Talent: That's what makes you measure up against your competitors

By Marylene Delbourg-Delphis

Here is the challenge... HR professionals are often said to be conservative. So you have two ways to please them. Either you offer them:

—    Clones of the transactional tools they have used for ever and complained about for just as long ... and make replaceable by computer systems that will "fill positions" with replaceable hires; or 

—    A humane recruiting platform that is so disruptive that it eliminates all their complains, showcases their relational skills, their leadership and perceptiveness... and makes them invaluable at finding pearls even for simple tasks.

TalentCircles is the perfect illustration of the latter. We power a culture of people. Talent is what transpires when you interact with human beings, not something that anyone can hardcode in skills that thousands of candidates may have.

When you recruit for your small or mid-sized business, you want to find talent, i.e. people who are more than nine-to-fivers." You want to bring into your company individuals with the extra touch of soul that augments the dynamics of your team. That's why smaller businesses often proportionally accomplish more and in a shorter timeframe than larger organizations and achieve high visibility without spending fortunes in hackneyed marketing messages. 

A talent is originally a unit of measurement. That's true today too. It's what makes you measure up against your competitor and  has always enabled the Davids to defeat the Goliaths.

Google Glass: Performance of Now Driven by Talent Mobility (Part 3)

 

By Jessica Miller-Merrell   

Check out part 1 one of our Google Glass series by clicking here. 

Part 3 will continue to further discuss the Age of Context and how this is critical in how and why we engage our candidates, alumni networks and employees.

A 2020 View on Talent Mobility

When we stop to see how technology has impacted the world wide web of recruiting in the past decade, we realize how much has changed. Google Glass is an example of how advanced technology is shaping recruiting and how it is changing the candidate experience. The new sense of urgency and communication styles that lead to engaging relationships are just the beginning of the tipping point that will impact how companies need to hire and manage talent.

When I wear my Google Glasses (photo of me at the HR.com conference above), the world is at my fingertips. I have customized information, resources and experiences only for me. This is true with most wearable technology at current including fitness technology like Jawbones or Fitbits. The experience, engagement and involvement is unique to us just as is our work experience, resume and special skills that make a job seeker a valuable asset for an employer.

The age of context will require us to have a deep understanding of innovative systems, like Google Glass, that go beyond social media, wearable technology and mobility. Emerging technologies are clearly impacting the workplace and causing big shifts in today’s digital world and talent management. To stay ahead of the curve, let’s take a peek into the up and coming trends and why it is important to the future success of how organizations are successful in hiring. 

What does the future of recruitment look like?

2020 once seemed so far away, however, the most successful strategies will require industry professionals and who understand how the future of recruitment will be shifting and be prepared to adapt. No other era has experienced the high rates of global connectivity like the years between now and 2020.

Are you curious in how mobility will make its mark in the talent marketplace? You need to be because it will be a major shift, demanding new ways in how the global workforce will be sourced, organized and managed.

10 future trends you need to know about mobility talent.   

According to the latest PwC study on talent mobility, here are ten highlights that will impact your role as a recruiter in 2020:

1.     Mobility will double from the current rate of 25% to 50% growth of mobile workforce.

2.     Global career destinations will be part of the hiring discussion.

3.     Across border regulations will require businesses and governments to collaborate in the name of economic development.

4.     Population in urban areas will continue to rise throughout the globe.

5.     A spike in highly diverse talent will come from a combination of the emerging countries with the three groups of generations, causing an ever-shifting demographic challenge.

6.     HR professionals will be required to have necessary technology that shows data and analytics to support mobility decisions.

7.     Western nations will struggle to compete with the new centers for talent emerging from economies leapfrogging out of Africa and Latin America.

8.     According to 30% of the CEOs surveyed, there is a concern that they will not have the necessary talent to fulfill their future growth ambitions.

9.     The millennial generation will dominate the workforce. They are expected to be job hoppers valuing quality of life and opportunity of growth over monetary awards.

10. Businesses will require innovative skills that include high tech positions like data scientists, engineers and developers. Many of the jobs are unknown and not defined as of today.

  

Mobility talent in the next six years will require globalization strategies that tap into emerging markets leading to expanded new office locations, relocation programs and new techniques to source talent from around the world.  

When considering your mobile strategy as you prepare for an international, borderless workforce, success will rely on ability to manage compliance issues while   implementing these trends.  

Knowing these trends that will impact the global workforce tells us that being nimble and mobile with the talent pool is the key to a healthy and happy workplace filled with engaged and empowered employees.  

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in HR and recruiting. She’s the founder of the HR blog, Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell. 

 

Talent Network, You Complete Me (Part 2 of 2)

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

Earlier I wrote about an emerging trend impacting the HR world in a big way. Our industry is in the transition from managing silo activities into a more holistic, integrated approach to the entire lifecycle of talent management. The HR professional can no longer approach the role with a one-size-fits-all silo approach or an out of the box plug and play system.

To optimize a company’s talent system, successful HR professionals must design customized talent systems that weave each key area of the talent lifecycle. These key areas, according to a recent Bersin trend report are:

• Attracting and Acquiring Talent,
• Managing and Developing Talent,
• Extending Talent and
• Understanding and Planning Talent.

Technology provides amazing tools that focus on the first phase of a company’s lifecycle. As mentioned in my article previously, today’s talent growth hacker can benefit from a variety of apps and services like LinkedIn, Talent Networks and Glassdoor.

TalentCircles can provide a one-stop shop in managing the necessary information so that you can grow your talent pool. At first glance, it is obvious that having one portal that can bring together social media, email campaigns, online events, video interviews, chats and online content can save time and headaches when it comes to the hiring of new talent. Finding the right recruitment tools can seem like love at first sight.

You had me at hello.

However, smart HR professionals know that growing a company’s talent doesn’t stop at the recruitment phase. What we really need is something we can lean on and grow our entire talent life cycle with. Let’s put on our talent growth hacker hat together and let me share with you some special ways you can develop your talent network using TalentCircles.

Grow beyond the honeymoon phase.

TalentCircles provides a wide range of features that span across all key areas of a company’s talent system. Here are some of the features that will allow you to optimize your resources.

Candidate profiles provide up-to-date information from your talent’s social media profiles. Easily accessing this data can be just as useful once candidates enter the company’s talent pool too, providing HR with direct access to their entire company’s social networks.

Webinars are a great recruitment tool. They also provide long-term benefits in growing the talent pool internally by engaging with employees through training sessions. Scheduling and managing attendance for those mandatory sexual harassment videos just got a whole lot easier!

Recorded questionnaires and online interviews are special features that engage and capture candidates responses with a webcam. This could provide useful information in internal surveys and reviews as well as exit interviews.

Job post feature allows candidates to easily share jobs through their social networks. How about sharing the feed so that the internal talent pool can easily share the posted jobs to their social networks too?

Circles help manage, segment and target messages to the right group of candidates. This is an excellent way to create mentor and coaching programs based on subject matter or separate and segment contract labor. Frankly, this feature is TalentCircles sweet spot, hence the name…

There are endless capabilities this feature will allow to help you grow and manage your talent system. It is secure, comprehensive and so effective compared to company-wide contact management systems.

Show me the data.

Big data. The last but not least feature that TalentCircles provides is the ability to monitor the analytics and generate custom reports of your talent network. Plan ahead and know where future gaps and openings are before they happen. Compare performance and activities to better understand the areas of growth or weaknesses across multiple circles of talent. As any growth hacker would confess, the proof is in the data.

You know it is special.

When you find that one technology platform that allows you to manage, monitor, analyze and report a variety of data points not only in the recruitment phase, but through the full lifecycle of your company’s talent network using one portal, you will fall in love.

Picture Source: Bersin by Deloitte, 2013

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 

Photo Credit. 

How to Optimize Your Talent Network (Part 1 of 2)

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

In the past decade, the role of the HR professional has evolved into providing the solutions for the entire lifecycle of talent management. Beyond the hiring or firing of corporate landscape, the HR role approaches a company’s talent holistically. Integrating systems that recruit talent, nurture leadership, monitor performance and manage succession planning, a successful HR department has it all covered.

However, while many HR professionals are working hard to implement individual programs that represent these key areas of the talent lifecycle, they fail at optimizing the entire talent system within the corporate vision. Why? Because traditional tactics have been modular, like separate silos.

Integrating is so last year. 

Optimizing will be the emerging trend that leading HR professionals will be required to master. This is according to the leading industry report by Bersin on trends to watch in 2014. Bersin defines the four main areas that encapsulate the HR function.

These include Attracting and Acquiring Talent, Managing and Developing Talent, Extending Talent and Understanding and Planning Talent and as you can clearly see from this illustration, the programs that support each area are global, intersecting across all of the HR functions.

This approach is not like previous best practices, where the corporate talent systems were defined by modular rectangles and managed within silos. The emerging trend illustrates the key HR functions as part of a global infrastructure and the programs must be designed to engage the entire corporate talent system

The new HR approach will not be a one-size-fits-all.

It appears that companies have outgrown the “one-size-fits-all” plug and go systems, so better pay attention. Put on your consulting cap. This emerging industry trend will impact your company’s bottom line thus reflecting on your own career tenure.

Developing a set of integrated programs that work seamlessly and are customized to each the company’s global needs will force HR professionals to take a consultative approach. Bersin’s infographic does an excellent job laying out the variety of tactics HR needs to weave throughout the entire talent system.

When selecting new technologies, it is critical that HR professionals seek vendors who understand a tailor approach to optimizing the talent system.

Today’s talent growth hacker goes beyond the silos.

A growth hacker is a term that is being widely used in marketing to describe how successful startups use cost-effective tools like social media apps as alternatives to traditional methods of marketing like purchasing advertising in radio, newspaper and TV.

There are amazing technology tools now available to manage and grow talent networks. Any HR professional can be a talent growth hacker by implementing the features of some of the social media apps. Bersin’s infographic suggests LinkedIn, Glassdoor and Talent Networks as examples.

TalentCircles offers one single portal that brings together social media, email campaigns, online events, video interviews, chats and online content.

In the next post in this series, I will share specifically how HR professionals can benefit from some of the features that TalentCircles offers that help manage the entire life cycle of the talent system across the key areas noted in Bersin’s report.

Picture Source: Bersin by Deloitte, 2013

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell. 

Photo Credit. 

The Secret to Creating a Successful Veteran Recruiting Strategy

Learn more about best practices in recruiting veteran and military job seekers by joining a Talent Circles sponsored webinar on 2/13/14 at 9:00 PM PST. Click here to register & learn more. 

By Jessica Miller-Merrell  

In doing research for our upcoming webinar on Veteran and Diversity hiring for my site Blogging4Jobs.com in combination with TalentCircles, I’ve done a great deal of research, analyzing and my own personal reflection on how we can hire military veterans more effectively while also helping our exiting military who are entering the job search today. You’ll learn more by registering for the full webinar on February 13, 2014 at 12 AM EST by clicking here.

Unfortunately, there is no one size fits all solution, which is what we (recruiters and business leaders) often gravitate towards. This is the foundational challenge with developing a military recruiting strategy. Each individual service member’s experience, training, skills and attitude are different and unique. You can’t lump every service branch or job title into the same category.  Their transitions from military to civilian are all very different. Some do very well in the job search in transitioning from military to civilian life as shown in Marylene’s interview with 24 Hour Fitness CEO, Lance Sapera.

Your recruiting team must include former military.  

As a former military wife, I understand in a small way what it is like for those that are leaving the military and transitioning to the civilian world. He lived it. I watched him struggle and through it all did my best to help. He found work, but he wasn’t fulfilled and encountered many personal struggles including depression, alcoholism and finding his identity outside of the military.

Aside from having personal and relatable stories, having a recruiter who is former military on your team provides you with a constant compass to help your organization moving in the right direction. This individual speaks the language of the military and has his/her own personal experience to draw from. This is extremely powerful on a personal level while providing your team a subject matter expert 24/7.

You must recruit military differently.

The fancy tools and gadgets for recruiting military like the MOS skills translator, they are not enough in effectively recruiting former military.  Without a separate military recruiting program or an organizational focus on these efforts, it is not enough. Military members are extremely networked with one another, and organizations must create a veteran recruiting program where your recruiters talk, teach and engage veterans individually. This means phone calls, job fairs and talking at military events every chance your organization in combination with building a military focused talent network.

You must focus on measuring your success of your military recruiting.

For military and diversity recruiting efforts to be successful, they must be focused on metrics and analytics from the beginning. This means measuring turnover numbers of those that are military and non-military, time in position, and even their performance reviews. We have to look beyond recruiting metrics like cost of hire and go deeper to really understand how a focused recruiting campaign and strategy truly impacts the overall organization.

In my experience, our former military are some of the most loyal employees. It’s one thing for me to just say this. It’s another when I have the metrics and numbers to back up my gut feelings.

HR and recruiting technologies TalentCircles provide a way to continue to engage the job seeker community online especially when you have spent so much time, money and effort working to reach them in real life. The experience within the talent network is customized for your veteran job seekers, STEM candidates, diversity recruiting or other focused recruitment activities that you choose.

You must get creative.

A simple job board advertisement and a couple of press releases while attending a military job fair is not enough to effectively recruit military veterans to your company. The strategies you employ are unique to your organization. You must be focused on the long term. Maybe you find a military internship or training program is best for both your job seekers and your organization allowing them to learn about the civilian working world while both parties take a test drive.

Called “Returnships” companies like Goldman Sacs are offering 8-week career transition programs for exiting military. Programs like this are one of the best ways to successfully recruit while also helping transitioning military. Bottom line is that you have to get creative.

Building a successful recruiting strategy to engage and attract our former military takes research, planning and a lot of effort. It’s evolving and ongoing, but the most important thing is that you take the time to understand your military job seekers so that you can provide resources and conversations that help them through their transition with the goal of filling your organization with the best talent you can find.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a leading voice in HR and workplace technology. She’s an author and founder of  Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell.

Photo Credit. 

American Disabilities Act & Military Veterans: Know the Rules

Learn more about best practices in recruiting veteran and military job seekers by joining a Talent Circles sponsored webinar on 2/13/14 at 9:00 PM PST. Click here to register & learn more. 

By Jessica Miller-Merrell  

Each year, thousands of military personnel stationed around the world leave active duty and return to jobs they held before entering the service or begin the job search looking for new work. The transition from military to civilian life can be difficult for any active duty military member regardless of the time they spent serving our country. The time spent serving our country, in my opinion, is the ultimate American sacrifice.

A growing number of veterans report high rates of service-connected disabilities. These are disabilities that were incurred in, or aggravated during military service and the service of our country. About twenty-five percent of recent veterans report having a service-connected disability, as compared to about thirteen percent of all veterans. Common injuries incurred by these veterans include missing limbs, burns, spinal cord injuries, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), hearing loss, traumatic brain injuries, and other impairments. For employers, it’s important to understand how service-connected disabilities are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

The ADA defines an individual with a disability as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities; has a record of an impairment; or is regarded as having such an impairment.” An individual with a disability is qualified if he/she is able to meet an employer's requirements for the job, such as education, training, employment experience, skills, or licenses, and is able to perform the job's essential or fundamental duties with or without reasonable accommodation. This includes military veterans and individuals returning from deployment, active duty military or national guardsmen and woman serving our country.

The ADA defines major life activities such as seeing, walking, hearing, concentrating as well as activities that involve bodily functions like the neurological system.

A request for reasonable accommodation under the ADA usually begins with a request from the individual or family member with the disability. Keep in mind the request doesn’t have to formally mention the ADA or a request for accommodation under the ADA.

A reasonable accommodation request can be one of the following: (This is not a comprehensive list.)

• Anti-glare monitor
• Footrest
• Raised desk or work station that is wheel chair accessible
• Braille materials or special computer programs for the seeing impaired
• Permission to work from home
• Special work lighting
• Job coach
• Reassignment to an open position of the same level
• Request to leave work for treatment as well as part time or modified schedule work

One of the biggest misnomers is surrounding what is considered reasonable as “reasonable” is not defined according to the cost to a facility or an employer. While an accommodation of lowering or raising a cash register might cost an employer several thousand dollars, it is considered a reasonable expense especially when you also consider the cost compared to a large operation or company.

Although the ADA isn’t specific to military members, there are a number of veterans who qualify under the law to receive accommodation as a result of disabilities sustained during their time in the military. These disabilities don’t mean they are any less productive or important as an employee of your organization. They are loyal, dedicated and productive employees regardless of visible or invisible disabilities.

Employers looking for more information about the Americans with Disabilities Act can visit the EEOC’s website as well as the Job Accomodation Network. JAN provides free and confidential resources for workplace accommodations and disability employment issues including former active duty military.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a leading voice in HR and workplace technology. She’s an author and founder of  Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell.

Photo Credit. 

Veterans Series: The service is a long version of University: Conversation with Lance Sapera

Learn more about best practices in recruiting veteran and military job seekers by joining a Talent Circles sponsored webinar on 2/13/14 at 9:00 PM PST. Click here to register & learn more. 

This post is part of a series that already includes conversations with:

Chris Norton: Veterans are social and connected

Caleb Fullhart: An army recruiter changed my life forever

Arron Daniels: I Can Knock It Out of the Park!

Rhonda Stickley: Embracing the Learn and Grow Veterans' ethos to understand leadership

Conversation with Marylene Delbourg-Delphis

Lance Sapera started his civilian career at 24 Hour Fitness in early 2007. He first led multiple Lean/Six Sigma-based Business Process Excellence initiatives, then became the Director of Equipment Standards and was responsible for all fitness equipment purchases, and after that, he led staffing/recruiting efforts across 400 locations in 18 states between 2010 and 2013. Think of it. These are three very different jobs. Where do you find people with a knack for excelling in multiple areas in record time? Your best bet is to look for them in the military, where the key for success is to continuously learn in order to continuously grow. Lance Sapera was from the Navy. He grew up in a Navy family and served in the Navy for 21 years...

Why did you choose the Navy?

Growing up in a Navy family, I already looked favorably upon the idea of public service and considered this option when I was in high school. One of the things that was exciting to me was the opportunity to earn a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) scholarship. I joined NROTC at the University of Virginia and over the course of four years received extensive leadership and military training while earning my degree.  At the same time I graduated from the University of Virginia, I was commissioned an Officer in the Navy and went to flight school right out of college. This was a very exciting and intense time for our nation.  It was the height of the Cold War as detailed in novels like Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy about a Third World War in Europe. Coming out of flight school, I selected for the P-3C Orion; the “Mighty Hunter” was the plane I flew.

How do you go from being a pilot to joining 24 Hour Fitness to now the Director of Program Delivery (Talent Acquisition) for ManpowerGroup Solutions supporting Intuit? I am sure that a MOS translator will not immediately reach this conclusion...

One of neatest things about the Navy was the dual requirement in every job.  Although I was a pilot and always training with my crew to be combat ready, I basically got a new job every two years - each with increased responsibility and leadership requirements.  It is important to note that while the new jobs and responsibilities came fast and frequently, I was fortunate to work for - and with - great leaders and mentors who helped me and the teams I led be successful. 

In my first aviation squadron in Brunswick, ME, I worked hard and earned qualifications as aP-3C Instructor Pilot & Mission Commander completing multiple operational deployments including Operation Desert Shield.  Three years later, I was at the Pentagon, first as a Joint Chiefs of Staff Action Officer and then as a White House Liaison Action Officer. My next opportunity came as the Flag Secretary for the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier battle group in Norfolk, VA. After only 18 months and earning qualification as a Battle Group Watch Officer, we were transferred to Jacksonville, FL where I served as an FRS Instructor Pilot training newly-winged naval aviators how to fight the P-3C and leading the Instructional Systems Development Division in developing curriculum for all P-3C aircrew.  In 1997, selected to become a squadron Maintenance Officer, I was again in Brunswick, ME flying combat missions in Operation Allied Force and leading 300+ Sailors operating forward deployed in Iceland and Sicily. Two years later I was stationed back in Norfolk, VA, this time as Assistant Chief of Staff, Tactics & New Technology where we crafted a new global operational strategy for the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Community following the Attacks of 9/11. My last position was Commanding Officer, Navy Recruiting District San Francisco in Mountain View, CA where we recruited the best and brightest for naval service.

It was always part of my job to fly the airplane so having this physical piece to my job where you have to get it right every time was exciting, but the additional responsibilities of what the Navy calls "ground jobs" were every bit as challenging and rewarding.  I had the chance to grow from just being a Naval aviator to also being a leader and a mentor for Sailors in my charge.  The emphasis on investing in my own people and teams helped further develop my own “servant leader” philosophy that I first learned from my father.

In short, a MOS translator may provide useful indications, but may not necessarily capture the potential that service men and women have built up through the Military's continuing education

That's right. The service is a long version of University: every two years I was given a new job and they were not concerned whether I had a background in it. The rule is that you must learn quickly, become a subject matter expert and get the job done! Again, I want to emphasize how fortunate I was to have outstanding leaders and mentors supporting my development in each new role.  It is the “Navy Way.”  The Navy was 21 years of constant learning and personal and professional development. You would think I should have become an airline pilot after the Navy. Or that I would have moved immediately into Human Resources given that my last position as Commanding Officer of Navy Recruiting District San Francisco in charge of 300 recruiters. It's not what happened. 24 Hour Fitness used my leadership ability as opposed to any specific skill set. I believe that leadership is a process that you develop over time through different occupations, and to use a quote by John F. Kennedy, "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” The training that the Navy provides is exceptional.

What was your selling point as Commanding Officer of Navy Recruiting District San Francisco?  It must have been very hard to recruit in this area...

Competing against the private sector in Northern California and Northwestern Nevada was a real challenge. But a big selling point was precisely the exceptional training offered by the Navy, and we were able to attract super smart young men and women who realized that the Navy could get them started in their career. It was equally important to them to be part of an organization that was greater than themselves; to be part of making the world safer for democracy; protecting and defending the constitution of the United States along with the fact that they would be able travel the world and make a difference any time there was a global crisis. We saw again recently in the Philippines with the devastating typhoon: a US Navy aircraft carrier,  ships, and aircraft were the first responders to the Philippine islands and the people bringing food, water, electricity and medical supplies. Yes, you attract bright people when you have a mission. Like the advertisement says, “The U.S. Navy, a global force for good!”

How did you approach your search for a civilian job?

I started my search with a couple of criteria. The first was joining an organization that had a mission that was larger than all of us, and one I could believe in. That's why I chose 24 Hour Fitness. The idea of being part of an organization that helped people improve their lives through fitness was exciting, and being part of something like that was a mission I could commit to. The second was a company with great people and strong core values because that was one of my favorite things about the Navy. Really, just like in the Navy: the mission and the people I served with. Fortunately, I found the same things with ManpowerGroup Solutions and Intuit – great companies operating by strong core values with great people.

What is the biggest obstacle for Veterans to land a civilian job?

First, it's the disconnect between society in general and those who have served because less than 1% of Americans have served in the military. So most people don't have an understanding of what military service is about, nor do they really understand what military personnel are capable of (i.e., their skills and abilities).  Second, most veterans work hard in their military job until the day that they separate or they retire. And so for that reason, they don’t give proper thought to “How am I going to transition to the private sector?” It's important to help veterans to do a better job at thinking about how they can take this long university in the service and apply that to some specific opportunities in the private sector. They must not count on just the MOS military translators and then applying for some random job, which only ends up being, as you and I both know, a résumé in a black hole. Those are the two big barriers. Ultimately, it's always a good idea for veterans to target military-friendly companies!

Of course, as far as military-friendly companies, Lance does know what he is talking about. While developing an “employer of choice” talent attraction model for civilians at 24 Hour Fitness, Lance led the efforts that enabled 24 Hour Fitness to rank #74 among the Top 100 Military Friendly Employers and #4 among the Top 25 Military Spouse Friendly Employers in 2012 and 2013. I am certain that his personal leadership will make a difference at ManpowerGroup Solutions too!

Clearly, Lance's years of service are dear to his heart, along with the immense and justified pride he takes from having lived through fascinating times of our history, when he was forward deployed when the Berlin Wall came down or to Desert Storm for example. But what was striking to me as we were talking for this interview, was how his strong emotional bond to the Navy allied with a deep personal kindness and courtesy drove him to help others meaningfully.