a beautiful and unique snowflake in their
own way. In a good way. In all the best ways. Right? They're all
smart, they're all capable, and they're all running circles around
everybody.
00;34;49;24 - 00;35;12;21
Unknown
Right. So this den of alpha competitors, and I'm like one finally
my people. Right. Let's go run circles around the world literally
did that. But also, it was it was weird to not be the obvious
number one all of a sudden. And now I'm showing up and I'm just
like an extra dude. Like, they already had a full complement.
00;35;12;21 - 00;35;27;01
Unknown
They did not need me. So then I showed up and I'm this extra guy.
I'm the chief of the boats, Pat. Right. Like going and running and
doing all this stuff. Well, I'm getting trained in there, like get
a load of this guy, right? He doesn't even have a reason to be
here. He's just here sucking up our good air.
00;35;27;03 - 00;35;47;29
Unknown
Right. And, it took the entirety of my time. There was only on that
ship one year to get even a portion of the crew to, like, say,
okay, well, this guy doesn't entirely suck, right? Because I had
worked my way into those jobs. I just kind of showed up, and I was
like, being, mentored. So I left there.
00;35;48;02 - 00;36;08;27
Unknown
Yeah, I got to tell a story. So I show up to that ship, and I'm
talking about experience. So this is. This is how far off my
perception of what my skill set really was from reality. So I go
there, and the full measure of a enlisted submariner is whether or
not you're qualified, you're senior in rate, job.
00;36;09;00 - 00;36;35;05
Unknown
Right. So for nuclear, for, trained folks in the engineering team
as engineering watch supervisor, the senior guy, in the engine room
for the forward folks that non-nuclear trained folks, it's, it's
diving officer to watch. Right. So you're in charge of reaching,
maintaining order depth and driving the submarine. You have a team
of guys down there moving the yokes, and you're telling them very
directly what to do.
00;36;35;07 - 00;36;55;06
Unknown
Why don't have a lot of experience doing that. Right. And I'm on
the most complex submarine that's ever been built, which operates
very, very strangely. Right. It has some very strange handling
techniques, and it's much more complicated than what I learned on
my previous ship. So I sit in the chair and they're immediately
like, this guy does not have a clue, right?
00;36;55;06 - 00;37;18;00
Unknown
Like, no idea what we're doing. And I again go back to my academic
setups. I'm studying everything. I'm working hard. I've got my
book, I'm doing the equations right. So, and a submarine buoyancy
is something you have to manage. So you move water around the ship
to determine how it's going to sit in the ocean so that you do
what's called neutral buoyancy.
00;37;18;00 - 00;37;41;12
Unknown
So you're under the ocean, but you have to stay at a depth. So then
it's a complex math problem because it takes into account depth. It
takes into account temperature, takes into account salinity of the
water you're in. And those things are all variables that are always
shifting. And, I had not really had a lot of experience running all
that stuff.
00;37;41;12 - 00;38;01;27
Unknown
So I was like, in this calculation mindset, this little book.
Right. And I would do all these calculations and Eric and my buddy,
comes in and he had been driving submarines since before I was
born. You know, I think he was, already a master chief when Jimmy
Carter was still president. I'm not really sure.
00;38;01;29 - 00;38;23;08
Unknown
Probably fact check that, but he, he comes in the room and he looks
at me, and he's he's always, always crawling up my back, really
frustrated with me because I'm struggling to grasp it right now.
Finally, he reaches down and he says, what are you doing? Because
I'm struggling to maintain doing the basic thing like maintaining
depth.
00;38;23;08 - 00;38;56;10
Unknown
I'm like trying to wear it. Periscope depth. I'm trying to keep the
ship from like, accidentally surfacing. And I'm not doing a great
job. And he looks at me and he grabs the notebook out of my hand
that I live by any flings it across the control room and he goes,
just look what's happening. And I looked at it and I go, oh, it was
like, well, if you're doing this or you're doing this right, it
tells you what the ship is doing, whether you've got too much
weight on or not enough weight on you guys stop doing math and try
to figure out what is actually happening around you.
00;38;56;10 - 00;39;17;02
Unknown
You have to like, look up. And from experience, he could walk in
the room and know immediately what changes you needed to do, right?
He knew. He knew how much weight needed to go where because he had
done it so many times. Right. And, and that experience was not
something you could study your way into or buy your way into,
right?
00;39;17;05 - 00;39;40;03
Unknown
You couldn't just work hard, you had to see it. And that was the
first time I had to, like, really step back and like, oh, oh.
Conceptually, I didn't understand what was happening. I had read
all the books. I don't understand the math behind it, but it's the
difference between an engineer and an operator, right? Like the guy
that makes a bullet doesn't really know what it's like to be out
there firing it.
00;39;40;08 - 00;40;00;12
Unknown
Right? So that was my, like, culminating event. Like, oh, hey, you
just flipped it around on you. And the same thing was true with my
leadership style. So it directly overlaid with all the other
lessons I was learning. I was like, hey, you're alienating
everybody around you, and you don't understand why fundamentally,
because you're working for yourself, right?
00;40;00;14 - 00;40;21;04
Unknown
You're working for yourself. You care only about yourself, and what
you're delivering is all about you, right? You're sitting in that
seat and you're looking at this book thinking you're the guy making
a difference. I'm just doing math. I'm not driving anything. The
dude's in front of me. You're driving stuff, right? They're all
qualified to sit there, right?
00;40;21;04 - 00;40;55;15
Unknown
I just had to sit back and look and spot check. But I'm over here
thinking I'm going to cure cancer right? That's not the case,
right? You're part of a team. And so that all flipped everything
around for me and really taught me a big lesson, right? He also
introduced me the concept of servant leadership. Right. Servant
leadership is a, is a pretty incredible and powerful thing that is
thrown around a lot because it's one of those key words and tricky
phrases, but the true embodiment of it is you just show up and it's
not ever about you anymore, right?
00;40;55;15 - 00;41;17;22
Unknown
In every facet of everything you do in leadership and in how you
live your life, you just work for those around you because you're
part of a community, right? So that got me finally over the fence
and into the yard I wanted to be in. Right. I got my senior
enlisted leadership job, as that. I wanted finally.
00;41;17;22 - 00;41;46;02
Unknown
And I'm like, okay, I'm just going to, you know, I, I made a
mistake. I went and I photocopied that exact experience and
leadership style and I tried to overlay it on an entirely different
organization. When I finally got to my job, I was the chief of the
bow of the Henry, Jackson, which is another SBN. I, I showed up,
they were like two weeks from getting ready to go out to see they'd
already done all their training cycles and everything.
00;41;46;02 - 00;42;08;20
Unknown
They built their teams. And I'm just like this new guy showing up,
right? And, same thing. Captain, it was the new captain. John
Moretti was my captain on that ship. Really awesome guys up prior
enlisted, retired full bird captain. Now, but he and I had never
been to sea with this crew together or apart, right?
00;42;08;20 - 00;42;27;14
Unknown
Like, we were both new in the roles. And then we had to get this
ship out to sea. And so I showed up in the whole chief's quarters,
which is what they call all the senior enlisted guys on the ship
was chiefs. And the chief's quarters is where we all live, right?
It's the chief's room, but it's also the collective, right?
00;42;27;16 - 00;42;51;01
Unknown
Your leadership team is called your chief's quarters. So I show up,
and I'm, like, in a position where I have to actually earn their
trust in a very short amount of time, and instead I show up knowing
that I know how to make them better. And I take this model from
this alpha team that I just came from, and I immediately slap it on
them like a label and say, here's how we're going to be the
best.
00;42;51;04 - 00;43;08;08
Unknown
Like, these dudes are all ready to go to sea, which means that
they've already proven to everybody that they're ready to go do
that. And the very first thing I do is go tell them, yeah, that's
great, but we're going to do it my way, right? I forgot everything
that I had just finished learning because I had checked that
box.
00;43;08;10 - 00;43;36;05
Unknown
Right. So, it's about halfway through, one of the chiefs says to
me, you know, because I had shown some emotion about something, I
was empathetic to something that was going on with him. And he's
like, man, that's like the first time I've ever seen you, like,
care about somebody in a non-working way. And, and I was all this
time, I'm like, I'm a servant leader.
00;43;36;07 - 00;43;57;24
Unknown
I'm leading for the team. But in actuality, I'm just a guy who is
following my plan, thinking that everybody gets that. It's because
I'm trying to be a servant leader. Well, yeah, it's one thing to
carry the book around with you. It's another thing to actually
embody it. And I wasn't embodying it. So, because he told me that
flat out to my face.
00;43;57;24 - 00;44;21;23
Unknown
That's what it took to penetrate my dome. And actually bring me to
where I was missing the mark. And so from that point on, I
realized, okay, so leadership is not going to be from a book, but
you can get stuff from a book. So then I went back to books,
started reading about what I was missing, which is clearly engaging
with human beings.
00;44;21;26 - 00;44;39;10
Unknown
Okay, so I had this leadership framework that would work, and it's
a communication problem now. Nobody gets what I'm trying to tell
them we needed to do or why we would need to do it, because they
didn't take any time whatsoever to actually spend time to learn who
these people were. Right? And I didn't do that. I was all
business.
00;44;39;16 - 00;45;04;26
Unknown
Always had been, always would be. And so. I took the time to learn
how to talk to people, to learn how to learn about people through
engagement. I read How to Win Friends and Influence People, which
is a little bit of an outdated book. There's some stuff in there
that probably isn't appropriate for the times, but the general
concepts of taking every person you meet, right?
00;45;04;28 - 00;45;24;24
Unknown
No matter where they're at in the hierarchy and treating them like
an important piece of the the collective right and engaging with
them on a personal basis. Those were all things that, you know,
were like mind blowing to me. Like most people get that at some
point in their life. And I just and wrap my mind around it.
00;45;24;26 - 00;45;49;18
Unknown
And then, I read a book by Simon Sinek called start with Y. Right.
And it was all about conveying why you're doing something. So
between those two things, several other key books, the, the servant
leadership style that I was taught, things started to come together
for me and then, like, really built my framework for how I engage
with the world.
00;45;49;20 - 00;46;19;19
Unknown
So then understanding that I'm a product of all of those failures.
Right. That then led me to growing and maturing and success. Right.
Those are things that, they were they put me in a place where I
wanted to actually take time to learn and engage with people.
Right. I had learned it's not all about me, and I had learned it's
all about the team and about the people around you.
00;46;19;19 - 00;46;37;05
Unknown
I had learned that you have to take time to get to know people and
invest in them. For them to want to invest back and and then so
finally things started to take off me. And I say this because
that's like towards the end of my career, right where we're at like
17, 18 years, I ended up doing 23.
00;46;37;05 - 00;47;01;12
Unknown
So I'm finishing up my chief in the boat tour, you know, already
have made a kind of a mess of things by being a once again, back to
bulldozer mode and on my way out of the military, I really got it
right. I really understood, like, you know what? It doesn't really
matter what my title or position is if I'm not bringing value to
the people around me right then it doesn't doesn't matter,
right?
00;47;01;12 - 00;47;21;26
Unknown
If I'm not helping uplift the weakest person in the team, instead
of grinding them to a pulp and waiting for them to fail out and get
out of the way right then, then it's not. It's not how you build a
quality organization. Right? And then so finally, I, retired from
the military because I've just kind of felt like, hey, it's time to
go, right?
00;47;21;26 - 00;47;48;29
Unknown
I mean, I'm, I'm starting to get a little churned up. I need to go
commit with my family and spend some time with them. And, and after
a very brief time and, and Department of Defense acquisitions
program, where I had a chance to recoup figure out who I was as a
person, not just a sailor. Then I got, old friend of mine, Devin
Saturday, who's now back.
00;47;49;06 - 00;48;14;15
Unknown
The Oracle recruited me into the team. He was the young man who
pinned my master chief anchors on me when I was at sea. And then he
recruited me into the job. So, it changed everything for me. Coming
to Oracle. Really? It proved to me that all of the things that I
had learned, right, made me qualified to come into a really wildly
different place and still be successful.
00;48;14;17 - 00;48;41;13
Unknown
Right. So all those things in the military that were like, not
tangible, right? None of those things that I just talked about,
really, the big lessons were being very smart, very technical. I
didn't talk about development. I didn't talk about tearing apart
radio equipment, antennas or any of that stuff, which we did. But
those weren't like the formative things, formative things with the
people and the engagement and the philosophical things that I got
out of my military time.
00;48;41;16 - 00;49;06;02
Unknown
So when I showed up at Oracle, bringing that with me and some
technical background, like it just felt like home, and I'm able to
navigate this place with, you know, where I would say relative
success. So coming from the military into an individual contributor
role as a reliability engineer with, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
was great at two years of that.
00;49;06;05 - 00;49;29;02
Unknown
And then all of this history in my brain was building up. And first
opportunity I had, I jumped into a manager role. And it's just been
a natural fit since, full circle now, right? Why am I in Maven? Why
do I care about being the chair of Maven? It's a volunteer thing.
And don't I have enough time eaten up by my day job?
00;49;29;02 - 00;49;54;03
Unknown
The answer's no. Why? Because you can't be a servant leader if
you're not actually embodying the work. And so I got a lot out of
my veteran time in the military. Taught me a lot. And there are a
lot of veterans out there that, you know, they bring that value in
with them, too. Right. And what I was missing, because I joined
Oracle during Covid, was that sense of community.
00;49;54;05 - 00;50;15;07
Unknown
It was an empty building when we showed up right. Nobody was coming
to work. Downtown Seattle was a ghost town. I was flying back and
forth cross-country on an empty plane. And so I was missing people
engagement. And so meeting you, Chris, getting to know the team and
and Maven, I was like, man, this is this is cool.
00;50;15;07 - 00;50;40;22
Unknown
These people understand that that background that nuanced history
that you bring from different branches. And we're just kind of
we're able to just lock in and and just get it right away. We can
probably say like five sentences to somebody and we're like, yep, I
get it. I know where you're coming from. I understand your
perspective. And it just it filled that, that last piece to be
really satisfied every day.
00;50;40;24 - 00;51;06;25
Unknown
And and from there I was hooked. And so all about all of that long,
long story, right, is all about. Hey, you know, I'm a senior
manager in a massive billion dollar company. Things must be
awesome. And you must be the best at what you do to be able to land
that job. And the answer is now tons of learning, tons of mistakes,
tons of wrong turns and bad decisions.
00;51;06;28 - 00;51;28;11
Unknown
Are informed how to get there, right? And and there's no straight
path. And so now I just I make it my point to help people see that
in themselves. Right. In our board as employees in Oracle, helping
them navigate their careers within our company and then veterans,
separating and joining the company or looking for other jobs.
Right.
00;51;28;13 - 00;52;03;07
Unknown
So the the inReach and outreach that Maven brings to us, is is
very, very fulfilling and satisfying, right? It's it's that piece
of the puzzle that makes this less just a job and more something I
really care about. So that is that is the full story about me.
Pretty lengthy, I know. But, it I feel like if I don't give credit
to all the other stumbles, then, you know, get a you get a fake
picture, right?
00;52;03;07 - 00;52;28;19
Unknown
So I just wanted to make sure I was thorough. The thoroughbred was
thorough. Because you said that early in your story. Thanks for
sharing, Scott. No, that's it's important. And, you know, some some
would say, you know, on on and I'll digress here for a second, but
some would say on podcasts, you know, what's the proper
duration.
00;52;28;19 - 00;52;48;06
Unknown
Well, it's it's all subjective, right. And it's a matter of what
the intention is to, to provide. And so what we try to provide on
this is just a reminder for if you've made it this far in any of
the podcasts that we have, the conversations are including the
stories of individuals that are one willing to come on and discuss
these things in a moment.
00;52;48;11 - 00;53;05;19
Unknown
You know, and you can say it's vulnerable. You can say it's
impressionable. You can say it's, you know, storytelling and it's
all of those things. But it's also the the matter of fact, the fact
of the matter is it's relevant to when you look in when you're
looking for culture and you're looking for an organization to join,
you want to know more about the people.
00;53;05;19 - 00;53;32;04
Unknown
And you know, in the veteran community space, the veteran
affiliated community space, there's a relationship with everything
that Scott's mentioned and everybody else that's been on to talk
about their their story and the development and the process and the
knocks, the bumps, the successes, the failures. But I think, you
know, yours specifically. What was nice to hear the story is you
had a bunch of people willing to be patient and see the the
potential in an individual.
00;53;32;04 - 00;54;11;16
Unknown
That and it doesn't happen for everybody that you see. People look
at the outside of who this person is based off of their actions,
their behaviors and their personalities. But they see something
different and they try to figure out how to reciprocate the grace
given, to understand what to do and when to do it. And, you know,
there's the firm, there's the nurturing, there's the the
hand-holding, and then there's the, the out, right, throwing the
notebook across the room and being direct, you know, and these
factors weigh into all of the things that matter when you're trying
to join an organization and see if you're a fit.
00;54;11;18 - 00;54;36;27
Unknown
And so the compatibility is one of those things where something we
hope in these conversations on the Maven podcast, we can somehow,
in a very small way, contribute to that process in any community,
not just the veteran affiliated. This is anybody listening things
are a process, and if you have the time to self-reflect, like Scott
has mentioned, what, he didn't take the input.
00;54;36;27 - 00;54;58;14
Unknown
He didn't take the opportunity to do early, but he eventually
understood it. And and the switch flipped. You can see the things
and you can you can recall these things and then you can hopefully
you know, in reliving these things, in the storytelling, you know,
the parts of those things, people can relate to that and then give
gratitude for it.
00;54;58;16 - 00;55;26;04
Unknown
And so, you know, having having senior enlisted in this case, in
the community, you know, the enlisted is often look towards the
wisdom to, to be able to come in and grab you by the ear and show
you the way, you know, giving gratitude to those folks. Three main
things from your story, Scott. And then I just wanted, you know,
I'd love to talk a segue into, you know, how you bring all of these
things into, you know, leading an organization, which, again, is
volunteer, right?
00;55;26;04 - 00;55;43;25
Unknown
Nobody has to do it, you know, wanting to reconnect. You talked
about, you know, the things that you were missing, you know, and
and then coming into an organization and then deciding this of your
time out to volunteer the drivers of that. And so I'll kind of just
throw this out here in increments three, they're wanting to
reconnect.
00;55;43;28 - 00;56;14;06
Unknown
Well, how does that happen? How does how does how does one get to
the part to where there is the realization of saying, I'm missing
something, and here's what I want to do the next? Is that the point
to where the investment, you know, at some point all of us realize
that something occurs, an event occurs and has us go all in and
that that giving, giving of oneself into the investment of whatever
it is that you're going to commit to with relentless, fearless
tenacity.
00;56;14;09 - 00;56;34;05
Unknown
And then finally, the value of rejection, you know, in the world of
success and how that feels, you know, in some would say immediate
gratification, kind of how that conditions your mindset to say,
well, I'm going to do this and I want something in return and I
want it now type of thing. The value of rejection is to kind of
serve a purpose.
00;56;34;05 - 00;56;56;19
Unknown
So, you know, with those three things, let's talk about how you're
taking your experiences and the people that have helped you get to
where you are today. You know, what are you doing with it now that
you're in the role of both your day job and the volunteer role?
Yeah. So that's, those are great questions. I like the, I like the
way you frame them.
00;56;56;19 - 00;57;18;08
Unknown
So the first question, how do you get to the point where you
realize that, you're missing some sense of community, right? So, I
spent a big chunk of my time when I first got out trying to
reinvent myself. Because you spent 23 years reciting. I am a United
States sailor. Enough times, you start to believe that that's what
you are.
00;57;18;10 - 00;57;39;06
Unknown
But you forget that you're also something else, right? Which is a
person like, I'm Scott. I'm not a United States sailor. I'm not a
retired master chief. I'm not a submarine, or I'm just a guy out
here doing a job. And I and I need to really grasp that because all
of a sudden, you don't have this core identity in your life.
00;57;39;09 - 00;58;04;28
Unknown
Which you don't realize, is such a big piece of your identity until
it's not your identity. Right? You walk away, you put away your
uniform in a box. And I wouldn't say it was like hurting my ego.
Like I didn't miss the authority and responsibility. So that wasn't
it. I was enjoying my job as an individual contributor, and
learning about the cloud.
00;58;04;28 - 00;58;23;24
Unknown
I had a great time doing that. Being hands on keyboard, making
change in the cloud, fixing things that were broken right up my
alley. I loved it, but at some point, you know, you go to work, you
go home, you go to work, you go home. It's just that's just a task.
It's it's not being part of something greater.
00;58;23;24 - 00;58;51;18
Unknown
It's not being part of a a team. And we are very insulated during
Covid. Right. So like there was just seven of us and we had to be
spaced out and you couldn't be in the same room at the same time.
And it was just we fell off and then so I, you know, we got some
people together, you know, we we had a socially distanced social
event, you know, one time the distance may or may not have been the
appropriate amount of space.
00;58;51;18 - 00;59;12;25
Unknown
And then eventually we realized we were all in the same room. So we
might as well just be together. Right. And it was a great I was
like, oh, man, this feels awesome. It just feels good. Right? And I
identified quickly that it wasn't the loss of the military, it was
the loss of the community, the loss of the people around you
feeling like you're part of something.
00;59;12;27 - 00;59;38;14
Unknown
And then the, the military aspect of it is it's just, you know, you
spend your adult life living a certain way. You kind of look for
people who can understand that background. Right? It's just nice to
have somebody understand you, people who are allies or are
outstanding. We have a lot of great allies in the company and in
the community.
00;59;38;17 - 00;59;59;03
Unknown
But if you haven't lived the life, you know, there are some things
you just won't. Right? You can't get it because once again, you
can't just read about experience. Experience is something you earn
through time, through involvement. Which brings me to my second
thing. So you asked a question about, you know, how do you get to
the point where you just go all in?
00;59;59;05 - 01;00;32;09
Unknown
So I read a quote somewhere, it was misinterpreted and
misattributed to Thomas Jefferson. It's actually attributed to
Witold Gombrowicz, who's a, Polish author. He says, do you want to
know who you are? Don't ask. Act action will delineate and define
you. So, one ironic that a quote about action I would have
attributed to the totally wrong person, and to really just I try to
live that in the things that I do.
01;00;32;09 - 01;00;47;02
Unknown
Right. Like, why wait, if you think something needs to be done, go
do it. Right. So we met and I was like, hey, this thing's cool.
What are we doing with it? Right. And and then from there, it's
always been like, that's the first question I always ask. Okay,
that sounds awesome. What are we going to do? Right.
01;00;47;02 - 01;01;07;00
Unknown
Are we going to go? Are we going to go run an event in Austin?
Sure. Let's do it. It's not planned yet. And it's like in three
weeks. Well, let's go do it. Why not? Let's try it out. What's the
worst that could happen? Right. It doesn't work out when we learn
something. So, I've. I've really enjoyed the opportunity to be part
of the action oriented piece of our community.
01;01;07;02 - 01;01;27;25
Unknown
Right. So going all in was just. It's just in my nature. I don't
know any other way. Right? I'm going to lean into the windmill
every chance I get. Right. And then finally value of rejection.
Yeah. So that's a tough one for me to process. I don't like to talk
about it. So I make myself talk about it a lot.
01;01;27;28 - 01;01;56;07
Unknown
Getting out of the military, I got to know a lot in the military. I
got told no, a lot. And every one of them ended up being a piece of
my philosophy. Right. So rejection, is is probably the world
telling you you're in the wrong spot, right? When I was, I got out
of the military, I did a corporate fellowship with Skill Bridge
through Amazon, and it was, for a job I was pretty well qualified
for.
01;01;56;07 - 01;02;21;21
Unknown
It was for training, development, with operations teams in the
warehouses. So I show up there. I'm. I'm pretty stoked. I'm inside
the doors of Amazon. Like I have succeeded. Right? I'm going to go
be one of the Uber rich south like Union knights. And and I'm going
to love everything. Right. And I get in there and it's curriculum
development and it's not really what I was thinking it was going to
be.
01;02;21;21 - 01;02;45;19
Unknown
And they dissolved that team and laid off a bunch of people, and
there was no opportunity. So I ended up interviewing for a job
called a vendor manager job, which is essentially interviewing
people who are, selling stuff on an Amazon and, and building that
deal with them. Right. You're managing the vendor vendors who
manage to sell stuff on the Amazon platform.
01;02;45;21 - 01;03;08;03
Unknown
And so I go to this interview, the manager is this Harvard MBA and
she like ate my lunch. I have an MBA, but it had been a minute
since I did that studying. And I have to admit this out loud,
right? I got told by the recruiter, hey, here's some stuff to go
study. And there were some key things, right?
01;03;08;06 - 01;03;23;21
Unknown
The night of the interview. Like, I got to go in the next day. It
gives me the study guide. I'm wiped. Right. I am getting out of the
military, I just retired. My brain's not in a great spot, and I'm
just like, you know what? If I don't know it yet, I'm not going to
know it. So I don't even open the doc.
01;03;23;24 - 01;03;43;04
Unknown
Right? He said it was like CliffsNotes, like here, like SparkNotes
for younger people or or Google for everybody else who wants to
know how to do a job. Right. And I didn't even open it. So I showed
up and I just got annihilated. Right? It was terrible. And I did
not get the job. I felt like the biggest failure on Earth.
01;03;43;04 - 01;04;05;16
Unknown
Right. Well, I wouldn't be in the job I love today being successful
at Oracle if I had not gotten that job at Amazon. Right. And, And I
know that now. Right? Even even now, you're still learning, right?
So the value of rejection is, well, you're being redirected, right?
Because of where you chose to put yourself. Right.
01;04;05;16 - 01;04;39;16
Unknown
And you know that you can't be again, you can't make up for
experience and rejection is just an experience. Yep. Good. Couldn't
said it better. So as as we segue into wrap this, what is Maven
doing this year? What are we doing? All right, so, what are we
doing? We're going to capitalize on some of the things we learned
last year, continue to push out, the outreach to other
organizations, be that veteran service organizations and
partnerships.
01;04;39;18 - 01;05;02;09
Unknown
We're going to push to continue to increase the value we're adding
to the business, which we've been doing for quite a while. We've
been baked into, business priorities and company priorities for a
for as long as, I think you've been involved in the program, we've
been pretty well aligned, with, with a lot of the business
priorities.
01;05;02;09 - 01;05;44;12
Unknown
And then, you know, we're going to keep fighting to grow the on
site, in-person events. Right? Build community inside of Oracle,
build community, wherever we're at, and expand opportunities for
people to get engaged, to find that value in each other, to learn
about each other, learn about the veteran community. And then, most
importantly, I think is, because while we're building value into
the employees, and, and giving them a sense of ownership and pride
and where they come from and what we're doing here at Oracle, we're
also giving them opportunities to volunteer and go radiate that
outwards.
01;05;44;12 - 01;06;09;12
Unknown
Right. So another thing that employee resource groups do is we're
we're meant to meant to help bring our culture and our vibe out to
the community. Right? People like me, I didn't know about Oracle
when I was on submarines, right? It just wasn't in my schema box. I
didn't understand what Oracle even was. I had heard of Microsoft
and then I heard Amazon, but I had never worked on an Oracle
database.
01;06;09;12 - 01;06;32;02
Unknown
I didn't know anything about it. So. Well, we're pretty awesome
company, right? So how is a veteran know that Oracle is an awesome
place to work because a veteran told them Oracle's a great place to
work, right. And everyone we've pulled in from outside has cited
that as the reason they chose to come in. Right. It's the oracle
culture.
01;06;32;08 - 01;06;51;24
Unknown
It's the maven culture. It's the thing that they love is that they
come here and they know they're going to be around people that they
want to be around. They know they're going to be around people with
similar values, with similar intentions, with similar goals. Right.
And a lot of companies are good at it. Right? I think Oracle is
great at it.
01;06;51;24 - 01;07;17;10
Unknown
And we our job, our mission right, is to help spread that word and
get it out there. We've really had a great year for that. And we're
going to exponentially grow that impact. We're going to really
shout it from the mountaintops, right? And really bring the
spotlight on it. So we had a, what we like to call the pilot, event
down in Austin, big on site thing.
01;07;17;10 - 01;07;38;18
Unknown
It went fantastic. Had a bunch of vendors come in from veteran
service organizations. I think we had almost every human being in
that campus come out meat barbecue, lunch with us. It's a bunch of
people got to socialize with veterans and allies and it was really
awesome. Community event. Right. So what does that matter for
fiscal year 26?
01;07;38;18 - 01;08;07;26
Unknown
Well, we've got the model. Now. We know what that looks like. We
know how to do it. And we're going to do that at multiple locations
now. Right. We're going to improve and expand that engagement to
the community and to our employees. So they feel that support deep.
Right. So that's that's the big picture stuff. We've got some other
things in the hopper which will unveil throughout the year, but,
volunteerism, community engagement, alignment with the business to
drive the bottom line.
01;08;07;28 - 01;08;29;06
Unknown
Love it. I'm stoked. I can't wait for it. Final thoughts? Yeah. I
just go right back to it if you think it needs to be done, don't
wait for permission. Dive right in. Go after it and, and you'll
find that it will pay you back tenfold. I love it, we'll leave it
there. Scott, thank you so much.
01;08;29;07 - 01;08;55;29
Unknown
Appreciate it. Thanks for sharing your story. It is important. You
know, we have a variety of of folks that come through with their
experiences. And, you know, those that do come through the veteran
affiliated community, especially who are, you know, who separate as
a senior individual, whether it's enlisted or officer, that's it's
bringing great leadership qualities and traits and stories that can
help infiltrate some of the mindset of those that don't think they
can or don't know how to.
01;08;55;29 - 01;09;16;00
Unknown
And, you know, it's just one piece to the puzzle that just you
accumulate. And, hopefully as you bring people together, those
stories can continue to be shared and everybody learns and grows
together. So with that, thanks, Chris. Already one keep moving
forward.